Diorama: I Am Norman

It's a familiar tale: a confrontation in the midst of a great battle, an end-level evil boss, a plucky protagonist.


How will it all end?

The villain chuckles, secure in his invincibility.


"You cannot kill me. Norman can kill me."

And then our hero removes their helmet and proclaims:


"I am Norman!"


So this is the first diorama I knocked together (first loyalist Space Marine too - my twenty-five year abstinence is over), and I had great fun with it.


The chaos model is Kranon the Relentless - the Crimson Slaughter lord from the Dark Vengeance box set. A lovely model, but too uniquely-specific to belong to the top-tier of my Black Legion command structure, hence his sideways promotion to dioramas.


Éowyn the Astartes is more of an amalgam: regular space marine body and legs, but the arms belong to a Primaris Reiver, since I needed them to be spread wide (not the standard 'firing bolter across chest') and I wanted her to have a combat knife that could be interpreted at a sword (since that is how the original scenario played out).

The helmet is a standard corvus helmet, very carefully hollowed-out, so the fingers of the right hand could be stuffed into it (with a thumb sculpted on the outside). And the head is a lead cast from Statuesque Miniatures (the pony tail was a bugger to fit with the backpack, but the effect is worth it).


In terms of dressing the scene, the sandbags and crate came from some Tamiya kits of WWII gear (I had quite a collection when I was twelve - the vehicles and men have long since been sold off, though I had the foresight to keep the odds and ends).

The bolter came with the space marine, though I clipped a few pieces of brass rod to look like spent shells. The barbed wire came from www.gotogroundwargaming.co.uk and the tufts are just... tufts.


My best discovery was the basing material. I bought myself a pot of Vallejo 'Earth Texture' - essentially the same as Citadel's texture paint, except you can buy a 200ml pot for £8 (as opposed to a 24ml pot for £4.55).

It applies and dries the same. I used 'Dark Earth', which was very grey, but a wash of Agrax, then a lighter drybrush brought it out just right. So that's my basing for 2019 sorted!

Happy Christmas to you all, and I hope Santa doesn't leave a lump of plasma in your stocking.