Joliezac's Displays/Dioramas: Renovations! *July 11*

My newest display: The Amazon Rainforest!

I was really determined to make this shelf very colorful and to fit as many figures as I could. I struggled without any fake trees but I think I managed well with some large sticks and driftwood. The middle is supposed to be the river and riverbank while the surrounding areas are more concealed in the forest.

I also plan to have my Colorata harpy eagle hanging with some prey in its talons, but for now the shelf is done and I am very happy with it!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

A gorgeous display.

Fabulous and colorful display! I love especially the couple of hyacinth macaws nesting, the toco toucan flock and the encounter of two tapirs and their calves, maybe agreeing in carry them to a nursery

Very nice pictures

It looks fantastic, and the colourful birds really stand out well in the main first photo, which is how you'll see it in the room every time you go by, so it's very effective. Lovely detail, too, and the actual organic materials add to the realism, especially the bark and moss. I wouldn't be able to use any real moss or twig cos it's too cold and damp in my house, they go mouldy and small creatures move in, so all my scenery has to be made with plastic plant substitutes and painted paper

Wonderful diorama full of life with a clever composition and so many details! So many colourfull parrots, frogs and toucans!

Thank you so much everyone!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The moss is actually fake/dried moss from the craft store I really love using it because it looks real but it doesn't rot or get full of bugs. I've used the same moss on my shelves for years and it holds up just fine! My only issue with it is that sometimes thin-legged models have a hard time standing upright on it so I don't know if it would be the best for most horses.

Great display, there is so much to see. Excellent use of natural accessories and I like the background too. The first photo of the complete shelf is like a piece of art.

This is nice; with all the small Dynastes hercules figures available you should put on in here too

The Safari GLM morpho butterfly might fit well, too

Joliezac wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The moss is actually fake/dried moss from the craft store I really love using it because it looks real but it doesn't rot or get full of bugs. I've used the same moss on my shelves for years and it holds up just fine! My only issue with it is that sometimes thin-legged models have a hard time standing upright on it so I don't know if it would be the best for most horses.

The moss isn't the issue, my house is Even though it comes bagged and dried and dyed and sterilised, so it's as near to artificial as anything organic can be, my home's so prone to mould (cos of the cold and wet climate and waterlogged north-facing shady garden - below sea level on a drained clay marsh! - with no direct light all winter) that it doesn't last long before it's become infected and I have to chuck it out - I've stopped buying the poor stuff cos it has such a short lifespan with me

Oh I see now, I bet that can be frustrating. I really love your backgrounds with your horses though and I think they look fantastic even without any moss

bmathison1972 wrote:

This is nice; with all the small Dynastes hercules figures available you should put on in here too

The Safari GLM morpho butterfly might fit well, too

My collection in the insect department is severely lacking, but if I ever get one I'll be sure to put it here! I forgot about the butterfly minis from Safari, those would be perfect thanks!

Another shelf finished, the African watering hole

Not my most exciting display, and a bit more crowded than I would like, but I have so many African figures that I'm going to make to make a handful of displays just to fit them all. I am very happy to finally have the CollectA & Papo hippos, they look great next to the large nile crocodile.

The ostrich family is my favorite as always

I plan on making a diorama of the Congo, Sahara Desert, and typical savanna/grassland to display some of my other species native to Africa.

Here it is!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Marvellous idea

I understand that you find it not exciting because it have a low component of environment (rocks, plants, logs, etc) compared with your other dioramas, but for my taste is a magnific diorama, this lack of enviromental elements is totally adequate for a flat land like an African watering hole. Don't be worried about the crowding, contrarily to any of your other dioramas here the population density is just perfect as watering holes can be just as crowded in real life - just check the background photo you used!

I like a lot all the scenes and I almost can hear the unmistakable voice of the hippo with the two males fighting and measuring each other - Papo vs CollectA!

I also love the pelican family, the giraffe family, the stork family. But for the latter maybe it could be a good idea to add a standing dead tree - chicks of this age are not found in the ground, unless they felled from the nest But... adding a stork nests would be extremely difficult since no brands did one

Maybe you can add the new Papo African fish eagle in the future :)

Would the mandrills not be better suiter for the Congo diorama? They're strictly forest animals...

I feel like I say the same thing every time, but another lovely display! The grazing zebra works so well as a drinking one, that really helps sell the idea of a watering hole - a shame there's not more animals in that head-down pose that you could include in the scene. Also like the hippos sizing each other up, and the pelicans look like they're comparing fish to see who's made the biggest catch

I always love your displays so much! So many details to look at, and the combination of realistic animals and a realistic background/ landscape is amazing!

Thank you so much everyone!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The shelf certainly looked quite boring before I added the fauna but afterwards I like it quite a lot, African animals are very beautiful and don't need lots of plants and rocks to make them stand out.

I wish I could add in some dead trees I just haven't quite figured out how to get enough of a realistic-looking tree that would also be able to hold up an animal figure. I've been apprehensive to work on more "forest" displays because you can't have a forest without trees but its quite tricky to make them. I know Bullyland made a stork standing on a nest and I would love to find that model at some point.

I'm certainly planning on adding Papo's African fish eagle

I think the mandrills would certainly be much better in the Congo I agree, maybe I can put my black-backed jackal or honey badger pair there instead.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The drinking giraffe & zebra are some of my favorite Schleich figures, I really wish we had some more animals grazing/drinking like some deer and antelopes!

Joliezac wrote:

I wish I could add in some dead trees I just haven't quite figured out how to get enough of a realistic-looking tree that would also be able to hold up an animal figure. I've been apprehensive to work on more "forest" displays because you can't have a forest without trees but its quite tricky to make them

I think you'd need to use bases - and BIG bases, like screw a whole coaster to the bottom of each tree big Which would obviously look terrible if you placed them in afterwards, but not if you picked where you wanted your trees to be growing, then built your scenery over the top of the coaster from the ground up, so it's completely hidden with only the tree trunk sticking up above your terrain and foliage and general set-dressing stuff. Plus you could weight the base with an extra rock or two on the opposite side to where you want the weight of the figure to be.

George wrote:

Joliezac wrote:

I wish I could add in some dead trees I just haven't quite figured out how to get enough of a realistic-looking tree that would also be able to hold up an animal figure. I've been apprehensive to work on more "forest" displays because you can't have a forest without trees but its quite tricky to make them

I think you'd need to use bases - and BIG bases, like screw a whole coaster to the bottom of each tree big Which would obviously look terrible if you placed them in afterwards, but not if you picked where you wanted your trees to be growing, then built your scenery over the top of the coaster from the ground up, so it's completely hidden with only the tree trunk sticking up above your terrain and foliage and general set-dressing stuff. Plus you could weight the base with an extra rock or two on the opposite side to where you want the weight of the figure to be.

That is a great idea George! I usually use branches as trees but they always fall over and I'm usually wedging them in-between rocks in attempt to keep them standing. Maybe I could also use foam blocks to push the trees down into and glue into place also.

Another small display: The Sahara Desert!

I'm not sure if these oryx species are found in the Sahara or the barbary sheep so it can just be African desert/shrubland.

I really love the colors on this shelf and I used some of my orange sand and rocks to really make the colors pop. I like it much more than my old one, here are some photos

Old display:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

New display:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Incredibly good, and this time, a very very very great improvement from the old to the new display, both in animals shown, desing and background landscape. The new one is superb, I would say unbeatable. The old one was just a desert mix with gemsbocks (Namib desert), fennecs (Sahara desert), dromedaries (Arabian Peninsula deserts), camels (Gobi desert) and even rattlesnake+Joshua trees in the background (North American deserts). This time, all animals and background are much more fitting together. The tree oryx species are not sympatric and the only one native in Sahara (tough completely exterminated from the wild) is the scimitar-horned, but they actually fit very well together. I love the Egyptian vulture! But the best part of the exhibit I think is the fennec family - they match so good together!

All your dioramas are wonderful, but for some reason I just adore this Sahara one