My Indian/Asian diorama journal

I think I mentioned that I wanted a journal of the African diorama, but I got lazy and did not do it. I decided that I would post this one, at least weekly, the progress on it, so all of you can make comments and suggestions as they come up and in the end make it easier to do any changes.

First post is not going to be really exciting, but it will give my vision of what I want the final diorama to look like. There will be some photos in this post, but when the build gets going full speed, as in text when the new plans kits get here and I start to put them together, there will be lots of pics and less.

For starters here is the vision that I see when I imagine the finished diorama. The size will be a little bigger then the original African diorama, which is 3 foot by 2 foot, India will be about 4 ft by 2.5 or 3ft, the foam board is 3 ft now, but space may make me go a little shorter. Starting from the right, back corner, about 1 / 4 of the diorama will be a tropical forest. Here there will be a front tigress, watching the grazers on the grass in. I also have some tapirs and wild type pheasents, plus many of the small forest type animals hidden. The centerpiece of this forest will be Danny's fig tree, it should make a very impressive disply. In front of this will be some trees, and a large grass flat, where the antelope and Ana (though they are not made yet) some spotted deer. Here also will be a small herd of gaur, maybe 4 total as it they had just come out of the forested area and were heading to the water. The forest will be slightly elevated, but the grass will be almost flat, with a very slight slope to the River.

On the left, from about the center of the edge to the front of the diorama will be a deep river. On the grass side it will be a rock edge, with mud and the water will be flowing and muddy, not clear like the African water hole. The river will be at least 4 inches wide, but I will try to make it as wide as possible, because I have some really good ideas for it, but 4 inches will be enough for what I am doing. On the inside corner, the front right corner of the diorama, will be a raised platform, that side of the bank will be a rocky rise at least 4 or 5 inches tall, with some grass growing between the rocks and as a centerpiece a partially covered tree. The tree will be still very much alive, as if it fell but still survived, from the middle or far edge of the river the tree trunk will go from horizontal to verticle, as if the tree fell a long time ago and now is growing up toward the sun. There will be so thick vines growing on the trunk horizontally, and here will be a langur troop. I only have two right now, but I want at least 6 total. On the raised area, the front right corner will be another thick forested area, with a large bamboo stand as it's centerpiece and a bunch of tropical type plants and trees. The new kits have strangler figs as one of the plants available so I am going to get at least one. The kit makes a juvinile tree, 5 to 6 inches tall, but I think I will make it shorter, but fuller, or buy two kits and just keep a single 6 inch tree with twice the foliage.

I do not have an idea for animals for this section yet, so please feel free to make suggestions, I have about 75 species of Indian wildlife, so there are lots of choices, for instance I have Indian rhino and baby, orangatangs, at least 3 more monkey species, gibbons and many Indian birds. I do not know how much I can fit on my space, but like Africa, I do not mind crowding the animals into the space, this is not necessarily a picture of nature as an example of what would live in this habitat.

I have some great ideas for the river, first I want a herd of elephants, I now have 2 males, but both are aggressive in charging, pose. I want a natural herd, which will be all females, but except for Safari's new elephant there are no models in the correct scale. I also want to put a wild water buffalo in the river, here are the figures I have from the old Marx brand, the Daktari Jungle playset had two domestic water buffalo figures, as if cut off in the deep water. Here are the figures,
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I like the wild type buffalo better, I believe they are the same species, but the wild buffalo is stronger and has much bigger horns, all in all a much more impressive animal.

Well, that is the idea to date, I have some things already done, many of the custom and brand name animals are already finished, some of the trees are finished and in the mail, but the actual start of the landscaping will begin as soon As I make the table to put the foam board on. From now on the pics ot the new planning kits will be here, as well as any new figures that I find to use. If anyone has any suggestions or Indian animals to trade or sell, my scale is 1:22, and I do not care if I have the species as long as it is in a pose I do not have. I do not care about brand, but size and quality of the model must be correct, I can repaint if the colors are wrong, but if it does not look like the animal in nature I can not use it. One more thing, even if you do not have the particular figure for sale or trade if it is worth having let me know about it and I can try to find one from someone else or on ebay.

Those buffalos look really great and your diorama sounds really beautiful Phil.

Sounds good Phil, and those buffalo's look good too!
Are they made by the old Marx models?
I mean if they were the example for these two?
I think so, yes?

WILLYBACOMAN wrote:

Sounds good Phil, and those buffalo's look good too!
Are they made by the old Marx models?
I mean if they were the example for these two?
I think so, yes?

Yes they are, I used to have both of the Marx jungle sets, Daktari and Tarzan, these are not from my original sets, those are long gone, they are from an ebay auction, but they are not recasts, they are the original soft plastic.

Oh ok, i thought these ones you showed here, were already the new casts, made by Ana or so, and only needed the painting to be done...

I don't have the actual product yet, but I sent an email to the hobby store asking a few questions, the most important of which was, what is the actual size of the leaves on the cuttout. He replied that the sheet with the leaves on it is 4x6 inches. From there I printed up a copy with those exact dimensions, so I now know exactly how big the stalks should be. This kit contains 5 species, I am only working on two right now, the Philodendron bipinnatifidum, and P. brasil (sometimes spelled brazil, but it is an Asian species). P bipinnatifidum has arrow head shaped leaves with deep notches in them, and P brasil has oval or round leaves, also with notches.

Here is a pic of the sheet as it will come to me, remember if you want to see it lifesized, it is 4x6 in inches.
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I did have to resculpt the stalks, they were a little too big, but the resculpt went well, and once done I baked the clay, and then painted it. I don't have any foliage so the stalks may look funny, but I did cut out the leaves and tape them to the stalks, I should have taken pictures with the temporary leaves on, but I didn't do a very good job of cutting the leaves off the paper, with all my shaking I am suprised I didn't hurt myself.

Anyway, here is the pic of the stalk, the upright one is for P. bipinnatifidum, the creeping stalk is for the P. brasil.
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I also found out that the kits won't be mailed until tomorrow, he has them boxed and addressed, but with all the back orders he is behind schedule so they will go out tomorrow. I chose priority mail so should be here by monday. As soon as I get Danny's fig tree (which is also supposed to be here by Monday) and the kits the photo content of this thread will go way up.

Hope you are following my build, and as always feel free to make suggestions, and thanks for looking.

I really like your leaf cut-outs, they look lovely.

[Quote = "HKHollinstone"] I really like your leaf cut-outs, they look lovely. [/ Quote]

I saw the finished product online and couldn't believe how real the plants look, not at all like the old style train landscaping materials. I don't know why more model train people don't use products like this one or Selkirk. The only thing I can think of is these are expensive and not that easy to put together and maybe because of the amount of landscaping trains take to complete it isn't worth the money or time. The other thing is these come in only 2 scales, 1:32-35, or 1:48 and that is not a common train scale. The scale 1:32-35 is the most common military scale, I don't know why they have a range, but for a plant that isn't as important as a figure. If I put a 1:22 zebra next to a 1:32 zebra, the difference is huge, but as plants do have a maximum size, they do not always grow to that size becsause of environmental conditions such as available sunlight or water, so to have plants with different leaf sizes is what happens in nature.

I think these plants, along with the Selkirk tree and bush leaves will give me the best possible landscaping I could hope to achieve. Ad to that the custome pieces that I am having done (by Danny's plant guy)and it will give me a diorama that is as detailed as any in a museum.

It's going to look really beautiful!

Good stuff Phil!
It will look awesome when they are ready!

Looks and sounds great Phil. I can't wait to see more pictures.

I decided not to wait for the first fake foliage picture, it is of one of the Philodendron, P. brasil, and I only put 3 leaves on it. But the main thing is you know have an idea of what the finished product will look like. Just for your info, the flash made the stalk shine, in regular light it is a flat color, but I also may repaing the stalk, after looking at 100's of photos brown, the green is all wrong and the color should be much more. I did not actually notice how green it was until I really looked at the downloaded photos I took. Repaint is easy, so that will be done tomorrow and I hope the foliage will be here no later then Monday.

Here is the pic, enjoy
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Dear Phil, thank you for showing this wonderful pieces of art here! Can't wait to see more pictures of your dioramas!

Well, I guess I have too much time on my hands. I decided to just make a philodendron from scratch. I decided on what was easy to do, I chose P. maximum. It has easy to make, arrowhead-shaped leaves. I know it is from South America, but I wanted to do a complete one so I knew I could do it, and how hard it would be. Well the hardest part was to cut the leaves off the paper I chose, the precut kits have the leaves with a tab that just has to be removed after painting, so they will be much easier to make. If this plan is any indication as to the building of the kit, these are going to be easy and look even better then mine, I just drew a leaf shape, painted it and cut the leaf off of the paper. I used thick paper sketch artist, I have a pad that I make my diagrams for the diorama on, and it holds the paint without soaking through.

After the paint was dried and the leaves cut I only had to glue them onto the stalk. What I decided, since this was an experiment which recommended to use the glue, PVA (PVA I used industrial, but Elmer's is the most common brand) crazy glue, gel type, foam and tack glue to decide which one was the easiest to use . Both the PVA foam and tack glue were easier then the crazy glue, so when the kits come I will use the recommended glue.

Here are 4 pictures from different angles, I am still shaking and the flash washed the colors out, but I am fairly pleased with the finsihed plans. I do not think I would do it from scratch for the model, I am not that good of an artist to make my own leaves, but for fun I am very happy with the whole process and it only makes the wait for my new kits that much harder. Now for the photos.
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Please tell me what you think, just remember that the color of the leaves is much flatter and more natural then the photos show, but you will get the idea, I had a lot of fun, and I can tell that professionally made of the leaves different plants is going to make a big difference in the finshed piece.

Ok, you want a tip...
I am quit good in decorating fish-tanks with all kinds of materials.
I think, you need to make some of the leaf-stalks longer then the others, so you will get a difference in lenght.
The side of the plant that has the longer ones, you can turn to the back-side of the diorama.
See, that you turn the leaf-side to the side where the front is.
When you will make more plants eventually, see that you will put different plants next to eachother, with different kind of leaves, and/or colour, that will look much better in the end-result.
lightgreen, looks better next to dark-green or reddish or brown, with different leaf-shapes, or even brown coloured wood pieces or stones in natural colours.
Just try out some things in the diorama, and you will see what you like the most....

Willy, thanks, I know it doesn't show well in the pic, but there are several sizes of leaves, the idea to make the stalks different is also there, the ones towards the end are twice as long as the new leaf stalks at the growing front end. What I will do is make it even more exagerated because when you look at the plant in person, it is apparent, but in the photos you are right they all look similar size. I think if I make it very exagerated the end results will be closer to your vision, and people will be able to tell in the photos.

That is exactly what I am looking for, ideas that make it more natural when I show it off.

I am still not totally happy with the photos, but I took some close ups that show the different size leaves, and you can see that some stalks are longer then others because the leaves are sort of stacked when looking.

here are the photos, but Willy, you are right I need to make the size difference even greater to accent the fact that they are all different size.
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I hope it helped you Phil...
Do you have pictures of the real plant Phil?
That would help me more to give the right comments or critics i think...

It looks really good, I think your pictures came out nicely with the sunlight.