My First diorama from back in 2006

[Basosz]

I never made a diorama in my life before I made this one in 2006-2007... so please be kind. I've wanted to share this with this forum for quite some time but never got around to it. Most of the stuff on this thing is pre-painted 1:87 stuff I bought at the local model train store. In hind sight I was shocked at how wicked expensive that can be!! The realism in the Dio wasn't as important to me as the story I wanted it to tell so the realism is lacking in lots of places. Anyway... here's the story:

When my sis told me she was getting married I was faced with the agonizing prospect of finding a present for her and her soon-to-be-husband. As I hate to give money, gift certificates or cliché things like flowers, I kept on thinking and thinking when one day I was looking at a scale model of a Fiat 500 and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was going to build her wedding in advance as a diorama (though more precisely a scenorama, but who cares?). Brilliant idea but then came execution. I had some modelling experience and I am quite good with my hands but this was far into the undiscovered country for me. Luckily I had like 7 or 8 months till the wedding so all was good. As you may imagine... I needed almost all of those 7 or 8 months to finish the damn thing with all the stupid little details I had to plan for and actually make like the lights in the Fiat and the base plate with storage capacity for batteries and electronics. There is way too many detail on the whole thing (which is only 40x25 cm in size) to tell you about so I have some pictures you can just look at yourselves.

Overall straight down

There's the wedding with our own Fiat 500 (with working headlights and blinking emergency blinkers)

I reckoned they would have children in the future

They would grow old together while he would look up ladies' dresses

And they would borrow our dog from time to time

There are lots more pictures of this one on my PhotoBucket Page so you can watch for yourself

All was well and good for a while until there was a divorce not too long after the wedding which was all sad and bad but not very interesting for this forum. Only now I had to change the whole bloody thing to erase the wedding. I wasn't inclined to destroy it as I had already put more than a thousand (!!!) hours into it. I told you... undiscovered country. That also means time-consuming! The divorce wasn't very good but my sister did get a little boy from the whole affair and I absolutely love that little kid to death!!! His birth was the inspiration for my Diorama Make-Over. I removed the wedding party, touched up the sand they were standing on and started again with new details.

Some of those details are:

- My sister with the baby on her arm

- After-birth care givers (don't know the English name for it) with the little Ford Ka and the Medical snake sign thingy on their t-shirts and car

- More kids playing around, welcoming my sis home from the hospital

- More "general purpose people" around

- Home made signs welcoming Tim home (one is actually almost word for word a copy of the one in real life

- Several Storks (baby-delivering birds) signifying the birth of a little baby

- Some other animals to give more life to the whole thing, as new life came in the world with little Tim

- New brass name plate

Some pictures post-make-over are below but I just want to say that I'm extremely pleased with the result. I got extraordinarily good reactions from the first one (I have to admit... who's crazy enough to spend a thousand hours to build a diorama as a wedding present?... well... beside you guys? So it really is an awesome gift if I have to say so myself) and everybody at the wedding was very impressed with it. The "second" one however, I'm even more happy with as I think I've added more joy to the whole thing. There are tons and tons of tiny little details that aren't very visible on the pictures but that are all in my head and I know ALL of them and it gives me great pleasure to watch it, to think about it and currently to repair it as one of the street lights is broken and I need to fix a new system to fasten wiring in the hollow base. What with the wedding, divorce and birth of Tim and all, this diorama has become quite emotionally laden for me and I hope it will survive for many, MANY more years to give my sister, my parents and myself lots of viewing pleasure.

Pics of the Post-Make-Over dio:

Aerial shot:

3/4 shot

What a difference from the wedding party. It's so much more crowded now, so much more full of life

After birth care givers and their car

The turkey is new, the little animal shed was old. I just love the turkey.

First pair of Storks on their perch

Another shot of the welcome home party

Second pair of Storks. I made a plexi-glass cage for the whole thing and there is actually a "flying" Stork suspended from the ceiling of that cage with an old cotton diaper in his beak on a delivery run for another mother. I have no picture of that one yet

A little pheasant watching the goings-on from the relative safety of behind the bushes

Aerial shot of the pond. Here I absolutely love the way the fish look from below the surface. I only just noticed (after three years of watching the real thing and pictures... ) how gorgeous and real that looks. Nothing too serious was done to the pond except the addition of a feeding Stork in the corner and a Stork under a tree (I had seven of the damn birds and they were quite expensive so I just had to put them all in!!)

Hope you like it. Comments welcome!

Edited October 11, 2010 by Basosz

[Pilgrim_UK]

 What a wonderful diorama and one helluva story going with it. In fact this would be very good for the storyboard discussion going on in another thread.

My hat goes off to you sir. 

[Basosz]

 What a wonderful diorama and one helluva story going with it. In fact this would be very good for the storyboard discussion going on in another thread.

My hat goes off to you sir. 

Thank you very much

I've already linked this thread in that other discussion. Actually... that other thread was the reason I just typed up this whole story. I keep re-reading what I typed and everytime new memories of things I did when building, and things I felt about "him" when re-building the dio after the divorce keep popping up. There is just so many layers to a story like this depending on who sees it (me, my sis or distant on-lookers like you). It's very weird to feel all that again and not being able to adequately convey the things that went on way back when and all that. Does that make sense ?

[chaoslord]

that looks beautiful! also looks like a lot of work! I like it a whole lot

[CliffB]

I love postings that make me smile - this one did, a lot!

Great, imaginative work

Cliff

[Pilgrim_UK]

 It does make sense. Everytime i read a bit of your story i went back to the pictures to look again, half a lifetime and a world away in a diorama. Once again thanks for sharing it.