What is a diorama?
Traditionally a diorama was a shadow box or three-dimensional picture,however in our modern era it has come to encompass just about anything where objects are positioned in such a way as to interrelate with each other and usually tell or suggest a story.The key is that it must be three dimensional.The setting can be very realistic or fanciful depending upon your own imagination.The magic of the diorama is that it takes a somewhat static object or group of objects and makes them come alive.In my mind it takes the craft of modelling and elevates it into the realm of art.I think that it is the highest expression of what we do as modellers.The whole craft vs art controvery just slips away and becomes irrelevent and even the kit vs scratch dilemma really doesnt matter because now the focus is on your creative ability to raise an emotional response in your viewer. Let your imagination run wild,contact that 10 year old kid that exists in all of us and you cant help but be a successful dioramist.Cheers! John

Best book?
I think that Shep Paine is probably the modern day master of the diorama.
His book "How to build dioramas " belongs on every modelers bookshelf or preferably their workbench.It is not expensive and is readily available. I will mention other books later but this is the best place to start especially for the basics.
Dioramas are not hard to do but they do change the focus a bit from pure model building to storytelling, using your own models.

I think that Shep Paine is probably the modern day master of the diorama.
His book "How to build dioramas " belongs on every modelers bookshelf or preferably their workbench.It is not expensive and is readily available.
Another great book along the same lines is "How to build car dioramas" by my modeling bud Ken Hamilton.It is out of print now but he has given me permission to use it for teaching purposes.Many marine diorama scenes could include harbors or docks that could contain any number of things worth building other than just the ship model.Wharves,sheds,figures,barn siding,bricks and masonry walls etc...etc..whatever your imagination can come up with. That is the fascinating thing about diorama making it can encompass such a wide variety of subjects and modeling techniques.

Great build, great story, great mini-lesson, thanks for sharing!

Well I guess we will start with modifying and painting figures.Ken Hamilton came up with a very good diagram of how to do this.In this case a pic is worth a thousand words.His book is out of print and he has personally cleared me to use it for teaching purposes.

If you want to put figures on your diorama there are a few decisions that will have to be made early on.Will you be scratch building or modifying pre-made figures or something in between?If your building figures from scratch then any scale that you feel comfortable with is OK.But if your like most of the rest of us you will be modifying figures to suit your needs.There are a lot of great figures out there now but not in all scales.Take a look at great models.com, they have a lot of figures in many scales.There are more and more all the time and I know if ship modelers were using them they would manufacture them if the demand was there.Right now the armour guys have the greatest variety in 1/35 scale because they have been into dioramas for a long time.The airplane guys building in 1/32 scale will sometimes use the armour stuff when they can.Different manufactures do differ a bit so measure them yourself and you may be surprised. Also remember humans,animals and even tools vary in size in real life 1:1 scale.
I received the Model Expo catalog the other day and was thinking about this thread.There are a few great possibilities.My choice right now would be HMS Vanguard in 1/72 scale.If I had a few thousand extra hours to devout to it ,it would make for a great storyboard diorama either waterline or free standing.There are lots of 1/72 figures available in Napoleonic uniform which could easily be modified to crew the ship.You have a choice to of bare poles,harbor or full sail rig in calm or stormy seas.
There are other choices too.1/48,1/32,1/24 and even HO for the RR guys and even my current scale 1/16th.Numerous figures are available for all of these. to be cont....... Questions or comments?

OK,so now back to the subject at hand.
Now that we have decided on a scale and have good access to lots of figures we can move on.
Usually the larger the figure the easier it is to modify but not always.The Napoleonic figures that I used really didn't need a lot of modification, mostly the cutting off of unwanted items of uniform and some re-positioning of heads and limbs.(See Ken's diagram).The same figures that I used on Victory could be used on Vanguard .They are 1/72 scale and very well made.You will have to get familiar with using an xacto knife # 11 blade though ,as sanding only creates a rough and fuzzy surface which is very hard to paint. In fact in some ways a tooled surface looks even better and more like you would expect if your figures were scratch made from wood.I will post a few pics of the figures i used. to be cont........Comments or questions?
Very Happy

These are the five different sets I used and in some cases only one or two of the figures from a set.The seated figures are great for oarsmen etc...all except the civil war set are in period uniforms.Even the civil war guys came in handy with a few modifications.

Hi Guys! I know it has been awhile since I posted anything to this thread.
I have been very busy getting my aircraft dioramas ready for donation to the Canada Aviation Museum.The new part of the construction is to be finished in Feb of next year but my dioramas will need to be ready to go well before that ,as they will be doing the finishing for public presentation.The fourth and last large 1/16th scale aircraft diorama will only be finished in a year or two after that, then I plan to concentrate upon finishing the running rigging part of the Victory thread and then bread box size shadow boxes of various subjects.I am very anxious to really get into shadow boxes but my other commitments must come first.
Cheers! John.