Throughout my time modeling, I’ve never tried a diorama. I came across a subject though that lead to my first diorama attempt.
I’ve always been fascinated by the Stonehenge monument and when I discovered a novelty model of the prehistoric stone circle, a project began to work it’s way through the ol’ brain.
Obviously the printed stones representing stones on the ground was not enough. I picked up a separate kit to have the parts for extra stones, the project took off.
Information on the monument is plentiful. Printing an available plan roughly to the “scale” of the kit stones, I mounted it for use as the model’s base.
The “stones” are cast from some kind of hard rubber. It was easy to cut them with an Xacto chisel, but the substance was too hard to sand and round off to more resemble the monument stones’ shapes.
I had to settle for approximate shapes, which was OK since the kit stones didn’t precisely match the monument anyway.
Photos of the monument helped with weathering the stones, etc.
The model:
And one for scale:
Applying the turf was complicated by having to mount the stones to the base first. So the gluing and sealing the turf had to dodge the stones. I primed the stones with Tamiya fine gray primer, then painted them and weathered them with a mix of Accu-color and Acryl acrylics.
The smallest stones are chips from an almost used-up bar of soap.
While I can’t say it is an actual scale model of the ancient monument, I believe I got a close enough representation to make it interesting.
There is a replica alongside the Columbia River in Washington about 100 miles east of Portland. Got to get over the river and take a look at it one of the trips up the Gorge.
Several years ago I picked up a “kit” like this at Barnes and Noble. Its not really a model to build, but not really a “playset” either. I bought it with the idea of using it in a D&D game. However, the stones are a little small for standard 25 mm figures used in gaming. Maybe even to small for 15 mm.
Oh wow, that is neat! I’d never have thought about building something like that, cool idea and it came out great!
You don’t mention what part of Virginia you live in but if you ever get out toward Natural Bridge check out Foam Henge. A local artist built a replica out of huge hunks of industial styrofoam! I’ve never visited the real thing but painted up I swear it looks just like the photos except where vandals have ripped out hunks of styrofoam leaving white patches. [:@]
WOW! Awesome! That’s what I said when I first saw this. Very cool, and creative. It’s tool bad about the that some people just can’t appreciate art in any form, and therefore feel that it’s their duty to destroy it! We have (HAD) the only G.E. sign on top of the building (the last in the country) that my mother worked at now being vandalized was stored away this tuesday until they can figure out what to do with what’s left of the original campus.
