My new American wildlife display

Good day, friends!
I have set up a new shelf display dedicated to the American wildlife. And it’s that very kind of event in a collector’s life which I must be necessarily shared with the others :)
I’ve chosen 14 pictures of the whole process and will divide them in two parts.

Part 1. Preparation.
First of all, I had to dismantle my older shelf display which included Europe and the Americas. Here’s the last photo of it in minutes before the take-down:
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Before the dismantling I allowed my kids to play a bit in the display (what happens VERY seldom):
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This display has been delighting my eyes for about three years, but recently it has ceased to do so :) and needed renovation. Moreover, the upper “American”, shelf was overcrowded and badly observed.
So I decided to move all the American animals to a new place on a book-shelf and turn this cabinet into my second Africa. The European fauna became “scapegoats” – I’ve got no new display space for them to the moment…

So, here’s the book-shelf which is to be turned into Wild America:
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I rearranged the books to make the upper shelf empty:
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After that all the animals and most of the plants were removed from the old cabinet – only the remnants of my most long-living display are left:
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BUT a vacant place never remains unoccupied! While I was busy with the changeover, my kids took their animals and set up their own “forests” in my ex-display:
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Part 2. The New World.
And here’s my new American display how it looks now (not finished yet – I’m going to add a river for the Mississippi alligator and a “mountain range” to separate South and North Americas and give habitat to the eagles and the goat):
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Note the small space in the right corner that was enough for all of my S. American fauna – it reflects the miserable market representation of S. American wildlife figures

To add illumination I tried these sticky LED-lights:
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Let’ take a closer look. In the left corner I want to make a river with a bank made of sculpting clay (that’ll wait till November, I guess):
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I wasn’t satisfied with pictures taken with flash as they were overexposed and the figures shined a bit. So I tried to experiment. At first I took close-view pics without flash on a mini-tripod, but my camera had problems with focusing as the light was insufficient:
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And then I found a simple but effective solution: took a small piece of white paper and put it in front of the flash to direct it upwards. The results were just what I wanted: warm light, neat shadows, no highlights:
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One more - jaguar in ambush:
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Hyacinth macaw in the canopy looks gorgeous when taking photos with the “small-white-paper“ technique:
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Finally, here’s my favorite photo from the whole bunch, also with semi-covered flash - S. America from above:
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Your new display looks fantastic Kirill! Your idea about the river and mountains sounds really good, look forward to seeing it finished
Clever way to get the photos how you wanted, there is a special gadget you can buy called a "Flash Gun" I think, my brother has one, but it does the same thing.

Hey that's very nice, Kirill!
I like the way you put the owl on the tree. :)

I agree, so hard not to agree as it looks GREAT! Thanks for sharing. I look forward to seeing more.
I'm sure your children enjoy "playing with daddy" with setting up the display.

~ Sue

Thanks for appreciation, friends!

HKHollinstone wrote:

...Clever way to get the photos how you wanted, there is a special gadget you can buy called a "Flash Gun" I think, my brother has one, but it does the same thing.

Who needs to buy a gadget when one can do the same with just a piece of paper?

Kiryuha wrote:

Thanks for appreciation, friends!

HKHollinstone wrote:

...Clever way to get the photos how you wanted, there is a special gadget you can buy called a "Flash Gun" I think, my brother has one, but it does the same thing.

Who needs to buy a gadget when one can do the same with just a piece of paper?

Who know? Sometimes you may need a gadget that performs better than paper.

[quote="Kiryuha"]Part 2. The New World.
And here’s my new American display how it looks now (not finished yet – I’m going to add a river for the Mississippi alligator and a “mountain range” to separate South and North Americas and give habitat to the eagles and the goat):
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Note the small space in the right corner that was enough for all of my S. American fauna – it reflects the miserable market representation of S. American wildlife figures


...Good work old man! (I have made some copies) But I belive it, s only beginning!

...by the way, Kirill... I think "noth forests" world animals and plants is almost the same in Eurasia and Nothh America (the bears, wolfs, mooses, deers (stag and other),zubr-bizon, foxes and etc). So it,s more simply to make general landscape - "Norh Forest Eurasia/America). And quite the contrary the animal and plant world of South America is quite opposite to nothh-american landscape! So you have a difficulty to combine it. Yeh?

Sergey wrote:

...by the way, Kirill... I think "noth forests" world animals and plants is almost the same in Eurasia and Nothh America (the bears, wolfs, mooses, deers (stag and other),zubr-bizon, foxes and etc). So it,s more simply to make general landscape - "Norh Forest Eurasia/America). And quite the contrary the animal and plant world of South America is quite opposite to nothh-american landscape! So you have a difficulty to combine it. Yeh?

I would argue here, Sergey.
Eurasia and N. America have a number of significant endemic species that don't allow me to combine them into a common"Holartcic Forest". In my collection such species include Mountain goat, Black bear, Missisippi alligator, Bald eagles and Great Horned owl for N. America and Ibex, Eagle owl and Roebuck for Europe... I want to display the above mentioned American figures more than the European, that's why I chose to make the American display.
Second, S. and N. America and have a couple of common species, like the Jaguar and White-tailed deers at my display, so I made a kind of transition zone from North to South.
Moreover, yesterday I bought some Safari toobs and now I have a quetzal which will represent Latin America at my shelf.

Kiryuha wrote:

Sergey wrote:

...by the way, Kirill... I think "noth forests" world animals and plants is almost the same in Eurasia and Nothh America (the bears, wolfs, mooses, deers (stag and other),zubr-bizon, foxes and etc). So it,s more simply to make general landscape - "Norh Forest Eurasia/America). And quite the contrary the animal and plant world of South America is quite opposite to nothh-american landscape! So you have a difficulty to combine it. Yeh?

I would argue here, Sergey.
Eurasia and N. America have a number of significant endemic species that don't allow me to combine them into a common"Holartcic Forest". In my collection such species include Mountain goat, Black bear, Missisippi alligator, Bald eagles and Great Horned owl for N. America and Ibex, Eagle owl and Roebuck for Europe... I want to display the above mentioned American figures more than the European, that's why I chose to make the American display.
Second, S. and N. America and have a couple of common species, like the Jaguar and White-tailed deers at my display, so I made a kind of transition zone from North to South.
Moreover, yesterday I bought some Safari toobs and now I have a quetzal which will represent Latin America at my shelf.

... Yeh! It,s your right... But there is the idea "geographic(al) zone" оr " geographic latitude"! The "Noth-American (Holartcic ) Forests" and "South-American Tropic Jungles" has only formal unity because historical reasons and mistakes of the Spaniards who named the all "New World" one word "America"... It,s has different Nature I think...

Nice new set-ups Kyrill!
By the way, is there any Schleich or similar model, that you really want, and were not able to buy or get for your displays?

Congratulations for Your new display Kirill!
I think You touched very interesting problem: lighting. Good lighting can do a lot, and there is many options how to use it. It's almost like magic. Some tricks with light are well known for the theater workers or photographers. But LIGHT is really big subject and not only for photos of course. I think there could be many ways to use this magic in displays and dioramas.

WILLYBACOMAN wrote:

Nice new set-ups Kyrill!
By the way, is there any Schleich or similar model, that you really want, and were not able to buy or get for your displays?

Well, there are such models, but quite a few. I'd be glad to add Schleich jackal, armadillo, marten, marmot, capercaillie and cobra to my collection.
Also I think there are numerous Japanese-made raptiles and birds that could make my displays more complete and beautiful, but they are unaccessible to me now...

ana wrote:

...Good lighting can do a lot, and there is many options how to use it. It's almost like magic. Some tricks with light are well known for the theater workers or photographers. But LIGHT is really big subject and not only for photos of course. I think there could be many ways to use this magic in displays and dioramas.

100%!!!
Some time ago I also experimented with candle light - it gives a nice warm coloring effect. Here I had posted some pics taken under candle light.

Beautiful photos and a great display. Thanks for sharing.

aandmkw wrote:

Beautiful photos and a great display. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for appreciation, Amy!

Kiryuha wrote:

WILLYBACOMAN wrote:

Nice new set-ups Kyrill!
By the way, is there any Schleich or similar model, that you really want, and were not able to buy or get for your displays?

Well, there are such models, but quite a few. I'd be glad to add Schleich jackal, armadillo, marten, marmot, capercaillie and cobra to my collection.
Also I think there are numerous Japanese-made raptiles and birds that could make my displays more complete and beautiful, but they are unaccessible to me now...

Well i need some of those models back in the collection again too, but more eyes see more....

WILLYBACOMAN wrote:

Well i need some of those models back in the collection again too, but more eyes see more....

Actually, I'm not doing anything to find those retired figures now. I haven't bought all the current models I want yet...

After showing you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], I’d like to share pictures of my renewed “Shelf Americas”. This display was set up 13 months ago – you can see pics of the process in the first post of this thread.
So, what has changed?
My first aim was to add a “mountain ridge” to add some altitude capacity and depth to the display.
When it comes to making something with my own hands, I prefer the simplest solutions :) So here is how I decided to make as “mountain ridge” - just glued together some carton boxes to make this barebone:
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To fit it with the shelf environment I wrapped it with adhesive film. Here’s the pic of another “hill” I did the same way for my ‘Africa’:
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After that I put this “mountain ridge” to my ‘N. America”. It became a good home for birds & mountain sheep and improved the overall layout of the display:
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A small cave in the mountain was immediately occupied by Safari Bald Eagle. And there’s still a place for the nest with Schleich eaglets!
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Side view of my ‘S. America’:
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Two Americas are separated by a “lagoon” with semi-aquatic animals, mostly from Safari toobs. Take note of this figure: one my favorites among all Safari toobs – Cottonmouth Snake:
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Excellent figurine with just the right size!

Schleich’s Saguaro in the middle of the shelf represents the deserts of Northern Mexico. Safari’s Quetzal found a place in the sun here:
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Below the American shelf I set up my fifth display – Europe. I’ll make a separate topic about it, but now look at the general view of both shelves:
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Really wonderful!!! Congratulation!!

That 's a good idea putting boxes into display!!

It's wonderful Kirill!

I'm glad you liked it!

I don't know why I've lost this topic! Many beautiful displays and clever ideas to follow! :) Thanks for showing Kiril, it's a shame I don't have space to make a little display!