Totoro's Dinotales Microramas

[totoro]

Hi folks,

I found a little time this weekend to start making small dioramas for my Kaiyodo Chocolasaurs (I have most, except for sets 4 and 6). I'm somewhat of a novice when it comes to prehistoric habitat - and definitely when it comes to sculpting/painting. I have no formal training in either, so be gentle with your critiques, at least at first.

That said, I definitely welcome suggestions for improving these. My goal is to develop my meager skills to start to produce better dioramas that have more detail and are as accurate as possible, with regard to species used, and scale, etc.

Anyway, here are a two I made over the weekend, starring Megatherium and Protoceratops. Both are kind of staged to be foraging. The bases are made from sculpey modified by paint, rocks, sand, etc. The foliage is mimicked by sculpey/painted artificial plants in the case of the Protoceratops' cycad and painted Spiraea flowers used as surrogate conifers for Megatherium.

Thanks for looking. ;D I'll post some more in the future when I find some time to make them.

[DinoLord]

Dang, these are good! Maybe you can start doing them on commission someday. one thing though. When placing scenery objects such as plants or rocks, make sure to place them in odd numbers; it seems more natural.

[zopteryx]

Love the sloth!!! The Protoceratops looks like it needs a nest of some kind, but that's just me.

[Griffin]

Wow those are really cool! I'd like to see more.

[stoneage]

Where did you get the Cycads? They look pretty good.

[Megaraptor]

I'd like to see some more of these, but maybe in the Dioramas section.

[totoro]

Thank you for the comments and suggestions so far.

DinoLord, you are right about the odd numbers. I may end up adding a third plant to each just to add that aesthetic dimension.

Zopteryx, you're right, a nest would be excellent. I shall have to try one with my other Protoceratops (greenish version). Making the eggs would be fun, I think.

Griffin, I shall make an post more, this weekend, I hope, although I'm a serious Packer fan, so not sure how productive I can be until after the Superbowl.

Thanks stonage. I made the bases of the "cycads" out of sculpey. I added the "fronds" by buying a cheap sprig of plastic fern in a craft store, and then adding it to the clay base.

Megaraptor, I appreciate your encouragement and completely logical suggestion. Had I known there was a Diorama section, I would have started this thread there, apologies. Is there an easy way to have it moved?

[Himmapaan]

These are lovely, Totoro! I like the Protoceratops especially.

[Seijun]

More!

[bokisaurus]

Feb 2, 2011 0:13:44 GMT DinoLord said:

Dang, these are good! Maybe you can start doing them on commission someday. one thing though. When placing scenery objects such as plants or rocks, make sure to place them in odd numbers; it seems more natural.

Great idea! I like how they are individual and not a whole big scene, it focus it back to the figure.
I agree, odd numbers of objects would make it more natural looking. Ok, now I wan to see you do a underwater one! Keep up, I would love to see how the project evolve

[totoro]

Thank you Boki, Himmapaan and Seijun.

I started another one tonight and thought I'd post some progress photos. The plan is to build a stream-edge scene, sort of a sandy bank where the stream slows. I think this might be a good setting for a few of my dinotales, and I'm showing some pictures of some of them posed as they might appear in the finished piece.

After I finish molding this (need to smooth it out a lot, add in some more plant detail and textures on the trees/logs, etc.), I'll bake it, paint the base colors, add on some sand and rocks, paint the tree stump and plants (and rotting logs in the water) and then hopefully add a clear resin to flood the piece, although not sure how that will turn out.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. Thank you for looking.


Base


Close-up showing some of the veg and a tree stump (crudely textured with a lego piece to mimic a Lepidendron-like tree)


Another view


Diplocaulus posing


Eryops posing


Rutiodon posing

[ikessauro]

Pretty good work there. I'm sure after the water is there it will look very realistic.

[crazycrowman]

Very nice work Totoro, these look excellent!

[brontodocus]

Great work, Totoro! Is all the foliage you use from cheap plastic ferns? I would have thought that most of this craft store stuff is too crude but this looks excellent! Can't wait to see more of these.

[stoneage]

Wow that is ingenious! I can't wait to see the finished product. Is all the terrain and trees sculpty?

[Himmapaan]

It's coming along beautifully!

[totoro]

Thank you all for the encouragement. Here are some more photos updating the work on this base. I'm truly winging a lot of this and trying to develop techniques along the way, so there will be a big live-and-learn dimension to these first ones. But I'm more or less just blasting through them to try things that I can refine later.

Anyway, here's what I've done since last time:


Painted base with foundation colors


Closer view of Lepidendron-like tree


Glued rotten logs in stream area, glued down some rocks and sand, added some dark painted foliage/stems to resemble rotting plant material on the river bottom. Toothpicks are stuck into holes where I will put the vegetation.


Added Realistic Water to stream areas. This is newly added, so will take a day or so to cure and turn clear (I guess...never tried it before, so no ideas how this will look tomorrow ;D)

I'll try to post some more tomorrow, which I add the vegetation and touch things up. By then, hopefully the water will be more transparent and will look more realistic. I'd also like to refine the paint job so it's not so blotchy. I really suck as a painter, so that's probably the area I most need to improve.

Anyway, thanks for looking.

[Megaraptor]

You, sir, are absolutely amazing. I may consider getting a commission on one or two, if I can afford it.

[totoro]

Feb 8, 2011 20:44:00 GMT Megaraptor said:

You, sir, are absolutely amazing. I may consider getting a commission on one or two, if I can afford it.

Thank you megaraptor, you're very kind. Such a supportive group on this forum.

I have had almost zero time to play with these this week. Been busy reading all of the glorious news about the Packer's win Sunday when I haven't been crawling into bed to fight a nasty cold. I did take a minute every day to pour another layer of Realistic Water on my swamp diorama base. That stuff takes 24 hours to dry, and though it dries clear, it can only be applied in 1/8" layers and when it dries, it reduces to a fraction of that thickness, so it took several applications even to build up my meager water level.

Anyway, I hope to finish it off this weekend. Here is is after the "water" was added:





I still need to add some kind of sealer to the sand to make it look wet, and then glue in the plants. Then I need to finish the edge painting. I also will probably play around by adding in some dried moss in places to embellish this (the stuff around the base of the tree is just stuck there hastily to try it out, I will modify that to look more realistic), and then perhaps call it good.

It doesn't look exactly as I'd intended, but then again, I have only a vague idea where I'm going with these when I start. I kind of let them evolve as I make them.

I started a 4th one too last night. This will be a diorama for sauropods. Initially intended for two Brachiosaurs dinotales that I have in my collection, but I think the apatosaur will look alright in it too. Here's a sneak peak showing the base and some embedded rocks. The holes are for trees that I will add after I paint it and add some substrate of some kind. Not sure yet how I will do that. May mix some soil in with paint, as it has to be very fine-grained, given the scale of this one.



Thanks for looking. More photos of them when progress is made.

[bokisaurus]

Wow! Looking very nice, that water is looking very real and nice job on the composition on this one Can't wait to see the finished piece

The next one looks good,too