I was asked by the fantastic sculpting artist Kelly Sealey of Kellys-Studio to make a diorama to show off her latest AR set; a large SM scale Fell mare and foal. She drew me a rough diagram of what she wanted, and after a lot of discussion on the subject, I began in earnest.
The dry stone wall was perhaps the most important part of the whole base so I had to get it right. I pored over photographs of Cumbrian walls and spent ages consulting local dry stone walling sites so I could get the construction and geology accurate. It was very tricky to accomplish and there's definitely an art to it that I don't think I've got, lol!
I toyed with the idea of making stones from plaster or carving out blue foam but in the end I decided that you really couldn't beat the real thing so I gathered up some suitable stones, gave them a thorough scrub and got to work.
(Terrible phone photos approaching!)
Obviously the colour was completely wrong so once it was fully assembled, I repainted it entirely to fit in with the local Cumbrian stone. For any future bases involving walls, I plan to cast them in resin to save on the weight.
The base was then landscaped with a coat of plaster, which the wall was soon firmly embedded into. I also added an old and wind-battered looking tree, made from a suitable looking twig I had in my stash. The fencepost was a bit of balsa dowel.
Once it was completely dry, the whole thing was given a coat of paint...
...before the grass and foliage was added.
The view from the back.
I couldn't resist taking a couple of shots with ponies present, although I do wish I'd have had a spare Collecta Dartmoor as this one was a body and not really very photogenic, although it was the right size for the base.
So yeah, that's what I've been working on! It was a lot of fun to make and Kelly was absolutely brilliant to deal with. Hopefully I should have it all packed up and in the post tomorrow, ready to meet the public at the Utterly Horses Hullabaloo at the end of the month!
If anyone happened to be interested in commissioning a diorama, just throw me an email at Elrenia_Greenleaf@hotmail.com and we'll have a chat. :) I really enjoy a challenge so feel free to be as detailed or vague as you like!
