Thanks for the likes and kind messages!
The diorama was inspired by the following video of the 1903 Durbar which shows the elephant procession passing in front of a row of pavilions.
The moving display is on a conveyor belt. The total length is 1.8 meters so the full length of the procession is about 3.6 metres! The conveyor belt sits inside a display unit that is 2 meters long and 50cm deep.
It took a long time to get the figures in the right position - the mounted Imperial Cadet Corps proved a challenge because when they turn on the conveyor belt they kept knocking the figures in front of them over! I therefore had to sacrifice historical accuracy and only put three in a row instead of four and that solved the issue.
I also tried putting the larger Britains Durbar elephants on the conveyor belt but their length proved to be problematic for the conveyor belt so that each time the elephant circles round they moved slightly on the conveyor belt eventually needing to be readjusted. Fortunately I have two WM Hocker Viceregal elephants which are smaller in size compared to Britains elephants and these work well in the diorama.
I would have liked to put more elephants in the diorama, particularly the truly wonderful elephants by BeauGeste - especially the 6 elephants of the Aides-De- Camp of the Viceroy - but there were two issues: firstly the width of the conveyor belt does not accommodate two elephants per row, and secondly, the BeauGeste elephants are very heavy and I was conscious of not putting too much weight on the conveyor belt.
The diorama is not quite complete - I still need to add more buildings in the background and more pavilions. That’s why the video frame is limited to the area that is complete. I will share more photos/videos in the future once the diorama is finished.
Best wishes
TheDurbarMan
