Diorama Surface
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Near life-size dioramas were popular in the mid-1800s as a form of theater entertainment where the audience, often as many as 350, was rotated around successive dioramic scenes.
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This technique is still used in natural history museums to display stuffed animals in a natural looking setting.
Today, the scale has been dramatically reduced by scale modelers, but the scenes still hold their fascination to audiences who enjoy seeing them from all angles (multiple photographs).
A convincing diorama scene starts from the ground and goes up from there.
The groundwork of any model scene, largely composed of dirt-like material is not scale dependent. Most dirt, plant and weed representations in smaller scales need finer grades of material than their larger counterparts.
The Process is divided into seven steps:
1.) Decide on the scale of your model. This is a key decision because dioramas believable to the extent that it looks real. The larger the scale, the more detail you can include.
2.) Collect the materials you will need including a board for the base. In addition you will need white glue, fine grain celluclay (papier mache) water, card stock, different sizes of sand and gravel, flocking material static grass and a few twigs and sticks.
3.) Prepare the base plate. It may be a piece of wood or glass. Anything that is flat, won't bend easily and has nice-looking edges will do, the rest is pretty much up to your taste. Make sure he edges are looking fine and pleasing - it's the edges that will remain seen. You may want to frame the base when you're dealing with a deep surface. The size of the base should be carefully matched to your planned setting. A common novice error is starting with a base that is too large for the concept and then trying to add things to it to make it look "busy" after your original scene is complete.
4.) Build up the topography of the diorama. This requires some planning. The most fundamental thing to do when working on a diorama is to follow a theme or idea. Even if you think you have got the concept, try to develop it as much as possible, working out the details of the scene.
6.) Before the Celluclay has dried (it takes about a day, apply sand and gravel where there won’t be grass or vegetation. Fine sand for the road and coarser gravel for steep banks where the grass won’t grow. Try to press the sand and gravel a little into the Celluclay. Now let everything dry. The next day I go over and secure the sand and gravel using a paintbrush and diluted white glue. Now let it dry for two days.
7.) Now apply vegetation and finer ground details, there's a ton of stuff that exists. For example, Woodland Scenics produces a lot of materials that can be used, and these can be found in a well-stocked model railroad shop. In general, though, it is best to locate and use regular organic items. They will look better, since they are more realistic.Some of the items that Woodland Scenics makes are static grass, dirt, sand, rocks bushes, and trees. They also produce a strong liquid glue that can be sprayed onto a scene, gluing everything in place.After the surface is again dry add static grass using flock material mix with a little static grass white glue and water until I get a wet-mud consistency. Add also a few drops of sand or buff color to take away the gloss of the static grass. Apply to the diorama as lumps and patches of grass away from heavily trafficked surfaces.
