Need advice on a diorama project

[Equus]

Hey folks!

I\'m trying to put together a diorama for my friend and his wife. My friend was called up to active duty US Army (he was due to go off inactive and not be eligible for a normal call up this March ), and I wanted to give he and his wife something to show that I actually give a darn about them. So now that I started painting miniatures again after a two year hiatus, I discovered I had a bunch of Diablo II miniatures that I got for free while working at my last job, so I thought I\'d make a little diorama with the two character types that my friend and his wife play.

Now here\'s where the question and plea for advice comes in. The minis are cast with a not so fantastic rock floor base as part of the mini. The only thing I can think of to do with it to mount these buggers on the diorama is to either use a drop bit in my dremel and make a depression for the base or hack the base off. The latter would be problematic because the easiest way I can think of doing it is to hack the legs off at the ankle and resculpt the feet. The idea of that gives me the creeps since I\'m terrible at sculpting. I guess with the right tools on my dremel I can avoid doing that and hack the base off, but the base itself is like a half cm thick and promises to be a pain to go through.

Any thoughts would be welcome!

 

[ralfmetal]

hi, i personally would use a hacksaw to remove the bulk of the base then use the dremell the shape the remaining base .see if you can get hold some old dental burs (tungsten carbides) these rip through metal like butter and they fit dremell just right..happy chunking.

 

[Equus]

I think I have some burs already from my forays into resin kit building, so I will look it into that. I hadn\'t even really thought about using those for the minis. Thanks!

 

[Itchy]

i\'d just hack off the base around the feet and then use the metal under the feet to put their new base on... file it down if it makes them sit too high.

 

[Trevor]

Yeah, just cut down vertically around the feet to remove the base.

However, I would just make holes in the base to put the figures in though. That way they can be removed if needed.

 

[Equus]

@ Itchy - so basically the idea could be to use the leftover parts of the base on the feet for pegs into the diorama base? That\'s neat. ^_^

@ Trevor - Yeah...I had considered just creating a depression in the diorama base to put the existing figure bases into and just drop them into it. Problem is that it\'s already textured like a dungeon floor, and I was originally thinking about putting it outdoors.

I might go with the idea of the depression and just fill the texture on the mini base so I can match it more easily to whatever I do with the diorama. I\'ll probably have to trace and use my dremel, because the base is irregularly shaped.

All in all, the project is probably going to be a big pain in the butt for what it is, but I guess it\'s for a good cause.

 

[Itchy]

Yup, sounds like you\'ve got the idea. That way you can slip them into the diaroma, or take them out and slip them onto a gaming base

 

[Equus]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I\'ll let you know how it comes out and if I have any other questions or run up against something!