Jurassic Help :)

[123hellobgbg]

Hello everyone, i'm in need of suggestions for a Jurassic Period forest thingy or diorama.
As everyone here are mostly adults, i'm only 14, which is a rare type of teenager. I'm making a diorama and mostly my budgets are around 1 - 20$. I'd like some help here and the most dinosaur figures i find on the real life market or toy stores are bullyland and schleich.
I need suggestions for good dinosaurs and diorama thingy.

[Halichoeres]

So you're looking for things like trees for your dinosaurs to munch on, hide behind, etc.? I recommend the Wild Safari plants. If those are difficult to get where you live, perhaps a hobby shop near you would sell pine trees, ferns, or even ginkgoes for model train sets. Those would only be a few dollars. You could also take a photo and print it on a large piece of thin cardstock, and then tape/paste it to the shelf or wall behind your dinos.

[DinoLord]

I would recommend Wild Safari and Carnegie Collection dinosaurs, as these tend to be both detailed and accurate. What scale are you thinking of?

[123hellobgbg]

I would recommend Wild Safari and Carnegie Collection dinosaurs, as these tend to be both detailed and accurate. What scale are you thinking of?

1:40 or 1:50. I mostly have WOH schleichs. But i only have 1 single Wild Safari Brachiosaurus(giraffatitan).

[Kayakasaurus]

You can try using branches as trees. Foam board can be carved into rock super easy... Or just use real rock. If it's just a photo you need, not a permanent diorama, then I would suggest going out in nature to find some good places to photograph your figures. As for actuall dinosaurs, I've found quite a few at Goodwill/ValueVillage, just be prepared to look through junk. Oh, and if there is a Target near you, then there is always Battat

[DinoLord]

You mentioned a WS Giraffatitan - I have that one listed in my notes as being 1:64 scale. Maybe you could have it as a sub-adult in your diorama.

For 1:40 - 1:50 here are some good figures:

Wild Safari:
Allosaurus (1:40)
Apatosaurus (new version) (1:50)
Liopleurodon (1:32-1:65  depending on which numbers you use)
Stegosaurus (1:35-1:40)

Carnegie Collection:
Brachiosaurus (new version) (1:50)
Diplodocus (new version) (1:35-1:40)
Sinraptor (1:40)

Papo:
Apatosaurus (1:40-1:50)

[terrorchicken]

Micheal's sells lots of little plastic plants for school diorama sets. You can also buy moss on sheets for the ground. Also pet shops have aquarium/terrerium decor (rocks/plants) that can work.

[tyrantqueen]

Paper mache is good. It can be used to make mud and rocks. It's cheap (you only need PVA glue, toilet paper/kitchen roll and water) which is helpful if you're on a budget. There's several ways to do it. You can make mud out of paper mache mulch. Or use screwed up newspaper to get a basic shape, then lay toiler paper/glue mixture over them. There are tons of tutorials for paper mache that you can find with Google.

For water effects, PVA glue is also fine. Sand can be achieved using kitty litter.

Trees and shubbery are probably the trickiest. Leaves can be made with green paper (or just painting white paper a green colour) cut into leaf like shapes. If you want really realistic trees, the kind of trees made for railways modelling are probably best.

Personally I think homemade dioramas look better than plastic ones. This is a great site for tips: http://www.stormthecastle.com/diorama/how-to-make-miniature-trees.htm

[123hellobgbg]

Thanks for the reply everyone.
I just found a few bullyland dinos in migros. They have allosaurus, giganotosaurus and stegosaurus.
I plan on getting the stegosaurus and i want to know if the allosaurus is worth getting, the carnivores themselves looks a bit drowzy or dumb looking.
I found some schleich trees if it's worth getting for a diorama or scene.
I also plan on getting some WS figures on amazon because there's no safari figures or collecta on switzerland.

[Federreptil]

Hello 123hellobgbg,
in jurassic times you can ever need a lot of ferns. If you looking at ebay for palm trees, you will find sometimes a huge lot not to expensive models from China. The scale is something between 1:100 to 1:200. If you cut the trunk – the palm top is a perfect fern. You should just take some coloring on the leafs because the plastic look of cheap models is a little bit to flashy.

If you look at the Tamiya building kits, the leaf of the trees are cut from a thicker green paper. So with some skills in model making you can do your own ferns and cycad trees by cutting and slitting the leafs made of paper, combined with trunks made of natural leavings. A glued thin wire as axis will stabilize the bigger leafs. Some coloring will optimize the look.

What carnivores are looking good is always a very personal question. For me the most dinos from Schleich and Bullyland are not very satisfying. E. G. the Neovenator by collectA is a very pleasant allosaurid. I like the Allosaurus by Favorite also, but in Germany it's also almost impossible to find cool models in real shops. So your plan to search on amazon is quite better. Here I'm looking always in online shops like modellpferdeversand and urzeitshop.