Maybe look at some of the old Shep Paine shadowboxes. He did a great job of forcing perspective by limiting the view. In your case maybe close in the view smaller with a nice frame but have the dio open up behind it. Hard to describe.

try looking here:

http://www.boxdioramas.com/sheperd-paine/

Only advice I can give you is to try mocking the thing up before you start it. Use models you already have, even toys if you don't place them where you want them and move them around till you have something like what you like. You can use wood blocks or books for buildings and make anything you don't have with cardboard mock-ups. 

Hi Cap,

Thanks very much for the advice.

I'll have a play about as you suggested and see what takes my fancy :)

20cm is a considerable distance.

Except that the 2m height makes a single point perspective tricky.

You could experiment with this by poking a thumbtack in the back surface as the vanishing point, then using string to extend to the corners.  The angles get very dramatic rather quickly.

Although, what might be cool would be to bend the perspective some.

Say, put the vanishing point near the L/R centerline, and say, about 1.5m up (near eye level). then lay the back out as if it were the ground.  Plenty of room to array 1/144, 1/72, 1/48 a/c over that "ground."


But, in reality, I'd probably split the space in two, hav ethe lower half be just display shelves.  Then, do the forced perspective in the remainder, which would have much simpler angles for being only 100x100x20.

My inclination would be for a hillside or a high-rise cityscape that could be populated with all sorts of things at various scales.

That's my 2¢ at least