Forest Diorama

Note: This article was written by Minos, rights to this article and to the pictures enclosed in this article belong to him. The translation from french to english was done by Arthur Muguet (FrenchKid)the making of a forest diorama By Minos ( For the diorama alone I think you should count at least 40 to 50 hours ) 1/ Study of the scene, two centaurs pursuing intruders on their land. Search for a balance between the landscape and the position of the fights. The structure of the display is made out of Styrofoam, the trunks of the trees are some dry branches that have been broken to give them a natural aspect. The central point towards which the eye should be attracted is going to be the duel of Baal the conqueror 2/ Placing of the complements to the display, white glue +plaster + sand, I glued on the rocks (cork), and built and glued the branches of the trees ( copper wires ) 3/ I now move on to the painting stage, I undercoated the whole thing with black + dark brown, the clear zones you see here are made of sand I glued on after I applied the undercoat to represent the texture of the moss often present in the Underwood. 4/Once the undercoat is dry I start on the actual painting. Fist I painted the stones in tones of grey, the moss in different tones of brown/green. the whole thing is then brought together by different washes of brown/green ochre. The aim at that point is to create a unity and not just some clean stones standing out in the middle of a field of spotless moss. The nest steps will consist in highlighting by successive drybrushe the rocks and the moss. 5/ here’s a close up of the diorama, at that point the different highlighting steps have already started. 6/ on that picture the main highlights are finished, a couple of moss of a darker color have been added to break the uniformity of the ground, and to bring a bit more texture. The trunks are done in tones of brown/green and then highlighted by adding a green/grey color to the initial color. The trees are at the beginning of their realization, most importantly they’re missing their foliage. 7/ the ground is almost done, you can see on this picture the feel of a mountain Underwood that I’m trying to recreate. The roots were added to the trees using green stuff, and the junctions between the branches and the trunk are done in milipute, the whole thing is done so that the difference between the natural wood and the green stuff isn’t too noticeable. 8/ This is the last step before including the minis in the diorama. On those pictures the painting of the trees is finished, I added some pineapples made out of the end of some dry flowers that were cut and then solidified with glue, and then painted in different tones of brown. For the green foliage, I used some asparagus ( used by florists, thanks C petit…) that I varnished so that they didn’t crumble. I then repainted them in the correct tints using an airbrush. For the dry foliage I used the bristle of a brush made of pork silk, painted and then cut and glued under the trees, the whole thing was then brought together by a small juice and an ultimate dry brush…. I can say that I took great pleasure in making this diorama, and it is faithful to the memories I have of my walks in the forests in the mountain of the Pyrenees. I hope that you’ll like it and that it’ll help you do the same. The finnished Diorama