Ryan TerSteeg, Minneapolis, Minnesota
“I call this diorama ‘Sunken Treasure,’” says Ryan. “I used a Monogram 1/48 scale P-51 and airbrushed it with Testors Model Master acrylics and enamels. I chipped off some of the yellow paint on the front of the plane by putting down masking tape a couple of minutes after the paint had dried, then peeling it off. I added a green wash to the plane to show some algae growth. I made ribbing for the control surfaces using sheet styrene. The base is silica sand with coral made by airbrushing lava rock purple. Using Adobe Photoshop, I created mirror images of fish pictures, reduced them to scale, and printed them on thick paper. Then, I cut them out, glued the halves, and super glued them to the coral. I added a repainted shark from Woodland Scenics Scene-A-Rama. The pictures are taken with a special lighting effect to make it appear underwater.”