The great thing about dioramas is the freedom involved to do your own thing.I especially like the ongoing creativity that you can enjoy right up until the very end.I like to operate in such a way as to keep it interesting for me too.I like to start with a basic idea for a storyline and see what develops from there.
I work mostly with images and stories from my imagination, as I dread the thought of a lot of drawings and plans and things written in stone .
When doing dioramas at a rate of ,on average, one every three and a half years, the less written in stone the better.All of my aviation dioramas started with the basic 1/16th airplane model kit itself .The model therefore will dictate the minimum size required ,the maximum size is up to you.
With a little creative thinking those who would like to build in the larger scales can still do so by reducing the minimum size.Example: an under construction or maintenance scene where one wing has been removed and placed up against a wall,or how about a barnstormer fuselage used for advertising, being towed through main street or just the fuselage alone being used in a school of aeronautics.The possibilities are endless .You can build what you want and alter things as you like.Bad ,out of scale wing fittings ?cover them with a rag.Controversy about did this airplane have this or that on that series? just leave it off ,its under construction after all.Wings not the proper dihedral a couple of saw horses and some tools will fix that....Etc...etc...etc...I am sure you get the idea.It is all a matter of thinking creatively.
What got me thinking of all this is the wrecked Mercedes engine that I am working on now.When I started this diorama I didn't even have the second engine,in fact everything you see outside the hangar walls was not originally planned for.(including even a lot inside) I build the engine with no specific plan in mind other than it must be wrecked to fit better into my flying school storyline.Yesterday it went from obscurity in the junk pile to a stand alone model and by evening it had its own steel lifting frame with chains etc...
Now this morning I am excited to get back to it and see how it turns out!
