madmikeHello everyone,
I thought I'd share this little story of a diorama build for fun or maybe even for inspiration...
Some time ago my girlfriend and I were visiting a loot of antique ceramics in a neighborhood garage which sadly didn't turn out great. On the way back we passed this place I'd always wanted to visit, a venue selling used stones on an abandoned army training area. Yeah right, used stones, like parts from old churches and stuff, in the middle of the woods. Here's their stocklots area:
Looks legit right?
They were also selling recasts of ancient stone sculpts, and one of them tickled my "figure photography" sense, so I bought it - and had to drag all 20 kilos of it half a klick back to the car. Back in my basement (which has the coolest wallpaper in town) I took a quick photo:
This stone niche measures 38x56cm and I've seen it for sale on the net too, as garden decoration. Your mailman will probably kill you if you order that online.
It's meant for hanging it on a wall, so I had to build a wooden frame to get it to stand since I really didn't want it to topple over and destroy something. I also thought "why not have stairs in front of it?" and milled some from a lightweight model foam. A door is also nice to have, so I sketched it and started 3d-printing the frame:
Pro tip: always make sure your printer has enough resin. Otherwise you'll have more work or print it all again. Isuzu was satisfied with the outcome though...
Next I built that door out of wood stripes that seemed to scale correctly, and I also added an adapter plate for the door frame
All right, got a door, gotta have a window. And gothic masonry. And door fittings.
That stuff is pretty fun to make when you've got CAD and a printer.
Then I painted it all to match the stone, first sprinkling some bird sand on wood glue to add texture and painting it over with a wood glue / paint mix. Getting the color right wasn't easy.
That door has hinges too!
Next I started to age that wood using a blowtorch. Isuzu came by for another look.
That's the wood right after the blowtorch treatment
and this is how it looked after I treated it with a wire brush, which worked quite well
Next I treated the wood with various tints and acids (pro tip: hydrochloric acid takes days to evaporate from wood. Anything metallic in its vicinity will rust really fast! Be careful!).
I used some black wash on the stairs and put on the details, and voilà, we've got a diorama.
The pics I used this diorama for you might have already seen here -
of course Isuzu had the honour of being the first pictured with it
and I also got Shouko and Mai to pose there for me
I've got some more ideas for this scene, let's see how long it will take til I get the shootings done.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe you've got some inspiration too!
I thought I'd share this little story of a diorama build for fun or maybe even for inspiration...
Some time ago my girlfriend and I were visiting a loot of antique ceramics in a neighborhood garage which sadly didn't turn out great. On the way back we passed this place I'd always wanted to visit, a venue selling used stones on an abandoned army training area. Yeah right, used stones, like parts from old churches and stuff, in the middle of the woods. Here's their stocklots area:
Looks legit right?
They were also selling recasts of ancient stone sculpts, and one of them tickled my "figure photography" sense, so I bought it - and had to drag all 20 kilos of it half a klick back to the car. Back in my basement (which has the coolest wallpaper in town) I took a quick photo:
This stone niche measures 38x56cm and I've seen it for sale on the net too, as garden decoration. Your mailman will probably kill you if you order that online.
It's meant for hanging it on a wall, so I had to build a wooden frame to get it to stand since I really didn't want it to topple over and destroy something. I also thought "why not have stairs in front of it?" and milled some from a lightweight model foam. A door is also nice to have, so I sketched it and started 3d-printing the frame:
Pro tip: always make sure your printer has enough resin. Otherwise you'll have more work or print it all again. Isuzu was satisfied with the outcome though...
Next I built that door out of wood stripes that seemed to scale correctly, and I also added an adapter plate for the door frame
All right, got a door, gotta have a window. And gothic masonry. And door fittings.
That stuff is pretty fun to make when you've got CAD and a printer.
Then I painted it all to match the stone, first sprinkling some bird sand on wood glue to add texture and painting it over with a wood glue / paint mix. Getting the color right wasn't easy.
That door has hinges too!
Next I started to age that wood using a blowtorch. Isuzu came by for another look.
That's the wood right after the blowtorch treatment
and this is how it looked after I treated it with a wire brush, which worked quite well
Next I treated the wood with various tints and acids (pro tip: hydrochloric acid takes days to evaporate from wood. Anything metallic in its vicinity will rust really fast! Be careful!).
I used some black wash on the stairs and put on the details, and voilà, we've got a diorama.
The pics I used this diorama for you might have already seen here -
of course Isuzu had the honour of being the first pictured with it
and I also got Shouko and Mai to pose there for me
I've got some more ideas for this scene, let's see how long it will take til I get the shootings done.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe you've got some inspiration too!
Komentarze21
Turned out amazing, I'm in awe of your work!