Irimali's Dioramas

[irimali]

Thanks again to everyone who voted for my entry this year and left comments!

I'm going to post some making of pics here.  Unfortunately i didn't take a ton of pics during the process, but I'll try my best to explain how it was all done.  First, here's a cleaner version of the photo.  The one i used for the contest was edited on my old computer(which crashed a few days before the deadline) and the display was wonky.  So the version I entered looked a lot more grey.

[irimali]

The scene was built on a couple 1" thick styrofoam sheets, covered with sand and then dry dirt so it wouldn't just be flat.  The trees and plants all have wires coming out the bottoms, so they're stuck in the styrofoam.  The backdrop is just airbrushing on paper.  I had done some more detailed backgrounds but they didn't photograph too well.  Here's  the uncropped pic:



and a few test photos I took with a white backdrop about a month before the final setup, just to see how things would look together.  The araucaria trees don't have their spanish moss yet.  I added that later.

[irimali]

The two dinosaurs are tuojiangosaurus.  I made them from cardboard, paper mache, cotton and beeswax.  The scales are amaranth seeds and poppy seeds stuck into gesso before painting.  They ended up a little chunkier than i'd wanted, but luckily the ferns hid their feet in the photo.





here's on of few pics i took before they were finished.  It started as a profile of the body and tail cut out of cardboard with the legs cut separately.  that was covered with newspaper/masking tape, then a layer of cotton painted down with glue, then beeswax poured over to smooth it out/carve wrinkles in.  This pic was before the face was carved.  afterwards it was covered with tissue paper/glue, then primed with gesso and painted in acrylics.



The original plan was to have a more open landscape with a herd of mamenchisaurus in the distance, but I ran out of time.  I only got as far as the newspaper/masking  tape round on them. 



Going to finish them soon.  The Tuojiangosaurs were made at 1/30th scale, mostly because it was the smallest I could do and still make decent ferns.  The Mamenchisaurs were 1/50th scale.  I had a few smaller trees and cycads started to put around them but didn't get to finish them either.  I started experimenting with making plants back at the end of december.  It was probably end of june or july when i finally started the dinosaurs.  There were some plants that didn't turn out, and some that were just too big of a scale for this scene that I'll use later. 

[jooooo]

Yours was my favorite. Maybe the Mamenchisaurs are an idea for next year.

[irimali]

I made 4 araucaria trees that look sort of like monkey puzzle trees and sort of like bunya pines.  The foliage is chenille yarn, glued to the wire branches, dipped on glue/water and dried upside down to stiffen them, then airbrushed for color.  Here's a shot halfway through.  It hasn't been airbrushed yet, but the bark is painted.  The branches are fabric covered floral wire, which were just taped to the trunk and then bent down.  Then textured with a really thick layer of gesso.  The brown stems on the dead branches lower down are embroidery floss.



group shot:



close-up:



The spanish moss was made from dyed wool fiber, glued to the trunk in overlapping layers.  It was inspired by some pics I found here:

http://www.geographylists.com/chile_pucon2.html

scroll down, the monkey-puzzle trees are towards the bottom of the page.  I wanted a really humid environment so i went with mossy trees.

[irimali]

Yours was my favorite. Maybe the Mamenchisaurs are an idea for next year.

Thank You!  I've got some other dinosaurs in mind too.  Maybe I'll try to do one with more of a storyline next year

[irimali]

A few other conifers:

This one is based on Dacrydium araucarioides, a podocarp that's convergently evolved to look like an araucariaceaen.  Thought it was a neat looking tree.



Some other types of araucaria:







For these and the Dacrydium,  the rougher textured bark was a mix of gesso and sawdust.

A few smaller trees.  Didn't get to airbrushing some of these but used them in the background anyway since they're not really seen except in tiny gaps between branches.  Just used different kinds of yarn for the fluffier  ones.

[irimali]

Araucaria stump and fallen log covered in moss/lichens/ferns:





Both were made from sticks, with branch scars made from little balls of wax and heavy brushstrokes of gesso for bark.  The thicker  moss is dried reindeer moss and acrylic paint, sprinkled with green chalk powder.  You can see more chalk moss on the log.  I did this to some other fallen branches and rocks as well.  Painted them with glue, then rubbed green drawing chalk on sandpaper and brushed the dust over the wet glue.  Other colors of chalk like whites and pale grayish blue work well for lichens on boulders.

[postsaurischian]

  That's all so wonderful! You have great sense for details and colours.

[irimali]

More trees!  Podozamites:



it took a while to make the leaves  so there's just a couple young trees and seedlings.  Would love to do a larger one eventually, and some ginkgoes, and a lindleycladus with the same technique.  One day.

Williamsonia:



the trunks are carved wax, painted with acrylics and finished with chalk powder moss.  The leaves are a mix of equal parts acrylic paint and white glue.  I painted short lengths of floral stem wire with glue/paint mix, then laid them flat to dry on a board covered with a plastic sheet.  I used some plastic report covers i had laying around.  If you want to try this, experiment first to make sure the paint/glue peels off your plastic easily once it's dry.  Here's some other cycad leaves i did this way:



These were too large so they didn't end up in this diorama, but it's the only one i have pics of at this stage.  These were painted with a paintbrush, which was  really time consuming and turned out not to be the best way to go.  I had to dip the brush for every leaf, and the turn out too thin at the base and break easily.  Later cycad leaves and ferns I did with a piping bag and tip.  You can get these at craft stores for pretty cheap in the cake decorating aisle.  or make paper cones from parchment paper.  there's videos on youtube showing how. 

I made the podozamites leaves this way too, with tiny bits of 28 gauge wire.  All the ferns also. 

[irimali]

Ferns and tree ferns!









The shorter red-tipped tree ferns are based on blechnum brasiliense.  Mostly I did those to add a little color to the scene.  The fuzzy trunked tree ferns are based on dicksonia.  The palmetto looking ferns are matonidium.  You can see brown ferns matonidium behind the green leaves there.  Don't  have a pc but for all the green fern and cycad leaves i had to make brown ones  too, some dead ones hanging from the plants and some fallen leaves for the ground.  Most of these don't  show in the diorama photo but I'm planning on some permanent dioramas in 10 gallon aquariums so i'll need lots of leaf litter for those.

matonidium in progress:



painted the veins on before popping them off the plastic.  so much easier.  wish i had thought of it before doing tree ferns.

These ended up drooping a lot more than any of the other ferns did.  I left the brown leaves since they were dead anyway, but the green ones needed a little help.



I made a line of elmer's glue along the bottom of each leaf and flipped the leaves over to dry upside down.  Stiffened up the centers of the leaves nicely but allowed just the tips to curl down.

Close up of some finished ferns:



For the simple leaves i piped the paint/glue in a straight motion.  Starting at the wire, squeezing a bit of paint out and pulling back makes an easy pointed leaf.  These ferns and some of the other ones have little teeth on the edges.  Did that by wiggling the piping tip side to side while pulling away from the wire.

[irimali]

More fern stuff:



tree ferns before airbrushing.  You can see the crosiers peeking above the leaves.  Those are just green fabric covered floral wires, curled with a needle-nose pliers.  some of the smaller ground ferns have these too but they're hard to see in the photos.  The trunk of the tree ferns are covered with dyed wool fiber just like the araucaria trunks, only going in the opposite direction.  the loose ends point up instead of down.  Alternating layers of wool fiber and bits of brown embroidery floss for old leaf bases.

[Federreptil]

Wow! I'm so impressed about this fantastic production of Jurassic flora. This has such a subtile quality. How fine are this details, the vibrant structures and filthy surfaces. And what a long run for perfection. So you deserved your second place this year so much and more. I will often return to this posting – it's inspiring to see all the types of plants, ferns and trees.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I really liked your diorama! So the leaves were just colored glue peeled off of wax paper? Cool 

[ITdactyl]

I always wanted to make plants for my dinosaur displays but had no idea where to start.

Thanks for sharing these (and for the inspiration).  On a semi related note, I really liked that you made the tuojiangosaurus "chunky".

[irimali]

I always wanted to make plants for my dinosaur displays but had no idea where to start.

Thanks for sharing these (and for the inspiration).  On a semi related note, I really liked that you made the tuojiangosaurus "chunky".

Thanks!  I wanted a chunky body, more like a tapir than a 1990's greyhound-dinosaur.  I just wanted the feet and head to have a little more definition. 

[alexeratops]

Looking good!

[Doug Watson]

Your plants looked so good in the photo I think some people may have thought you bought ready made foliage. Hopefully now people will appreciate the amount of work that went into it.
In 17 years working in museum model shops I never saw anyone use your method to make foliage, acrylic/glue on plastic sheet. Did you come up with that yourself? We did almost all of ours with leaves made from clear plastic sheet, formed on a vacuum form machine, cut out, glued on wire covered with heat shrink tubing, then airbrushed. Before that method came along they were done in wax. Your methods of making your plants and your dinosaurs are truly genius and accessible to anyone.

[Ezikot]

irimali, your entry was my favorite.
i love the two tuojiangosaurus, their colour scheme, the ferns... just perfect!
...and thank you very much for sharing the making of the diorama!

[ChubbyTaco]

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.