by Ryan Friesen

This is Kurt Schlueter. Until a month ago, he was a trooper in Rommel's Afrika Korps. Then he volunteered to test a secret weapon rushed from Berlin to North Africa in a bid to turn the tide against Montgomery. A mechanical fighting suit powered by a combustion engine and cooled by fans that were often unable to cope with the African heat, the Feuerkugel earned its name the day it stranded Schlueter in the deep desert. Schlueter was lost, dehydrated, and suffering from heatstroke miles from his appointed test grounds after a sand storm seperated him from his comrades. While they searched for him, Schlueter waited, expecting a grueling death in the blistering sun, able to remove only the extremities of the suit, but unable to slink his way out of the cramped machine.

There is good news for Kurt, however; once this diorama is finished, a bedouin scout will be seen looting the unlucky soldier, but also leaving him water and offering to return with his tribesmen to free Kurt from his mechanical coffin.

The model is a Yellow Submarine 1/35 MaK Prowler action figure which I took apart, modified with hands, head, and legs from various Academy and Tamiya soldiers, airbrushed in a desert scheme with various Revell and Citadel paints, and embedded in a landscape of Durham's putty and Plasti-Kote Flex Stone. I also attached jerry cans and duffels to the figure with twine to suggest an over-burdened machine that had to carry its own water to stay cool (but which was not well-designed to allow the rider to reach his own water supply). The Mounted Bedouin is from Verlinden. It's not done, but I wanted to submit my effort anyway

Image: From the right side

Image: Legs

Image: Unfinished bedouin