Mini India diorama

I have nothing going on right now, the Japanese kits are still not here, the store says they were mailed, but tomorrow will be two weeks since I paid for them.

Anyway, I decided to make a mini Indian diorama. I took a 30x18 inch piece of 1 / 4 inch foam board and cut the river into it. The foam board has paper on each side, so what I did was to cut the top layer of paper, and removed the foam down to the bottom layer of paper.
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Next I painted the bottom of the river, some I am going to color the water a muddy brown, but I do not want any light color to show through.
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I have already cast and painted the rocks, so I began piecing them together, the opposite bank of the river will be raised so I wanted at least 4 or 5 inches.
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I then began to put together the rock bank. I used a different type of plaster, this type when mixed with water can be molded and sculpted. I used it to attach the rock to each othe and to the base of the bank
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Since I had to use some glue to hide the cracks, I decided to attach some grass to the crevices in the rocks. this may be a mistake as I have to paint the base, and the grass may get in the way, but the glue is down so I decided to try it this way. I can always repaint the grass with a green color to hide any gray paint I get on them.
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I put down saran wrap in the river, to hold the water. I am using a new type of artificial water, Magic Water, it is a two part epoxy that can be colored with any acrylic paint or enamal and poured up to 1 / 2 inch at a time. The old stuff could only be poured at 1/8th of an inch and took forever to set up For the African rock pool it took 5 days to get the water to the level I wanted. This river will only be 1 / 4 inch, that would have taken 2 days to pour but, with this new product I can do it in 1 day and it will set up in a few hours (it still takes 24 hours to fully cure, but in a couple of hours I can work around it). I also put the rocks into the stream, when the water is poured it will be colored, so you can not see the bottom but the tops of the rocks will stick up giving it a shallow Appearance.
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Finally I just put the Banyon on the foam, and took a pic of the whole thing as it sits, I still need to get to the hobby shop, I have to have more of the green mat, and I ran out of light gray paint . the Magic Water is online, so it should be here in a week, depending on when and how they ship it.
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Wow. That is going to look so neat. I can't wait to see more photos of it as you go.

It looks fantastic Phil!

Thanks, here are a few more pics with some grass and animals added.
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It looks really good with the animals and the tree looks super.

HKHollinstone wrote:

It looks really good with the animals and the tree looks super.

I absolutely agree, it's a very good start ! I like the idea of two different ground levels.

Here is a couple of new pics, I still have not Received the Japanese plant kits, I fear they are lost as I ordered them on the 5th of the month (actually the 4th but it was Easter Sunday so the order did not get looked at until the 5th). I did find a company in Michigan that sells a Spanish version of the same thing, but instead of giant bamboo Simon bamboo. Either way, that was sent priority mail Monday so I expect it today or tomorrow. Well, just like the Japanese kits, it is only the foliage, I have to paint the color and make the stems. I sculpted 3 main stems, baked and painted them, and placed them where they are going to go on the diorama. The upper part of the diorama, in the grass field is where I wanted them to go, so I placed them and took some photos.

Here they are
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And a close up of the three
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Anyway, since I do not actually have the kit, I did not want to make too many just incase they do not fit, or are too big or too small, the goal is to have a good sized grove, with about 40 individual plants, grouped together like in nature. If these work I bought the kit will make six, 4 to 5 inch plants. I want mine to be a mix of sizes, from 4 to at least 8 inches each Sun kit will only make 3 or 4 plants, but that is ok, I just have to buy more kits to get the effect I want.

Ther pics look very promising Phil!
The different levels always make depth into a diorama.
When i make interiours for fish-tanks, i do exactly the same, making 2 or even more levels.

It is looking awesome already Phil. Can't wait to see what you can do with the kits when they get there. You are very talented.