Author Topic: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...  (Read 66850 times)

Offline Starchaser

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #270 on: October 03, 2023, 08:51:22 PM »
Those are really cool images, Philipp. Thanks for sharing.

Offline Darth More

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #271 on: December 27, 2023, 02:44:44 PM »
Thanks Jeff! The work of Industrial Light & Magic takes my breath ever so often as well.

Offline Darth More

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #272 on: December 27, 2023, 02:49:12 PM »
Sometimes you find some neat decoration for your themed room or even dioramas at discount stores. TK MAXX gave me some inspiration for Felucia today, but some price tags are obvious rip-offs. I don't recommend to buy picture frames at TK MAXX. The ones I found were the cheapest for 5,99€ still. Drug stores sell better ones for half the price.





Really liked that metal effect and pattern on this bowl. Looks like a fossil from Tatooine.

With more and more people coming from Africa and buying at TK MAXX, it looks like they adapted their assortment with appealing decoration, too.

Offline JDeck

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Michael's has 60% off summer decor. They had these Miniature potted plants. Jungle plants like monstara and arrow leaf get pretty big depending on sunlight and humidity, so they are in scale. The small ones were $1.99- 60%, so i got a few.  I ended up going to another Michael's down the road for more. Usually I use artificial aquarium/terrarium plants, but they're hard to get in the right scale. 

The palms, monstaras and big leaf philodendrons would be perfect for a Yavin IV diorama especially since those plants are native to central/south America where Yavin was filmed.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2024, 01:58:23 PM by JDeck »

Offline JDeck

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Since I have a whole shoebox of different jungle specific plants, I made some jungle floor soil/litter, like I did with my Endor mix. This one was pretty simple. I used some chunky (alot of bark) potting soil somewhare between potting soil and orchid mix, without perlite (little white balls), crumbled some dead leaves, dried sphagnum moss, some sand broken sticks, dried roots and tea bags. The bag varies from fine to chunky. I can now make modular jungle terrain pieces like I did with Endor. I need to make some jungle tree trunks.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2024, 04:07:01 PM by JDeck »

Offline Starchaser

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Nice! Jungle trees could be interesting. Great heads up on the Michael's sale. Nice to see you 🙂

Offline Tamer

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Great to see you still creating. Off to the front page to share this info.

Offline Darth More

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Wow, this is a truly amazing colletion of jungle plants, JD! Thanks for sharing! I'm looking forward to seeing more of your projects of Scarif!
I was thinking about this topic on here when I saw this plate, yesterday. The texture on the bottom and the color reminded me of the Droid Carrier that I want to build.
It was only 1€ and I'm going to use it as cargo platform for my 1/18 scale Droid Carrier.
Here's a comparison with a brick set that I found on AliExpress:


« Last Edit: May 10, 2024, 04:53:48 AM by Darth More »

Offline JDeck

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Nice! Jungle trees could be interesting. Great heads up on the Michael's sale. Nice to see you 🙂

Ive been working on a 1:1 scale jungle more or less with this riparium. It was interesting, it gave me some insight on how jungle plants grow, what pattern and conditions they grow in. I'll work on some trees soon, so ill jump over to my diorama section.

Wow, this is a truly amazing colletion of jungle plants, JD! Thanks for sharing! I'm looking forward to seeing more of your projects of Scarif!
I was thinking about this topic on here when I saw this plate, yesterday. The texture on the bottom and the color reminded me of the Droid Carrier that I want to build.
It was only 1€ and I'm going to use it as cargo platform for my 1/18 scale Droid Carrier.
Here's a comparison with a brick set that I found on AliExpress:



Sweet! That bin would make a great tank hull, the pieces on that set could make some good greebles for it.  Im putting scarif on the backburner, im not real happy with my palm trees. I need to find a better method that isn't very labor intensive.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2024, 03:26:32 PM by JDeck »

Offline Tamer

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It will be interesting to see what you do with that.

Offline Darth More

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #280 on: September 26, 2024, 05:43:11 AM »
Thank gentlemen! Well, to me product design is an art. Esthetics are important as well as stability, sustainability and low material cost all at once. What I love about Star Wars is also the art of making something from the dumpster to something new with your own imagination and creativity like George Lucas and his team did.

I was gifted a showering set to my birthday and the blister inside inspired me for some diorama action. So Let's brainstorm together and see what this piece of packaging could become in 1/18 scale...






To me these forms look like:

- a tank for an Imperial Command station, maybe to fuel some Speeder Bikes on Endor or Kuat.
- playing The Force Unleashed was fun! Imperial Troops taking cover behind all sorts of walls. I could see some of those elements on Mygeeto later on.
- Palpatine's office had some interesting furniture in all kinds of shapes. The glossy black is probably his favorite color.
- those anvil shaped elements remind me of a counter. It has different heights for all kinds of aliens. Maybe it's for a cake café in a galaxy far, far away - probably not on the Death Star.
Could also be an Imperial bar or Darth Plagueis' private liquor bar.

Time to have some random diorama building fun, again!

Offline Starchaser

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #281 on: September 26, 2024, 10:31:01 AM »
That's got potential. You've already come up with great uses (especially if you can cut it apart for the individual elements). It could also stay together as a set of "turnstiles" for board a magtrain or to go with the Starspeeder 3000  :)

Offline Darth More

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #282 on: September 26, 2024, 11:48:21 PM »
Thanks for your suggestions, Jeff! The Starspeeder 3000 is a cool shuttle, that recent one for 300 bucks was so awesome, but way too limited. Yes, I did cut it apart and am going to build a little diorama on Sunday. It's been way too long, since. Have a great Friday and a good start into the Weekend!

Offline Darth Revenge

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Re: Materials for Dioramas: Finding crates, parts and miscellaneous stuff...
« Reply #283 on: September 27, 2024, 08:14:17 AM »
I agree with the idea of Palpatine's office. Maybe an hidden room full of Sith stuff...
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