New African diorama pictures

Hello all, I was out doing some work on the extension and decided to take some pictures of the animals. I ended up taking about 40 pictures, but most did not really come out, but I chose a few and would like to share them.

First, I do not keep the animals out on the diorama, so they are not always in the same place, I wanted a shot of the cape buffalo, you can not see all three, which I did not realize, but here is the best shot of them that I took.
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Here is the zebra herd
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The ostrich family
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Here is the Bontebok and gerenuk
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Eland and rhino
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The baboon troop
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An isolated shot of the gerenuk
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The pr impala that I have, I hope to eventually have made 4 more, 3 females and a dead female in the tree as the leopards kill
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Hyenas
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The zebra duiker
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The yellow-backed duiker and the caracal
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The warthogs, I hope one of the major brands makes more, especially young, normally more then one baby is born at a time, so it would be nice to have 3 or 4 juvinile warthogs, and I could move the rest around as they are not herding animals, but for picture purposes I wanted all of them shown.
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Well that is enough for now, I am getting close to finishing the landscaping for the extension, when that is done all that will be left to do it match up the two pieces and finish getting the plants

Hats off, Phil!

Wow! Your amazing diorama every time looks better and better Phil! Trees from Danny and all your new trees are beautiful. I love duikers repainted by You. And zebras herd has new bushes around, and gerenuks have some fresh leaves to eat.. Simply superb

[Quote = "off twilight"] Hats, Phil! [/ Quote]

Thanks for the compliments, I am very pleased with the results, and as these new Japanese plant kits come in I think the dioramas will be even better.

This will be a great week, the estimated delivery date for the banyon tree is Monday the 12th (tomorrow), the first of the plant kits were mailed priority 1-3 day mail on thursday, so I expect them tomorrow as well, and the dead tree scene was mailed Friday, so Monday or Tuesday it should also be here. Look for the pictures as soon as I recieve them.

Congratulation Phil for you ever changing and growing dio. :)

The trees are very fine, and I can't wait seeing the new ones.

So many changes since the first pics...

It looks simply Fantastic Phil, I love seeing it all.

Keep on doing the good work Phil!
It looks better with every change you make!

I have added more grass, bushes and a few more that I made myself, Danny's trees have not arrived yet, but I expect them tomorrow or Monday. I took tha antelope out to the shop and set them up in some different spots, so here are the new photos.

The gerenuk
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Here is the Bontebok
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I made a track in some of the new grass, and put the caracal into it, here is a close up of him coming out of the grass.
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And finally the eland, over by the dead brush scene.
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Hope you enjoy.

Beautiful pictures Phil. They look great. You have done such an awesome job on the diorama. Can't wait to see the new trees and the addition added.

... Excellent dioramas. Congratulations. .... Jorge

Lovely Phil, the Caracal is really nice, what make is it, or did Ana make it?

Those pics fantastic, i wish i could see that diorama, do you have any videos of it here in the site?
Could somebody tell me what company produced this two cape buffalos, and if there is a link to where i could get them in the net, i do not think they are schleich, but they look very well made.
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There are actually three in the photo, but you can't see the Schleich model as it is behind the other two. The one with the birds on it's back is Safari Ltd, and the other is Papo. I get most of my figures from T.G.F.Toys, they are online under that name.

That site has a lot of animals, and the prices are really good as well, thank you, i'm getting those cape buffalos.

[Quote = "Rick_schleich"] That site has a lot of animals, and the prices are really good as well, thank you, I'm getting those cape buffalo. [/ Quote]

I like the site, I use them a lot, but I am changing my models to custom sculptures because I can make the poses and species that I really like. As I mentioned in earlier post, look back through the Indian and African threads by me and look at some of the custom animals, there are some really unususl species and the sculptures are fantastic.

Berlinzoo has some great trees and bushes, and I am a part of the design for the ones that are not already made. One of the best things to ever happen to me (and him for that matter) is he switched to 1:12 scale, my scale is 1:22 so my figures are about 1/2 his. But he started with a 1:24 scale so the plants fit perfectly with my diorama. I could not use animals, even the difference between 22 and 24 would make animals funny looking, but plants are not all the same size, so scale is ok if it is close. If you make dioramas scale is very important when looking at the finished product, and you have to look at the size of the figures, T.G.F. lists every size when you select a figure so you can tell what size it will be and you can decide if it will fit on your diorama. I chose the scale based on the Schleich zebras, and several of the figures I have purchased do not fit. Safari is a little bigger, 1:20 for most figures, papo and Schleich have different scales, even within a series. Any help I can give if you make a dio, let me know, I love doing the landscaping, and I make all of my own rocks, grass, and small bushes, most plants under an inch in scale, but bigger ones are custom models.

Wow !

These are truly amazing pictures. I really love horned and hooved animals. I have not seen the Eland or any of the similar animals before. I shall have to keep my eye out for some !

Welcome to the furum Rhiannon, glad you found us.

The figures you are talking about are custom made sculptures. There are very few elands, Britians is the only one that comes to mind, but I am sure there are people on the site who know more then me. I started the diorama a little more then a year ago, when I was a child I used to make smaller ones. If you look at some of the older posts and pictures I used to make my trees like model railroad style, but lately I have been getting custom trees, or making my own using Selkirk Scenery and other diorama supplies. I use a lot of Woodland Scenics products and have one of the best diorama/model shops here in the U.S.A. called Michigan Toy Soldiers. When the species or poses I wanted were not available from the brand name companies I started looking around and found some of the most talented sculptors right here on the site. Ana and Yurumi do some of the best figures I have ever seen. Berlinzoo954 doesn't do sculptures himself, but he has several professional model makers that do such great work on his animals and plants, in fact his model maker is who I get my trees and bushes from.

If you like hoofed stock, there are now some great models made by Schleich, Papo, and Safari. My favorite brands are the Japanese models, Colorata, Kaiyodo and Furtura/ChocoQ are some that come to mind. They have a few hoofed animals, but their species selection and the quality of the models is the best around. I get mine from several individuals, but they can be found very inexpensively from ebay.

Good luck with your collections, and hope you post some pictures, that is my favorite part of the site, as I don't collect series, I love to see everyone elses animal figures.

Thank you for the information

Those are some very talented people to make them !

I've just recently got some Woodland Scenic grass which I hope to use in a set up. Not sure what sort of set up yet as I usually just make paddocks, fences and stables for my model horses. I'm hoping to venture out and make some landscapes for my poor neglected Schleich animals.

I sure will post some pictures ! I'm quite an avid photo shower with my Breyer models. Now to get some in scale accessories for the Schleich !

There are more elands Phil, but all very similar or copies of another.
Blacherie Freres in lead from Kiki's collection for example.

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These are two Britains in plastic from the 1970s.

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This is my Britains with two Hong Kong copies, all 1970s.

I'm sorry Willy but I like bigger pics !

The BLANCHERIE FRERES models from 1920 to 1940

Excusez moi mon ami!

The Elands were not so rare as toys in the XXth century.

There is also a very very very fine CLAIRET from the 1950's


And How we could forget the mighty 1/20 scale eland from LINEOL ( 1938 to 1960's) ???

How could i forget those 2???
The king...

WILLYBACOMAN wrote:

Excusez moi mon ami!

You're welcome

Merci!