Your first diorama?

Mine was pretty recent. It was also pretty simple. It was a Bradley sitting in the desert. The only things on it was rocks,sand, and some dead trees. I was just glad to have done something beyond just the model. I think I did better on my last one with a jeep. I can say though if it were not for this forum then I would have never had done either one, I would still be doing cars and not even getting into detail very much with them.

I had my first just a couple of months ago. I actually posted it here previously. It was just a test dio since I used recycled materials for it. I am now recreating it after learning a lot of things here in the forum.

Wow J-hulk, I just had a flash back that about took me off my feet. I did Monograms Sherman tank with the rocket launcher on the top. I marveled at the diorama of the Screamin MiMi and knocked off Shep Paines idea for that one. You're right those tip sheets were great and back then I thought that Shep Paine was the center of the universe. It too was a little too ambitous for me, but I learned alot from that endeavor.

Mike

The first real dio I did was not models, per say, but miniatures. A friend and I found out about a painting contest in our town, so we decided to do something truly origional: a medieval strip club, complete with brothel, dancing poles, bar, patrons, everything. It was the only dio I have ever seen that you had to be 18 just to be able to see it. Won 1st place, too.

demono69

Mine was a little base with Airfix's Me-163 Komet on the tarmac, a couple of crew members around and a Flak 'tower' in a corner. Did not look too bad (I've done worse since!). I also got a couple of prizes for this, in the junior classes, as i was only 13.

I only got the idea of creating a 'base' after I saw a number of people doing that at that club I was member of.

Nowadays, I put everything on a base (not necessarily a full blown diorama though!), as it saves on repairs following transport and people touching the actual model at shows...

Mine is a snowy field with a dead german and so far maybe some GI's checking out the track for possible goodies only to find more germans in better shape that their conterpart? I have it on ron USMC's site on the upload section, any input would be great?

A 1/ 72 FW190-D. Built in in a small picture frame. Pilot climbing in the cockpit and ground crew standing by. Even had a dog in it.

My first was a big one; Dragons Sherman Firefly, 5 Canadian Infantry, a German sniper, three buildings from Custom Dioramics, and
resin cobblestone. Turn out pretty good too.

I'm working on my first right now...................52yrs in the making!!!!!

My first was also swiped directly from Shep Paine's pamphlet of the B-24 getting the wild paint job for the formation craft. The only originality was I painted the wacky part differently. Mine was yellow with flames. Perhaps at 14, I couldn't tell a WW2 bomber from a dragster. It was fun and it taught me a great deal, starting with planning where to display it before building it. A 1:48 B-24 is too big for most bookshelves. A dio for Panda's 1:32 B-17? Perhaps an outbuilding. A big one! Now I'm working on the Bismarck as she appears today in a shadow box. Mr. 18thscalemilitary, I MUST see a diorama 52 years in the making. Please post pics.

My first one was inspired by an academy M113 that my friend Eric asked me to build. Halfway through the build I was immpressed by Vietnam dio that I had seen on another website and I wanted to see if I could do something simular.
With a spare base,scratchbuilt palm tree and some foliage my little dio came together. I posted it on Ron's gallery and had some really good feedback!

My next dio will be another Vietnam scene involving hueys! I'll most likely end up biting off more than I can chew-but hey, I'll have lots of fun building it!

My first was an old Matchbox 1/72 109E, in the classic Battle of Britain pose, ie, wheels up, prop bent, belly down, on a typical shingle beach. No prizes for originality, but it covered the fact that i'd lost the wheels! It was tiny, no more that 6 inches square.

My first diorama was a to scale battle of Oustlee, (Civil War) i spend nearly two years just hand painting the figures. the size wa a simple 8 foot X 8 foot sq. The battlefield not not that hard to do. Wife was glad when i finished it so we could have our dining room back.

Mine was trying to display the Bismark on water. Trying to make water is not a first timer project.

Some interesting stories here!
It seems ol' Shep has influenced many of us.

After starting this topic, I realized I had attempted a "diorama" earlier than the Brumbarr I mentioned in the first post.

I had taken a low, flat cardboard box, filled it with loose dirt from the backyard (undoubtedly filled with nematodes and night crawlers!), tossed in a few blocks of white styrofoam for buildings (windows and doors drawn on with a magic marker), and displayed a Revell 1/? scale T-34 in combat alongside Monogram's 1/35 scale halftrack going against a 1/48 scale Bandai Tiger II , all supported by a mix of assorted scale figures. I was but a wee lad then!
I remember I had to toss it out when moisture in the soil sogged the cardboard box!

Anybody else create one of these half-diorama, half-playset things?

my first diorama used a shoebox, with extruded foam 'rocks' and pine trees made from popsicle stix and paper cones for the 'landscape' and three plastic dinosaurs (i guess u could consider them as armored vehicles in a way) as the figures, with a piece of paper curving up behind the scenery as a cyclorama type thing. (hey, i was only 8 years old then)... i still have it on a shelf behind the modeling bench in the basement, and whenever i get a bit depressed about my modeling skills (or lack of them) i can look back and remember where i started from.
frosty

Compared to some of the results seen here, my first foray into dioramas was dismal, at best. It was a scratch-built shoebox diorama in fourth grade that illustrated the building of the railroad by Chinese immigrants. The two or three figures were made of clay and the train was a small, plastic toy.

The highlight of the scene was the greenery, i.e. real twigs, grass, and shrubs. I also glued dirt onto the base to recreate sand and gravel.

It got me a decent grade, of course, but WAY too much aggravation and frustration went into the project. As an educator myself, I now appreciate NOT forcing creativity like that upon students-- at least not with such a short deadline. Given enough time, it could have been a lot better...

Fortunately, subsequent attempts have yielded MUCH better results.

My first was a MG-42 w/crew and I only did it because I wanted to try somethings out before I did a larger project.

It was fairly small, just the MG and its crew on Celluclay ground work made to look as if they dug out a fox hole. It had sticks for trees, small rocks for boulders, small roots for scrub brush, even took a stick and splintered the side to make look as if it took a shell hit.

J-Hulk,

That is unbelievable !

I just got one of those Brummbars from ebay. I was looking through the kit and found that great set of directions. ( it gives tips on weathering, figure painting & dioramas.)
I scanned the directions to do some sort of post - to compare them to todays. If they sent directions like these, it would save alot of posts in this forum.

That is too weird. Here they are. (Sorry no pictures of Sherm or Bill on this one)













Not bad, huh ? (the model is not great)

Hey Build. That's a good dio there. Any plans of doing it? I have no brummbar but I think I want to try that ruin. A Strurm Tiger may fit well in it, Don't you think?

Does making a fort from popsicle sticks and paper cutout figures and cardboard buildings count?
Did one of those for a "school project" back in grade school in 4th grade social studies/history.
Even dressed up as Daniel Boone when I had to "give my presentation".
Afterwards I think I took it home and played with it and some cavalry and indian plastic soldiers I had.

Mike

Dwight,

I have to get a few other things finished before I even think about a dio.

But, they present this one well. It makes it seem a little easier. Sometimes that's all you need, a little intellectual "nudge" to get you going and thinking.

Not only that, it's 20-30 years old

I just thought it was great because there were a lot of other little things in there as well. It would answer alot of questions that show-up alot in the forum. The older testor models have similiar tips on weathering, painting, etc... They probably stopped because the number of pages they would have to print to cover all the foreign languages would be outrageous.

Go for it, Dwight !

Build, that's the one, my friend! Oh, the memories! Thanks for posting that.
Funny thing is, although I'm fairly certain I only ever built one Monogram Brummbar, I have at least three of those sheets! Must have grabbed a couple extras from my buddies way back then.

Isn't that the coolest diorama?

Shep! The man's a genius!

J-Hulk,

You have to admit, breaking through walls is what every red-blooded armor fan wants to see ! It's a great scene. They make it seem pretty easy to do besides.

Do the diorama again, this time use your "advanced" modeling skills. That will send you down memory lane.

See Ya

OK build, I'll try that after (or IF) I finish the Sherman. Gotta get that Sturmtiger first.

Dwight,

After seeing your other dio, I think you are definetly up for it.


Good luck

Can I consider this as actually my first diorama?

I was going over some pictures last week to find a one for posting here. I was surprised to see some pictures of me taken in 1997 when I was still stationed in Myanmar (formerly Burma).

At that time, we were constructing a college facility donated by the Japanese Government to Myanmar. About a month leading to the completion and handover of the project, the scale model of the facility was attacked by mice (not Maus). Since it is to have an important part of the handover ceremony as a token to be handed over to their vice president (2nd highest ranking official) we have to replace it immediately. The original model was built by the consultant and was made of foam blocks (quite crude actually) but the consultants instructed us to do the reconstruction.

I was tasked to do the reconstruction. I was quite unsure for being a Civil Engineer (although I have knowledge in scale modelling) I have not done any scalemodel of buildings. I had with me our CAD operator who was an Architect and had some experience in making scalemodels of building in his college days.

Since there are no hobby shops in Myanmar, we flew to Singapore to shop for materials and went on to do the model in less than two weeks.

Since we have to redo everything anyway I suggested that we make it a more detailed one (quite a strong move for someone who didn't have enough experience, huh?)


Well, no better position than that. LOL.



The finished model. Diorama? The scale is 1/100, if I remember it correctly. All scratchbuilt.

Brings back a lot of memories.

i will be attempting my very first dio over the coarse of this winter,thanks to all of the info on the forums, iguess its my turn to try this out.

Great job Dwight.

Let's see, looking back into my "FSM" offical handbook,

I think for this forum you need at least one pillbox or an AA battery. But we will let you slide on a technicality.



Very nice