Interplanetary Archaeological Dig -- Finished!!

vespa boy

I really like the idea behind your dio. I read many of those same books when I started high school. Its a very cool idea dicovering a lost civilization. I know its late in the game, but is there way you can incorporate a "rosetta stone" type find in there...one that the viewer knows has all the clues and will de decyphered back at the lab?

I don't think so. The mystery of the site is "What is the nature of these ruins?"

Are they foundations? Are they a "buried" building? Something which was inside another building, which has long-since disappeared? Or is it housing some sort of device?

I think the dio has more to do with the wonder of discovery and the mystery and meaning of the traces this extinct race left behind, than the actualy solving of the the mysteries. And, of course, there is a hidden hint of danger.

 You wouldn't want to blow an hole in the side of Chernobyl, would you? --thinking it was some sort of concrete stone temple like the pyramids?

But maybe I'm just not recognizing something which could a "Rosetta Stone" in this case. I've been thinking that this dio's "moment in time" is the first survey of the site. Before the brush is cleared away and the scraping and sifting of the topsoil begins.

Another interesting point is that an off-planet dig would not have any "native" laborers to do all the clearing, digging, and sifting of the dirt--the "grunt" work. It is the team itself that's going to have to do all the work. They aren't going to have the luxury of standing around "supervisizing."

I've been busy for the last couple of days building a display case for the diorama. The finished case is 24 inches long by 9 inches deep by 9 inches tall. It is constructed of 1/8 inch plexiglass and sits on a clear 1/4 inch base (which allows me to slide the whole thing out of the shelf for dusting.

and a closer shot:

Still waiting for the figure from Hobby Link Japan.

I was bored today, so I took the diorama outside and worked on my "depth of focus." The problem is my telephoto lense has a high minimum aperture (f8), so to get most of the photo in focus, instead of a narrow section, I had to set the shutter speed to 1/30 of a second. Out of ten shots, only two came out without any "camera shake."

On these two photos, you can see the work I did on the motorcycle and the figures. The earlier pictures didn't do them justice.

Hello!

Very nice fotos. I like the way your dio came out a lot. Keep 'em coming and have a nice day

Pawel

  Keep 'em coming!

I got the final figure from HobbyLink Japan this morning and spent all day putting it together and painting it. The figure's detail and casting was flawless and crisp. I needed to do no sanding or work on the face.

To sum everything up....

Archaeological Dig on an Unknown Planet

This diorama depicts an archaeological team surveying the
ruins on a distant unknown planet. The ruins point to a
technologically advanced race, but the team will have to
figure out just how far advanced this race was, and what
the structure they have discovered actually was for and
what it was supposed to do. As with anything unknown,
when you don't know an object's purpose, danger lurks
nearby.

So here are the pictures, starting with the close-ups.

And, finally, an overhead shot:

What is really cool is that each figure's expression looks a little different when you change the angle of the shot. Each one looks like they are all thinking their own thoughts. Individual personalities. Which, I guess, is one of things I really strive for in selecting figures.It adds an emotional undertone to the overall effect of the diorama.

 You might also note that the final figure, the team leader holding the clipboard, has a diagram of the dig site on the clipboard. I had fun making and printing that diagram to scale. Ditto with everything else in the dig site.

Howdy!

Of all the dios in theese forums yours have the nicest looking girls

More seriously - congratulations on your consequence going from design to execution and also on the originality of the subject. Keep 'em coming and have a nice day

Pawel

And here it is inside its display case, complete with an explanatory nameplate:

 Now this is something different. Great concept, nice work.