1:35 Holubník

A building that brings silence into a wartime scene

The strongest dioramas tend to be the ones where war and everyday life stand side by side. A dovecote in a farmyard is exactly that kind of element: it stood there long before the column drove past, and it will stand there afterwards. Next to an armored vehicle it works as both a yardstick and a contrast, and it tells the viewer at once that the scene is not set on a training ground but in a place where somebody lives.

And a piece of military history too

In both world wars carrier pigeons were not folklore but a working means of communication for the moments when the radio failed or transmitting was forbidden. A dovecote is therefore not mere decoration in a military scene, and it can also be set at a rear-area post or in a yard occupied by a staff.

Contents and the build

Fifteen resin parts. Before gluing, the castings need to be washed in lukewarm soapy water to remove the mold release residue; without that the paint will not hold. The mold parting lines are sanded down with a fine material and the parts are glued with cyanoacrylate glue, because ordinary polystyrene cement does not work here.

Surface and painting

A wooden building of this type rewards painting: a base coat in a gray-brown shade, a dry brush to pull out the growth rings and a faint green tinge on the north side. The white spots under the entrance holes are not extra decoration but the very thing by which the viewer recognizes the building. Go about it with restraint, because in 1:35 scale an exaggerated contrast reads as dirt rather than age. It pays to lay down the base coat, let it dry completely and only then work with the dry brush, otherwise the shades run together and the surface loses the grain of the wood.