Im new at diorams and need help!!!!

That's a pretty broad question, bigfoot. Entire libraries have been written on the subject.

Start at the beginning: what would you like to portray? Is it a combat scene? A leisure scene? Repair? Is it in the summertime? Winter? Desert scene? Arctic?Get a picture in your mind, or even a photo from somewhere of what you would like to achieve by doing the diorama. Once you have the general picture planned out, you'll know more of where you need to go and what you'll need in way of materials to get there. After that, the skies the limit. That's why all of us are here.

demono69

whts the most coomon materals used to make a decent diorama for forest, jungle, and desert setups

Deserts are pretty easy. Narrow it down to what type of terrain you want.
Dunes? Soft sand? Hard pan? Rocky? Dry lake bed? Dry river bed? Oasis? Flat? Rough?

Then pick your scene. Like demono69 asked, what is the scene? What mind's eye photograph are you creating? what actual photograph are you reproducing? What is the scene? what are you trying to say?

Chhose a suitably sized piece of wood. Something stable, like a sealed plaque, piece of plywood, mdf, whatever.
Think about what you want to do and layout a quick sketch. I actually make cardboard cutouts so I have the "footprints" of the vehicles I'm using and I can check placement, scene movement etc.
Then from there you can lay down large or deep terrain features with foam or wood. Lay celuclay over that and sculpt the features you want. Add your ground material, sand, rocks, small plants and your tracks, roads, paths etc. When it drys, lay down your base coat of paint, then your wash and then your highlights. attach your subjects and away you go.

Now granted that is the Readers Digest condensed version but I think you get the idea. Think of it as a journey. YOu know where you want to go before you start and that makes the trip easier than if you just meander or wing it.

Mike

what is celuclay
explain thoise last couple of steps in detail if possible
can u use clay or natrual materails

Bigshot:
For a lightweight base, materials like 1/8 or 1/4" plywood (assemble into box, use yellow glue and small nails) or foam (the blue or pink kind, not the white bead stuff0. For ground materials, look at model railroading section of hobby shop for ground foam in coarse, medium and fine texture. If you want quick trees, Heki and Busch make some decent ones...tree modeling is a whole branch (no pun intended) to itself.
The pink/blue foam can be carved with a knife, but it's kind of messy (little tiny balls of foam everywhere) so have a vacuum cleaner handy for cleanup. Ceiling tiles can be broken up and stacked to make rock outcroppings or cliffsides. I love making dioramas...not only is it fun to show a model in a nice setting, it's a great way to recycle old toys (IMy first one used a shoe box, some foam for rocks, popsicle stick and paper cone pine trees and some plastic dinosaurs...kind of funny to think back)

is the faom used for ground? wht is celuclay can clay be and card bosrd be used. (cardboard for likea bunker, clay for ground or stuff)

is sand a good a idea to use for making like an tank or artillry posttin in the sand

celuclay is actually a paper pulp product. Its a very finely pulped paper mache. Available at hobby shops, craft suppy and art stores. You mix it with some water and white glue and mix it till it is like bread dough. This can then be sculpted and or formed for ground material. It takes a day or so for it to dry completely depending on how wet it was and how thick you appplied it.

As Frostygirl said, you can use the foam to build up the ground feeatures and then use the celuclay to cover the foam to give the ground texture. from here you can add rocks, sand, grass etc. Paint it as desired.

wht about trees or sandbags

A good way to do sandbags is to roll up a 'sausage' of epoxy putty (Milliput), then cut the sausage at regular intervals. The blade will squash the putty and give it the corners and tapered ends of the sandbags. Use a piece of fabric to squash the middle part of the sandbags (the fabric will leave some nice texture on the sandbags). With the Milliput still fresh, you then just add the bags onto your model/base, again using the cloth around your finger to squeeze the bags into the position around rocks, tools, or any other details sticking out of your model/base. Let dry (a couple of hours), then prime and paint.

In order to get the sausage not to stick to your fingers, use plenty of talcum/baby powder!

wht about trees , and can u use clay

The method I use consists in taking a long section of metal wire, and fold it numerous times over itself. You'll end up, after a while with a trunk of the near desired thickness. Next use another section of wire to wrap around the trunk, leaving about 1in uncovered (I'm describing my way of doing trees for 1/72 scale so you make the conversion for larger scales) at the bottom, and about 1 1/2in at the top also uncovered. At both extremities, cut the wire so that you end up with many roots and branches, and spread those out. Use Paris plaster to cover all the trunk and the branches. Let dry. Use a knife to scoremarks in the 'bark' if you want. Then paint the trunk and branches. Then install the foliage, if any, using wood glue and floccage for instance.

Then paint the foliage (airbrush is best!). Next step is to place the tree onto your base and cover the base with whatever you want to use to replicate the ground, making sure to cover up the roots of the trees.

For larger trees, you may want to use several sections of wire straight away, and start folding away. That will give you more branches and roots!

is clay help ful for anything

use the clay to make a pencil holder

-or-

use the clay in place of the celluclay above, just model anything from scratch if you wish :)

talkin' about trees here:
if u live in the 'burbs like me, u can find lots of natural material to use for model trees, like sedum plants and peppergrass. craft and flower shops have some good stuff, and there are great tips on modeling trees from scratch in a couple of model railroading mags i read. if you want the easy way out, then check out the Heki or Busch trees (already made for u). if u want the really easy way out, just model a desert scene...then u don't have to worry about trees at all, just a bit of scruffy undergrowth here and there !
frosty

tree roots or roots from any woody plant make great scale trees. The bark is scale and the "filagree" of branches makes nice support if you are going to add leaves. (Roll them around in glue and then sprinkle oregano or other crushed herbs, or the little mossy bits or foam bits that you can get from RR suppliers)

Clay that you would use for pottery or sculpting is too fragile for dioramas. Once dry it will crumble very easily. Celuclay is a paper or celluose product and when wet has the consistency of clay (hence the name Celuclay, which is actually a brand name). For sand bags and other items that I want to sculpt I use milliput or a product called FIMO. It is an clay that sculpts easily and when you put it in an oven to cure (at about 150 degrees F) it hardens up. There are also several brands of clay that will air harden (just keep the package sealed and cool when not using it) These can be used for sculpting sand bags, gear storage, packs, bedrolls, etc. Just take into consideration that clay will shrink a little as it dries. Sometimes up to 30% depending on the brand and type.

Mike

Just get Shep Paine's "How to build dioramas". It'll tell u basically everything u need to know. I think it was the single modeling book I got that's actually worth the money. Hobby books usually are overpriced and they are full of basic stuff a 3 year old should know. But Shepard's book actually use small fonts so there's a lot of info (useful) that you can really use.

QUOTE: Originally posted by bigshot20 wht about trees or sandbags

for sandbags, u can use clay pressed down into the shape of a sandbag and simply stack them, for tress, HO train trees may work? if not get a stick of balsa wood and carve it. the use tissue paper to represent bark.

I bought Shep Paine's book and showed how to do just about everything you need to know about constucting a diorama. It also shows most of the techniques step by step with pictures


It helped me get a 100% on my WW2 Diorama for school!!!