Neolithic Village Diorama - Scratch building

[Londoner]

We are making a stone age (Neolithic) village diorama - in OO scale, because I have a nice ruler and it'll end up the approximate physical size we want.

 

Our diorama will include a river, the side of a lake, a palisade-bank-ditch village, and a mixture of stone and wood houses. Plus gardens, paths and pasture.

 

Grand plans, obviously - but we have to start somewhere. We've started with some stone houses roughly based on those at Skara Brae, in the Orkneys. We made walls and posts out of fimo, scribed in the dry stone outlines, and baked them. We then made latex moulds, and used plaster to cast lots of walls and pillars. Some are now painted, and ready to be assembled. Top of the photo is a plaster wooden bench - just the top so far. Also made from fimo, latex mould, and cast in resin plaster.

 

 

 

[RAF4EVER]

Cannot see any pictures,

[Londoner]

Does that work?

 

https://i.ibb.co/JRFf979/DSC-0008.jpg

 

https://ibb.co/KjzMJqJ

 

https://i.ibb.co/3Y4LD5B/DSC-0001.jpg

 

https://ibb.co/TqYFVDm

Edited November 22, 2022 by Londoner

[RAF4EVER]

I can now see them,thanks

[Bandsaw Steve]

Yes I can see them. Am looking forward to seeing this come together; something a bit different. For a museum?

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, I couldn't see the originals either but in your next post, yes. It looks an interesting project.      Regards, Jeff.

[Londoner]

Not for a museum, no, just for fun.

[SprueMan]

This is going to be interesting!

Looking forward to seeing more.

[Londoner]

Planning the base (this was over a week or so, things needed to dry first).

 

The base is an A1 sheet of foam core board. A spare sheet was cut up for the side and back. We painted the whole thing with PVA glue, on both sides to avoid warping. Then a couple of layers of gesso. The back and side pieces were spray-painted with grey paint as a backdrop.

 

We then took our A1 paper plan, and drew the main features on in black pen. The side & back were attached with a hot glue gun.  

 

The backdrop hill / mountain / river is light-weight foam (the packaging from two electric toothbrushes....  and newspaper held with masking tape. The river coming down from the hill was cut in to the polystyrene chunks before gluing. Narrow sheets of foam around the edge of the lake and lowland river. The lakebed and river downstream have been textured with modelling paste.

 

The hills and upland river have been coated with plaster cloth strips, and left to dry. Once dried, modelling paste with smooth out the surface and the holes in the plaster cloth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Londoner

[Londoner]

A fair bit of progress on the scenery and terrain. 

 

We've painted our rocks, added a cave backdrop, and created the mountain river. Added some rocks around the river bed. We've filled the lake - everything is drying VERY slowly as it's cool and damp. We've built the banks and ditches.

 

We've designed a marsh, and a neolithic wood walkway to get over the Marsh.

 

Banks and ditches

 

 

 

Rockface textured and plaster rocks added

 

 

Marsh and walkway - not yet finished

 

 

 

 

 

Upland river half done and drying

 

 

 

[Londoner]

Rock face at the top - it's shiny because everything's damp and flash,too

 

 

 

[Londoner]

This is what actual Neolithic roads / walkways looked like - surprisingly, a lot survived because although they were made of wood, they sank in peat bogs and were preserved:

 

 

 

 

Ours isn't a bad model version, I think. The mud around the marsh needs some work, and another layer of "water", but not too bad so far.

 

 

 

 

 

Any criticisms or hints most welcome - I'm not precious, and would benefit from it.

[Corvi]

Very cool 

 

Want to see how your figures will be implemented

 

Steve