Bonobo´s dioramas

Lea asked me, how I have made them, so here is the answer
First I give several pieces of wood the right size, then I saw out the gaps for the animals and the doors for the keepers. After coulering all, I put the doors in the walls and glue all together. some parts of the ground plate (mostly the indoor parts) were coulered before glueing all together, bot the outdoor parts will follow later. Now they are two ways, one for the landscapes with rocks and one for the landscapes without rocks:

1.) landscapes with rocks:
First I put some styropor or styrodur (like styropor, but without the tiny balls, so there isn't such a mess ) on the walls. Then I build the rocks with cement/gypsum (  Deutsch: Gips). Also the border of the pond in the last landscape is made out of cement/gypsum. The glass panes were put in before modelling the rocks, I'm just careful that they are after all not under many rocks . Then I coulered all, the rocks, the ground, the pond. The rocks in the last landscape are safed by mat lacquer and the water in the ponds are liquid glue or glossy laquer.

2.) landscapes without rocks (for example the "Jugendstilhaus")
I fix the grate, with nails and put on the bricks ( they were out of red cement/gypsum, filled in a form, for the entries to South America and Asia I used white bricks and coulered them), all before put the walls together, sorry

Then follows all the details, the plants and  the big branches and logs, some of them were constant fixed with glue and some of them were not fixed
(the plants inside the "Jugendstilhaus" I have made after half an year, I think...)

btw, the old, abandoned and addicted house count as a rock

Thank you for the very thorough answer! That's a good idea to use gypsum for rock/cement surfaces. Polustyrene and polyurethane foam plates are another rather ingenious invention - using them certainly saves on the weight. Damn, now you've made me want to start building a little diorama of my own..   

koniminiatures wrote:

Thank you for the very thorough answer! That's a good idea to use gypsum for rock/cement surfaces. Polustyrene and polyurethane foam plates are another rather ingenious invention - using them certainly saves on the weight. Damn, now you've made me want to start building a little diorama of my own..   

Thanks and good luck

Thanks for those advices! I would love to try something…   

I can´t see anything

You are right. It is a 6 years old topic, some Image hoster colapsed since then and pics are lost alas. I will ask Bonobo if he still has the pics or we will probably delete the topic.