In the footsteps of Karl May...

[Egbert]

Hello dear fellow collectors and friends,
After 15 months of construction, my new diorama is now complete.
Winnetou and Old Shatterhand meet other heroes of the novel...
This enabled me to fulfill a long-cherished wish
and the idols of my youth, from the Karl May novels,
modeled and designed as I imagined them based on the author's descriptions.

Have fun looking at the pictures








































































Vintage

[Bill Slavin]

Wow! Really beautiful work lovingly executed! I love all the bits and pieces going on here, the small vignettes, the canoes by the water, the wildlife throughout. The adobe construction is palatial. And so nicely staged on the back drop. Clearly a tribute to a much-loved author.
Isn't Karl May the hugely popular German author of westerns who is famous for having spent very little if any time in North America?

[Konrad]

A truly masterfully designed diorama.
The painting of the individual figures is also more than successful.
The many small details, the nice pictures.
A lot of heart blood.
My respect.

[Iceman1964]

masterpiece !!!!
It's a large diorama (at least compared to to ones I'm used to make) but despite the dimensions the details are perfect.
The building is more than excellent, I love the small animals.
it's really a pleasure to look at your pictures

[C M Dodson]

Egbert.

Wonderful stuff as always.

You are the conversion king as well a a scenery wizard!

Best wishes,

Chris

[Das_Dirch]

Hello.
I'm speechless and don't know what to say.
An absolute masterpiece. Greatly staged.
The work was worth it. I really like it.

[MABO]

Great work, Egbert. All these details and small-add ons like the nice animals. I am looking forward to see it in real life.

[Bessiere]

Fantastic work Egbert. Some works you know come from the heart due to the amount of care and detail put into it. Since May didn't visit the US it's forgivable to include a totem pole though the tribes that made those lived a thousand miles away (Pacific Northwest). Like feather headdresses and teepees being attributed to all Native Americans though only a few tribes adopted any of those effects. Truly stunning piece and real eye candy everywhere you look.
Cheers,
Bessiere

[Santi Pérez]

I couldn't agree more with the praise of the other mates, Egbert.

Ugh, it's hard to find words to describe this new masterpiece, but I'll try.

Actually, each very single element of the diorama is a masterpiece in itself, with an incredible paintjob quality (the characters, the animals, the vegetation, the canoes, etc.), but once all of them are put together, the whole is close to perfection. Every element is in its precise place, nothing is missing or missing, the amount of detail is enormous, you don't know where to look because everywhere you look you find something wonderful that captures your attention.

Also, the photo report is fantastic, with abundant and artistic images, from all angles, detail shots and general shots, that help to better appreciate the enormous quality of the diorama

And I don't forget all the previous and hard work of character conversion and pueblo building, which you showed us in previous posts.

I can only congratulate you profusely, my friend, and tell you once again that you are my idol, that I want to be like you when I grow up.

A big hug.

Santi.

[blacksmith]

I have no words and I subscribe everything it has been said. Congratulations.

[Egbert]

...Clearly a tribute to a much-loved author.
Isn't Karl May the hugely popular German author of westerns who is famous for having spent very little if any time in North America?

That's true Bill...
he became best known for his so-called travel stories, which are primarily set in the Middle East, the United States and Mexico in the 19th century, although he never got to see most of the places in his stories.

[sberry]

Such an impressive and beautiful scene! Karl May would have been impressed, too, by this scene I think.
And 15 months is quite a short construction time IMHO, given the fact that almost nothing here is "out of the box" and that you have done extensive conversions and scratch-building.

[Egbert]

Fantastic work Egbert. Some works you know come from the heart due to the amount of care and detail put into it. Since May didn't visit the US it's forgivable to include a totem pole though the tribes that made those lived a thousand miles away (Pacific Northwest). Like feather headdresses and teepees being attributed to all Native Americans though only a few tribes adopted any of those effects. Truly stunning piece and real eye candy everywhere you look.
Cheers,
Bessiere

Yes, you're absolutely right...
Karl May always decorated and described his travel stories very imaginatively
and that should also be reflected in my diorama, even if it didn't necessarily correspond to reality.
This also applies, for example, to the clothing of the characters in the novels he describes.
As already mentioned before, the entire representation corresponds to the ideas I had when reading the books and not to any template or illustration.

[Egbert]

... given the fact that almost nothing here is "out of the box" and that you have done extensive conversions and scratch-building.

[Egbert]

I couldn't agree more with the praise of the other mates, Egbert.

Ugh, it's hard to find words to describe this new masterpiece, but I'll try.

Actually, each very single element of the diorama is a masterpiece in itself, with an incredible paintjob quality (the characters, the animals, the vegetation, the canoes, etc.), but once all of them are put together, the whole is close to perfection. Every element is in its precise place, nothing is missing or missing, the amount of detail is enormous, you don't know where to look because everywhere you look you find something wonderful that captures your attention.

Also, the photo report is fantastic, with abundant and artistic images, from all angles, detail shots and general shots, that help to better appreciate the enormous quality of the diorama

And I don't forget all the previous and hard work of character conversion and pueblo building, which you showed us in previous posts.

I can only congratulate you profusely, my friend, and tell you once again that you are my idol, that I want to be like you when I grow up.

A big hug.

Santi.

My dear Santi,
thank you for your extremely detailed and effusive great comment.
I'm really happy if you like the project so much.
Your wonderful words for my work actually embarrass me.
Once again, my warmest thanks...
See you soon my friend.

[agrippa]

fantastic Work!

[Michael Robert]

Hello Egbert,
your diorama is just one tremendous piece of work. It is wonderful, and demonstrates what you can do: figures and the building and all. I am fascinated.
I read with lots of interest the discussion opened by Bessieres. The totem struck me just the same as very much displaced because not an element of Apache or Pueblo culture. I remember reading some of the Karl May novels when a child and I also saw many of the movies. This is really an element of German culture because not known elsewhere. One of the main characters, Winnetou (not Winnamax!), is a very friendly and heroic Apache Indian. I also recall that the stories are usually quite exotic with a rather friendly vision of "non-European" populations, knowing that they were written at the heydays of Colonialism (often there were the good and the bad Indians, but the bad Indians were misled by some ambitious non Indian). Concerning the descriptions, I remember that they were not so precise in terms of geography or vegetation. My guess is that he obtained his inspiration from the many travelers' reports much en vogue at the time. In all his tales the romanticism and the adventures clearly dominated the stories.
So, translated into your diorama I think you are actually much more precise with the Pueblo building and the setting than the actual stories.
Inspiring
Michael

[JurgenH]

Great figures they have modeled and painted hevorragend. The presentation in super made pueblo bring the persöhnlichkeiten hervoragend to the geltung.
Jürgen

[Susofrick]

Don't know if you left your usual standard with this and stepped up a bit! This is great!!! Being a Swedish wildwest-nerd Karl May has always been there somewhere under the radar, bu I have never read anything by him. Great to get to learn something new!

[tullo]