Brave Little Belgium

[btavis]

Thanks for the comments gents. I stopped modeling a few years ago due to trouble with my eyes and working with 1/32 scale. I did quite a few dioramas and I am so glad people remember them. For those who are not familiar here are a few pics:

Punitive Patton - Lt. George Patton in Mexico with Pershing seen here killing one of Pancho Villas senior officers as they attack a foraging patrol Patton was leading. They really did charge out of a hacienda on horseback.

 

[btavis]

Here is Zoot Suit Riots which took place in LA in 1944.

 

[btavis]

Here is Strange Fruit about a Klan lynching in the 1920's. The title comes from a song made famous by Billy Holiday.

 

[btavis]

I did three dioramas on WWI and this was the first of the series: Taxi de la Marne about the French army being conveyed to the first battle of the Marne in 1914:

 

[btavis]

The second WWI dio was on the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. The 100th anniversary of the event occurred recently.

An interesting aspect and a bit of poetic license was in the fact that in the building behind the scene I put a small shadow box vignette of trench warfare as a presage of what the assassination meant.

 

[btavis]

The last pieces I did where of a chain gang and a small vignette of Jackson Pollack for a friend of mine.

I did several other dioramas most of which were sold to collectors.

 

[btavis]

Just a side note, except for the Pollack vignette all of my dioramas had vehicles in them. Some were scratch built like the Marne taxi, the Belgian Minerva armored car and the car the Archduke was in. The rest were die cast models that I modified to fit the scene. Here is a detail of the farm truck used in Strange Fruit to show the amount of alteration that I did.

 

[ellie]

wow a good body of work and a credit to your skill at telling a story.

Ian

 

[yeo_64]

Awesome models, Brian !
Thanks for posting them online again, my friend .
By the way, I still remember and am still using the sculpting tips that you so graciously shared with me at the 2005 Boston World Figure Expo event .
Cheers!
Kenneth.

 

[Jim]

Bob
I'm very sorry to hear of your problems with your eyes. I'd never seen the Patton diorama before - what action and detail! The chain-gang diorama is very evocative and reminds me of a Thomas Hart Benton painting. The Jackson Pollock piece was used as an example of 'fostering the creativity' in a YouTube video discussion with Fletcher Clement, Joe Breton and Shep Paine that can be seen, via link on the MMSI page.

Thanks again for all your tips and advice when we discussed my still-not-started project; one of these days!

Your forced retirement is the modeling community's loss.

Jim

 

[btavis]

Yes Jim, Thomas Hart Benton was an influence on that piece as well as Strange Fruit. I mention it in the article I did on Strange Fruit in Historical Miniatures.

Well, as far as retirement goes I went back to my earlier love, music and produced two albums. Here is one of them: http://areciborecords.bandcamp.com/album/mirages

The name "Bobbotov" comes from my youngest son who kept talking about Bobbotov in school when he was in first grade. The teacher asked who Bobbotov was, and he said, "my father of course." He somehow contracted my name.

P.S. Penny Myer told me about the Pollack MMSI link. I was flattered.