'An Old English Fisherman' Diorama 2016 by Silvanusaurus

[Silvanusaurus]

WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY!

AN OLD ENGLISH FISHERMAN by Silvanusaurus

Firstly I would like to sincerely thank all who voted for my submission in this years diorama contest, I am very honoured to share 2nd place with Dinomike's amazing misty entry and bow down to the marvel of Lanthanotus' 1st place winner. It means an awful lot to me as this was my first hand-made diorama and I ended up putting a lot of time and effort into getting it 'right', using much of the time I'd normally spend on my own artwork. I was very much inspired by some of the wonderful hand crafted set-ups I saw in last years contest. My own entry last year involved figures posed in a natural but out of scale environment, and utilised photoshop adjustments and filters to create an illusion of the scene. This year I aimed to go the opposite direction, and was really determined to capture a traditional, hand crafted scene all within the camera-lens, recalling I hoped the kind of photography I marvelled at as a child in the book 'The Age of Dinosaurs: A Photographic Record', which I still find enchanting.

My idea was to create an atmospheric and romantic vision of the ancient Wealden swamps, featuring one of my favourite British dinosaurs; Baryonyx. I'd had the idea stewing around in my head as I was creating my custom Baryonyx figure called 'Jenny Greenteeth', which I'd originally wanted to include in this diorama, but I never got time to create one at that time, and obviously that would give away my identity in this years contest.
Then who should come along but a brand new Papo Baryonyx, awkward looking in many respects, but not lacking potential. The first thing I did was customise this fellow within an inch of his life; almost the entire body and it's details have been completely changed with new sculpting over the top of the original, to create what I felt was a much more natural looking beast, it's legs I totally repositioned and the feet were adjusted in order to give it a very stable horizontal stance. I will post photographs of the finished custom on it's own in normal lighting in my seperate customs thread, as it's hard to see the full extent of it in the diorama images. In addition, a late addition was the young Baryonyx for the background, which itself is a customised Carnegie Baryonyx. Both were repainted with similar colour schemes to suggest they were related.

I then built the diorama with the new Baryonyx intended to be at it's 'heart'. I created it within a large plastic kitchen tray; the earth is air-dry clay, bird-grit served as a stony beach, plastic coated wires for roots, an assemblage of natural moss and lichen made for the greenery adorning the banks. I made the trees by combining parts from different plastic plants, and added mossy coverings made from synthetic fibres, the whole trees then were stained with different grimy liquids mixed from things like coffee and ink. The plastic tray allowed me to fill the swamp with water which was also made to have a grimy colour to it, which I found also made it better for reflection. The hardest part was setting up the lighting for the background, I tried a lot of different methods but eventually succeeded with a perspex sheet painted to resemble a sunrise/sunset, positioned in front of an amber coloured bulb. It was very tricky balancing the positions of these seperate elements so that the light appeared in the right place behind the diorama, and the perspex sheet was only just large enough to fill the width of the shot, moving the camera slightly would reveal the edges and shatter the illusion.
I also set up an extra light off to the side to further manipulate the illumination of the scene in the way I wanted.










The result, as you've presumably seen, is my entry 'An Old English Fisherman'. I took many photographs with different angles, different positions for the figures, and different levels of lighting. I ended up choosing this particular one, because I thought the lighting was very successful; giving a sense of depth, and a kind of stylised 'heightened reality' atmosphere, and I really loved the way the light caught upon the inside of the Baryonyx's mouth, as well as the clarity of reflection in the water. I also didn't need to use any digital adjustment to improve the light or colour in the photograph, it achieved what I wanted in terms of capturing a cohesive image purely in-camera.



Here are a couple of the other photos I took which came out well:





Anyway, I do have lots more, but I don't want to overload this post with too many images for the moment. If anyone is interested in seeing more, let me know and I can post some in a couple of days.

Again, I must thank everyone who voted so much, I'd like to think I will get the opportunity to create more dioramas in the future, and improve upon this one, though I likely won't get the chance any time soon once I start studying for a Masters. It means so much to have been voted to such a high place by you fine dino-folks, I really enjoyed entering. 

     

[DinoLord]

Wow, what a process! It definitely paid off though. Your diorama was certainly one of my favorites as I'm sure it was for many others. I agree that hand-crafting the diorama is definitely better for scaling than an outdoors setting is. As a voter I'm glad to see a trend towards more of these traditional dioramas. Well done!

[Halichoeres]

Very nice work. I hadn't realized the extent of the customization; I look forward to seeing shots of the whole animal.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

This is my favorite part of the diorama contest, seeing how they were made. Yours turned out fantastic, and its very inspiring.

[Bokisaurus]

Wow, now that's a lot of work... and it paid off!
I voted for yours, I just love how you captured the mood so well with the lighting.
I also love the one with the Bary catching that critter, the water movement was really good, I know how hard it is to capture water movement in a believable way. Congrats!

[Lanthanotus]

Another real water DIY diorama, nice. I didn't vote for your's but I had a hard decision about and mainly refrained because I do not like the Papo Baryonyx, but that's just me. I always like to see how people work out their ideas

[Jose S.M.]

I love seeing the process behind the dioramas, it's a lot of work sometimes!  I like the shot of the Barionyx catching the prey,  the water is moving like it's struggling to swim away. I want to see the customization of the Baryonyx

[AcroSauroTaurus]

I love the fact that you used actual water! That makes it look even better then if it had been that resin stuff.

[CityRaptor]

Ah, nice to see how that diorama ( one of the ones I voted for ) got made. Lots of work put into it, too. ( Okay, that latter part was already clear from looking at the diorama itself )

[Silvanusaurus]

Thanks for all the comments. I will take photos of the custom Baryonyx very soon. I'm very proud of it so I look forward to showing it in full detail.

[acro-man]

that's the spirit, mate!

[Dinomike]

Congrats on your amazing diorama! It's great to see how it was made!