Which Scale for Dio???

It can.  I'm thinking about being done with dios all together.  Too much space, time, money, and effort contribute to my recent feelings on the subject.  If I do start making dios again, I'd probably go much smaller, like 1:72.  I'm comfortable in small scale scenery from my days of MRR.  You can buy trees that work in that scale, too.

It really comes down to what you're comfortable working with and the amount of space you have.  A dio with a tank and some figures doesn't need to be that much larger than the foot print of the vehicle.

  I'm stuck on 1/72nd...there are just too many different do-dads you can use from the railroad community and the stock items for architectural models. Sky's the limit, and most of my dioramas are under a square foot in size.

           greg

I used to strictly build 1/72 scale (and dioramas) due to $$$ situation and available space.  I haven't touched models for over 10 years and recently returned to building them again.  Now I'm sticking with 1/35 scale.  Good thing about 1/72 is that you can fit lots of stuff on a same size base as you would in 1/35 scale.  Besides, you can add aircraft with armor in 1/72 scale as well.  If you want bit more detailed and bigger, then you can go with 1/48 scale as well. 

MortarMagnet and Cthulhu have the real clue on dios and their ease of finding stuff for... Model Railroaders!  If the model you build coincides with one of the railroad scales, there is much more stuff available for diorama material... buildings, scenery, people, vehicles, misc. detail things, scratchbuilding materials, etc.  The demand of such items comes from the fact that model railroading is all about dioramas... the layouts these guys build consist of entire countrysides, cities with phenomenal details, etc.

Consider such scenes as these, in various scales:

 

I would say if you are wanting to have a complete diorama to center your model or scene on, then check to see what model railroad scales exist that are close to, if not exactly the same as, your model's scale availabilities. 

I prefer 1/35 for armor, the kit selection is enormous; tanks, artillery, motars, machine guns, you name it, it's most likely out there. Go to any model hobby website and browse the inventory of most everything you want. The kits for men and equipment supplement the armor and vehicle kits.

Academy, AFV, Dragon, Italeri ( figures are no good ! ) Tamiya. Just to name a few.E-bay has a ton of kits out there that are old releases and re-releases. 1/35 kits are easy to see, as you get older your eyes can't keep up with the small details, at least in 1/35th scale you can see things, I know because I also build 1/48th WW 2 aircraft and H-O trains with a highly detailed layout. Eye strain for me exists everyday ! So I lean toward the 1/35th for a break.

These are simply personal views as I recommend them from experience over 30 years when Mongram had several fairly good kits including the Sherman w/ rocket launcher,  The German armored car, and several others when 1/32 scale came out, which is about 9% larger than 1/35 of I remember correctly. then Tamiya and Italeri started out with fairly good kits of the day. ESCI and others as well had fair kits.

Figures from DML are by far the best in detail and when combinned with the re-tooled Tamiya figures( finer cutting of the molds) they blend well and make a great diorama.  One secret about any diorama, in practice, the smaller dios' with 2-4 figures on it make a good subject. My largest dio is that of a winter scene in the Ardennes with German troops walking ahead of a SDkfz 251 Halftrack, the dio base is only 6"x 14" with a base of styrofoam covered with white glue, water and baking soda for the snow.

Two dio's with similar ideas can be arranged to appear as if the two forces are fighting or suggest a separate operation miles apart. A larger 12" x 12" dio on a simple wood plaque suggests that the Panther tank commander is confering with an infantry officer that is standing pointing in a particular direction, next to the tank is the Schwimwagon used by the infantry officer to do recon. Next to this dio is a much smaller one. This has two German infantryman walking in the mud and snow along side a BMW motorcycle. This arrangement could suggest that the head of the main body of troops is a recon unit and the officer is relaying info from the point group, the BMW. It's all how you present the dio, not the vastness of it.

Keep it small, detail it with equipment, but don't overdo the ground cover, or you will detract from the main point, the men or vehicles. I might suggest that you take a look at the rest of my posts here in the forums as I suggest some simple tricks for enhancing paintjobs, and the like.

Best of luck and you have the help of all the folks on these forums, so hang in there.

johncpo