Pics of an Acasia tree for Phil's Diorama

This are pics of an Acasia tree species that will be making its way to Phil's diorama.[img][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][/img]

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Beautiful Acasia Danny, fantastic.

Very realistic!You can also add some ant colonies between its branches,because those 2 species usually live together.

That looks great and very big

How would you package that ?

[Quote = "Wild Heart"] Very realistic! You can also add some Ant colonies between its branches, because those two species usually live together. [/ Quote]

Wild Heart, great idea, but in my scale (1:22, where 1 inch on the model is 22 inches in life) you would not be able to see any ants. I am right now discussing birds with my sculptors and we are having trouble becasue some of the birde I want are only 1 inch long in scale and at that size there is a big loss of detail. I try to use animals and birds who's adult size is at least 40 inches so the sculpture would be just a little smaller then 2 inches. That is not to bad to make, but one of the birds I really want is wild type guinea fowl, which will be only a bit longer then an inch, and that is a bird that will be really hard to sculpt at the size I need.

I also have to thank Danny and his sculptor, this tree is a fantastic tree, and I can't wait to put it on the diorama, I have a place cleared out, but it might be too big, when talking about shipping it Danny tells me it is around 22 inches from end to end, and the space I have is only a foot wide. I can easily move things around, but I want the back side of the original diorama to to be plants from end to end.

Like the scrub forest, the idea for this diorama was to make the edge of the savanna up against the biginnings of the scrub and maybe even a more tropical type forest. I not only have the one palm tree, but Danny has a group of palms that I am interested in, and I am having a custom date palm being made by a different sculptor who sculpts all different types of palms for railroads and museum dioramas. He is making me a 20 inch tall date palm with fruit so I can have a pr of date palm vultures feeding. These birds hand upside down from the bunches of dates and feed, the poses of the birds are fantastic, and Ana and I have talked about several poses that I really like to sculpt. I am a little nervous about this new sculptor, his photos of the trees he sent me look great, but he has never done anything this big, and if they are not the quality of the trees I get now, I will be very upset, not because of the look, I don't have to use them, but because I have put a lot into this idea and if it doesn't come out the way I pictured it I will be dissapointed. The last time I talked to him he said the tree would be done by the last weekend, the only thing he is working on is the fruit bunches, so maybe before the end of this week I will have pictures if not the actual tree.

The idea of a tropical part is great!You can add some okapis,similar to those Ana sculpted for Willy,and also gorillas,chimps and mandrills!

fantastic tree and very good ideas Phil.

Can't wait to see more things...

[Quote = "Wild Heart"] The idea of a tropical part is great! You can add some okapi, similar to those sculpted Ana for Willy, and therefore, gorillas, chimps and mandrills! : King: [/ quote]

Sorry Wild Heart, if I add some tropical type plants it will just be the edge of a forest, so maybe a bush pig or some other duiker type mammals that live on the forest and savanna divide, but the deep forest will have to be on a different diorama. I have always wanted at least a small forest dio, maybe in my glass case, I would have bongos and drills though, those are my favorite rainforest animals from africa, those and some of the really cool birds.

I have always dreamt of a rainforest diorama,too,but one from Brazil or Guatemala!It should have trees at least 60 cm tall and a mini pump for the rain coming down over the trees!There should be a river,with giant fish,dolphins,capybaras,crocs,giant otters.In the forest should be a jaguar,ant eater,armadillos,monkeys(plenty of them),chameleons,sloths,turacos,toucans,parrots,quetzals and many more frogs!
That would be great!

My second big dream would be the great barier reef!

"I have always dreamt of a rainforest diorama,too,but one from Brazil or Guatemala!It should have trees at least 60 cm tall and a mini pump for the rain coming down over the trees!There should be a river,with giant fish,dolphins,capybaras,crocs,giant otters.In the forest should be a jaguar,ant eater,armadillos,monkeys(plenty of them),chameleons,sloths,turacos,toucans,parrots,quetzals and many more frogs!
That would be great! "

That sounds like a beautifull dream Wildheart, and very detail as well, any idea on what scale you are dreaming? and just one little detail of the dream, the turacos are from the African dream, they wouldn't be found in this continent unless int was in zoos or private collections, but is your dream, so maybe they emigrated like myself.
You could allways add toucans, toucanets and aracari birds to the dream, just as a replacement, the dream of tropical america, i think many of us have had that dream in diffeent ways, right Phil?
The biggest diversity in plant life and animal life of any rainforest or tropical region on planet earth what is not to like, some of my favorite plants and animals are from tropical america.

Beautiful tree. It looks so real. I love the details. Great ideas on the other trees as well Phil. I hope the new ones turn out like you are hoping and can't wait to see some pictures of it.

Danny is correct, and I am eventually going to do a south American diorama in the future. It will have capybara, a whole family group, some big males, many females and juvs of all sizes. They will be on the bank and in the water. I know I am going to have lots of birds, and at least one caimen, but the rest I haven't decided yet.

One more thing about the SA dio, Wild Heart, true chameleons are also only found in africa and the middle east, most species are from madagascar, but there are even ground living ones (Chamelio chamelion is the scientific name) lives on the ground in the deserts. Great group of animals, just not from South America. In it's place there are several really neat reptiles, one of my favorite is the camian lizard, it is not related to crocodiles, but looks a lot like one and lives at the waters edge, feeding on aquatic snails. I have kept them as pets in the past and they spend more then 1/2 their time in the water. There are two species, one is just plain brown, but the species D. guyanensis has a bright red head and a yellow, green, orange and red marble colored body, very pretty lizard and big enough to make a good model out of.