Diorama help

[123hellobgbg]

Hi everyone, i want a few help or suggestions from diorama experts. I'm a 14 year old and theres a toy store called Franz Carl Weber who sells railway modelings. They have realistic looking trees and stuffs and also modeling things. I need help on how to make a diorama or atleast a step by-step tutorial.

I need it for the dinos.

[Newt]

Hello and welcome! You're asking a big question - it would help if you narrowed down what you want to do a little bit. Some things to think about:

What scale are you working at? If your dinosaurs are, say, 1:20 scale and your trees are HO scale (about 1:87), then it will look like your dinos are walking through a bonsai forest.

How big will your diorama be?

Do you want to build up landforms like hills, cliffs, boulders, etc., or are you OK with a flat landscape? There are a lot of different ways to build up landforms, depending on what materials are convenient and affordable for you. You can carve them out of polystyrene foam, or build them up with papier-mache, plaster, urethane foam, etc.; you can even make molds of real stone and cast plaster or urethane cliffs!

Do you want to have water effects?

Do you want to use period-accurate plants? Typical broad-leaf trees would be OK in a Cretaceous scene but not a Triassic or Jurassic one, for example. You can even go more detailed and try to recreate specific plants known from the same formation as the dinosaurs you are using.

There are lots of great diorama builders on this site, and I'm sure they can offer lots of advice. Help them by being more specific about what you want to do!

[123hellobgbg]

Oh i want to have a jurassic period diorama. I mostly got the crummy schleichies but it doesn't matter. I got Schleich Apatosaurus 1x, Giraffatitan 2x, Ugly allosaurus 1x and Stegosaurus 1x.
I got the fir trees for starting but i want to know what i should put for the ground.

[Newt]

Here's a simple but effective technique: http://theclubhouse1.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=109836&start=60#p1340601

Instead of the "dirt paint" this guys uses, you can add actual dry dirt (and/or sand, fine gravel, etc.) to the wet paint, or to a layer of white glue.

If you want a landscape that's not flat, you can carve out some hills from polystyrene foam, then use this technique on top.

There are many other methods too, but I think this is a good place to start.

[Halichoeres]

Those are great ideas. If you want small plants for the ground, try some ferns or cycads (you could approximate these by cutting the tops off some hobby store palm trees). Grasses and most bushy plants hadn't evolved yet.

[Georassic]

If you're not overly concerned with the accuracy of your foliage and just don't want it to look too modern/extant, I use plastic aquarium plants. They're very inexpensive, and you can find plants a couple inches high that look like reeds, or giant aloes, or prickly ferns. Many possibilities.
I also use the model railroad trees, but as Newt points out, you have to buy big ones because HO trees are too small for most figure scales.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I found this useful for conifers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdl4Pa81zHY&index=12&list=FL1sFV2Wk9A4z408uvOGeGiA
Currently I have about six of these each around 24 inches in height. Half scale in 1/40 so 1/80th.

I also cut apart plastic or silk plants. They can be attatched to a sculpted trunk as well to simulate a tree fern. Good luck on your project. I had a Morrison diorama planned two years ago and I think I am going to start the first phases of it this fall.

[123hellobgbg]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
I'll be sure to find an aquatic plants from pet shops.
Those large evergreen trees seems to be the size i need but i might need to find a foliage.

[DC]

http://www.dinosaurcollectorsitea.com/morrison3.html  My schliech diorama
http://www.dinosaurcollectorsitea.com/diorama.html  How to make a diorama

We use insulation foam (home Depo) for a base at the Smithsonian diorama classes.  It can be shaped, stacked, painted, glued and is light but strong.  Usually we get a dozen or so 18 x 6 inch boards and join them together later as needed.  White glue and house paint to cove rthe base then sand or flocking added before it dries.  Glue Gel or acrylic floor wax for water.  The diorama are mostly intended for gaming rather than display.

Your Schleich figures normally fall into the 1/40 - 1/35 scale.  So big conifers from Schliech and play Mobile are the right size.  You can make your own with real braches add clumped flocking or lichen.

Medium size plants cycads, cycadoids and tree ferns are made by safari and CollectA.  We make cycads by glueing palm tree tops to pinecones and horse chestnuts.

Palm tree cake decorations are sold in bulk the tops make great ferns for the understory.  Cake picks also stick nicely into the foam base.

[jooooo]

You can also use twigs for logs and moss for generic plants.