If you’re a fan of diorama building and love to incorporate them into your figure photography to bring additional layers of realism to your images, this is the place for you. In this post, we’re going to explore the creation of a custom garage diorama, complete with all the detailed steps required to bring it to life!
The Starting Point
The image we’ll be using as inspiration comes from a BlogSpot page showcasing the work of an incredibly talented diorama builder. The garage has an industrial look, with a concrete floor, brick walls, and exposed beams, making it perfect for displaying cars, figures, and other models. The first step in creating your own Garage diorama is deciding on the scale you’d like to work with. The image we’re working from was created at 1/24 scale, but there are no hard and fast rules about what scale you need to stick to - whatever feels right for your project is the way to go!
Gathering Materials
Now that we have our inspiration and scale, we can start gathering materials. Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
- Utility knife
- Craft glue (PVA glue works best for this project)
- Paint brushes (Small and medium sizes)
- Acrylic paint
- Cardstock paper
- Printable garage door image
- Printable Brick wall image
- Printable concrete floor image
- Scale objects (oil cans, spare tyres, etc.)
- Wooden dowels of varying thicknesses
- Wire mesh (optional)
- LED strips (optional)
The Assembly Process
Now that we have everything we need, we can start putting our diorama together. To make things simple in our step-by-step guide, we’re going to break the process down into individual components:
The Floor
The floor of our garage diorama is a simple concrete slab. To get started, print out the concrete floor image we gathered earlier. Trim it down, ensuring that it’s the right size for your scale, and glue it onto a piece of cardstock paper. To create some texture, we can add a few subtle lines and stains to the floor. For this step, we’re using a combination of black and grey acrylic paint. Try not to overdo it - a light touch goes a long way to adding to the realism of your diorama.
The Walls
Next, let’s turn our attention to the walls. To create the brick wall effect, we’re using a brick pattern image that we’ll print out and glue onto cardstock paper. Here are the steps:
- Print out the printable brick wall image
- Cut out the individual bricks to create a template
- Trace the template onto your cardstock paper
- Cut out the brick shape from the cardstock paper
- Apply glue to the back of the brick shape
- Attach the brick shape to your diorama wall
We’re also using the same process to create the door of the garage. We’ll print out a door image, cut it out, and use wooden dowels to create the surrounding frame of the door.
The Beams and Lighting
You’ve likely noticed that our garage comes with exposed beams - a great detail that helps bring realism to your diorama. There are a few ways you can create your beams, including using wooden dowels or wire mesh. For our diorama, we’re using wire mesh that we’ll cut into the desired shape of our beams.
Now is also the perfect time to consider adding some lighting to your diorama. Adding LED strips to the underside of the beams is a fantastic way to bring additional depth to the project, especially if you’re planning to take pictures of your figures in the space. Adding in lighting can be a bit tricky, but with a little time and patience, it’s certainly something that the avid diorama builder should consider experimenting with.
The Final Touches
To finish up our garage diorama, it’s time to add in some final details. We can scatter various scale objects like oil cans or spare tires throughout the diorama, giving it a lived-in feel. Paint the surrounding bricks and door to give them an aged and weathered appearance. Finally, we can add some black paint to the edges of the concrete floor to create a darker, more worn effect.
Conclusion
Building custom dioramas is a fantastic way to add additional layers of realism to your figure photography, and the creation of our custom garage diorama is a perfect example of what’s possible with a little planning, preparation, and patience. Take your time, experiment with different techniques, and most importantly, have fun!
We hope you found this guide helpful and informative, and we can’t wait to see the incredible diorama creations you come up with!
