This forced perspective scene was inspired by the classic TV series UFO. Pursued by one of the alien craft, Straker and Ellis have taken refuge in an abandoned factory. The saucer hovers ominously at the far end of the factory, blocking the only escape route.
The shimmering blur effect of the spinning UFO, which I recreated here with the help of a low rpm electric motor, was one of the signature visuals of the series. The superb miniatures created by special effects director Derek Meddings and designer Mike Trim gave the show a sophisticated look which put it in a class by itself.
This diorama is the second I’ve built which is based on UFO. The first was SHADO Yards.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of this blog. Over the past year, I’ve shifted my focus entirely to forced perspective dioramas. Portraying vast distances in a modest sized diorama requires a lot of careful planning to make the end result convincing. I find that I’m spending more time in the design stage to ensure that things turn out the way I expect them to.
I was pleasantly surprised to find a new audience for my book, Diorama Design. It turns out that some of the more aesthetically minded model railroaders out there have taken an interest in the Seven Principles of Design and other concepts in the book. Last month I gave a talk at the British Region NMRA Convention in Aberdeen, Scotland, to promote Diorama Design to this newfound market. The talk was well received.
Over the next year, this blog will continue to feature my own projects, new product announcements, notable diorama exhibitions, and general observations about art and design. Whether you build dioramas, railroads, or just like to read about three-dimensional art, I invite you to stay tuned for another year of Creative Dioramas.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
In the twilight days of WWII, Japanese aircraft manufacturer Kyushu Hikoki K.K. completed two prototypes of a remarkable interceptor called the Shinden. Featuring swept wings, a six-bladed pusher propeller and canards on the forward fuselage, this innovative design held great promise as a deterrent to the B-29 bombers which had begun high altitude bombing of Japan. However, the Shinden wasn’t put into production in time to fulfill its intended role.
This forced perspective diorama presents a ‘what if’ scenario based on the Shinden entering service sooner and changing the course of the war in the Pacific. A lone Shinden prepares to pounce on Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber tasked with dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
Returning from a treacherous sortie in North Africa, a battle-weary Junkers JU-88 pilot sees something . . . someone . . . in the desert. She looks like a girl he once knew. He briefly considers asking a fellow crew member to confirm, but decides against it. It can’t be her.
Mirage is an exploration of how far the eye can be pushed to accept forced perspective. Ordinarily, forced perspective dioramas contain larger scale elements at the front and smaller scale elements at the rear. Here, the differently scaled elements are equidistant from the viewer when looking at the diorama head-on. The illusion of perspective is strongest when viewing the diorama from the girl’s side, as in the photograph.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
The Death Star trench, as seen in the climactic battle of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, is a unique visual which sets the sequence apart from all other dogfights in cinema. The trench is one long blur for the most part, looming dangerously close to Rebel X-wings and Y-Wings as they conduct their attack runs. It gains even more menace as Darth Vader’s squadron moves in to intercept. How do you translate this into a static model?
Well, you could build a very long miniature set, like the special effects crew did for the movie. Or just model a short section of the trench, which Bandai offers in kit form. But that doesn’t do justice to its limitless length, or capture the photographic motion blur which smooths over the intricate details of the trench on film.
I decided to use forced perspective to convey the vast length of this architectural marvel. Scratchbuilt trench walls recede in scale to a vanishing point in the distance. To give the impression of motion blur, I made simple ‘streaks’ with no details. Vader’s ship is a Revell kit and the two slightly smaller scaled TIE fighters are from Bandai. The total length of the trench is 38cm (15”).
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
The Batmobile is back. This is the same 1:35 Bandai kit which I used in Batmobile Winterscape, a large tabletop diorama featured in Diorama Design. Now repurposed for a more compact wall-mounted display.
A white metal Batman figure joins the Batmobile against a forced perspective backdrop. LEDs were used for lighting. The case is acrylic and birch wood.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
Today marks the third anniversary of this blog. The more I write about dioramas, the more I discover that there’s no end to how much we can learn and develop as modellers and artists. For myself, moving to forced perspective dioramas has opened up a new world of possibilities. I plan to continue exploring this technique and see where it takes me.
My book, Diorama Design, has been out for a year now and is selling well. You can find it on Amazon in both ebook and print formats.
Whether you come to this blog regularly or just once in a while, I wish you continued success in your growth as an artist. Happy diorama modelling!
Low level flying has a visceral thrill for both pilot and observer, since the speed of the aircraft is emphasized by the proximity of the ground. Here, a Spitfire Mk.IXc buzzes a castle in the English countryside. Buzzing is what pilots call a low level pass, especially when it’s directed at a specific person or place.
I used forced perspective to fit everything into a compact box diorama format. The Spitfire is a 1:72 Eduard ProfiPACK kit, and the 3D-printed castle is around 1:500 scale.
This diorama is the second half of a matched pair which I built concurrently (Evening Kill being the other half). Buzzing the Castle was originally going to be a daytime scene with no lighting, but when I put it next to Evening Kill, it didn’t quite match. So now it’s a moonlit scene.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my new book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
The logbook for Erich Hartmann, greatest fighter ace of all time, shows that a few of his kills took place very late in the day, after 19:00. This diorama depicts what it might have looked like.
The box diorama format gives plenty of control over lighting, which was important in achieving the right ambience for this scene. The sunset effect was created with tinted acrylic strips back-lit by an orange LED.
Forced perspective was used to increase the apparent distance between the aircraft. The Messerschmitt Bf109G is 1:72 scale and the Yak-9 is 1:144.
The Black Tulip is a masterstroke of aviation graphics and is especially effective when paired with the winter camouflage scheme on this late model 109. I wonder who designed the Black Tulip . . . was it Hartmann himself, one of his trusty mechanics, or someone else?
This diorama is the first of a pair which I’ve been working on concurrently. The second will feature another legendary fighter aircraft of WWII: the Spitfire.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my new book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
Creating the illusion of perspective (space and depth) in art has a long history. Renaissance painters are credited with revolutionizing the world of two-dimensional art by introducing linear perspective into their paintings in the early 1500s. This allowed them to realistically portray three-dimensional scenes within the confines of a two-dimensional art form.
In a painting, linear perspective is achieved by using a central vanishing point where all lines converge. The illusion of perspective is further enhanced by reducing the sharpness and saturation of distant objects. This mimics the effect of haze or mist in the atmosphere.
Forced Perspective
Forced perspective is distinct from the linear perspective technique developed during the Renaissance. It is used in photography and dioramas (and sometimes architecture as well) rather than in paintings. In photography, forced perspective is used to change the apparent size of objects in the frame by juxtaposing them in a certain way. This is often used to comic effect. In the above photo, a thumb and forefinger have been positioned in front of the camera so they appear to be pinching a hot-air balloon.
Since dioramas are three-dimensional, you may be wondering why a special technique is needed to enhance perspective. The answer is that dioramas have size restrictions. Let’s say you want to create a diorama of a car in 1:24 scale on a highway receding into the distance. An ordinary diorama would require a great deal of space for the highway. It could take up an entire hallway in your house. But with forced perspective, you’d be able to dramatically reduce the amount of needed space.
In dioramas, forcing perspective is done by changing the shape of the object you’re portraying. In the case of the highway, you would accomplish this by modelling the highway in 1:24 scale at the front of the diorama and a much smaller scale (perhaps 1:240) at the back. The highway would gradually decrease in width going from the front to the back of the diorama, creating the illusion that it’s much longer than it actually is.
The benefit of forced perspective is that you’re able to achieve a grander representation of space and depth in your diorama, while still keeping the footprint of your display to a manageable size. This comes at a a price, since modelling objects in forced perspective is time consuming. There are no commercially available forced perspective model kits. A building rendered in forced perspective, for example, has to be built from scratch because it’s not square. Since it’s so labour intensive, forced perspective is not often seen in dioramas.
I’ve recently started using forced perspective as a way to make my dioramas more visually dramatic yet compact in size. I’m currently working on a pair of forced perspective projects featuring legendary WWII fighters. The first showcases the Messerschmitt Bf109 and the second, the Supermarine Spitfire. The 109 diorama is nearly finished, and I’ll be discussing it in an upcoming post.
If you like to build dioramas and want to learn more about how to optimize the visual impact of your work, you might like my new book, Diorama Design. It’s available in both ebook and print formats at Amazon.
