Last year I spent a lot of time travelling around the country giving lectures and staying in hotel rooms with the worst views...service alleys, electrical substations, brick walls etc. So I wanted to incorporate that experience into a box diorama so that the viewer would look out of a hotel window into a lane-way. A reversal of the usual box diorama where you are looking into an interior space.
Because this was different from my other projects in that it wasn't a piece of ground, I thought I would also include components that fellow modellers and friends had made...a blank brick wall by Howard Hazelton, a photo etch fire escape by Ken Hamilton, an empty bottle by Virgil Suarez. Usually I scratch build everything, but I wanted to honour my diorama buddies with this build.
I did a rough layout to check the composition and the idea...A fire escape, lots of plumbing and electrical lines as well as a trash chute.
And then set about cutting up Howard's beatifully cast hydrocal walls and casting some bands of plaster to fit the architecture I had in mind
Here is how the shadow box starts to take shape. There will just be a small window through which the viewer has to peer and see the lane outside. The front wall, which in this photo only comes half way up, will cover the entire face and the small window will be the only way to see the dio.
Ken had some 1/24 scale fire escapes etched to his specs and kindly sent me a set. If you haven't read his book on dioramas, then you are missing out on something special.
And I set about detailing and modifying it
1. by making individual rafts and edging them
2. Assembling the rafts to make platforms
3. And then adding railings and ladders. Its still not finished but it will give you an idea of where it is headed
And I made some doors to exit onto the fire escapes using brass sheet glued onto a plastic core
Its a long way from being finished. I'll update as the build progresses. All thoughts/comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.