your design are so awesome 

i can't wait to see them finished.. do you have a homepage? or flickr account?

i'd love to see some pinky shots~ 

You're making a Muse pinky?! 
I've gotta see it when you're done! I love Muse.

I’m back!
As I promised, this is the second part of the article explaining how I did my Gothic Cemetery diorama for Pinkys.

Again, excuse my English and enjoy it!

08. SQUARE’S REMAKE.

The more I advanced the diorama, the less I liked how the square looked, so I decided to stop the work and improve it.

- I was lucky to find some cheap ceramic floor tiles and I bought them (5EUR – 6USD each pack of 12 tiles)
- I made a test placing the tiles to see distances and calculate how much EPS y had to cut (tiles were very difficult to cut, so I had to cut the EPS floor to place them). That’s my favourite part: calculate, measure, prepare all the materials… I love it! :kya:
- I started removing the square’s floor cutting several parts with a modeling knife .



- I glued new floor tiles while I fixed some previous mistakes adding black cardboard and filling gaps with putty.
- To finish up the stairs that surround the square I cut parts of a semicircular-section wood stick .
- I added a strongest base to the diorama, made of agglomerate wood
- I tweaked the bench and I also made broken floor tiles, just like in the upper part of the diorama.

My Pinkys check the work progress!! ^___^
General shot
Remade square
Sabi and CQ

09. MOBILE PROCH.



I bought some used furniture through E-bay. Then I thought that I could use one of these articles to make a second porch, but this time, it would be mobile, and I could place it in different places (so the photos would have more variety… in fact, the arc is made in the same way, it is not glued to the floor).
- I modified the length of the supports of the figure.
- I designed several supports with different lengths to put the porch where ever I wanted in the scene.

10. PAINTING

When working on a diorama you better keep your staff as clean and tidy as you can .
I painted: :
- New floor tiles edges.
- A first layer of metallic grey paint on a bought light.
- Mobile porch’s supports in black.
- The rounded wood stripes of the stairs.



I decided to paint in brown the wall of chalk bricks over the tomb’s zone, because if I painted them in black, then the whole diorama had looked too dark.

General shots
General shot 1 - General shot 2
Square detail 1 - Square detail 2
Downstairs
Tomb’s zone

11. GRAVES

- I started my first grave by cutting two crossed sticks that held a candy …XD I filled them with Supersculpey putty.
- The second one was made from the adornment of an old hanger of my closet . I added putty at the base and sank some stones from the garden.
- The third grave was also made out from the plastic of an old hanger and some wood also. The forth was also made of plastic.
- The fifth was the most tedious. My boyfriend visited Ireland and told me about those Celtic graves. He drew for me a sketch.
- I created the basic shapes with putty .
- Then I baked once
- Then I made the circle around the cross.
- Then I added a second layer of putty to do easily the engraving with a striker pin.
- I added some more details with putty
- Then I baked it again.
Photo

- I gave the first layer of paint
- Then I glued a wood profile
- I made the base with putty
- I engraved the base with the same technique.
Photo

- I decided to tweak the first grave adding some putty and metallic plate details.
- Finally I gave a second layer of paint.



- I modified one of the graves glueing a pendant in the back side . After cutting the profile a little bit, and adding some wood details I glued a pendant in the back side of a grave in order to have two-in-one. This, and the fact that all the graves are not fixed to the floor, gives me more independence when I’m setting up the diorama for artistic shots. I can configure the cemetery as I need.

12. BENCH IN THE MOBILE PORCH

- It was made out from the  bamboo table cloth , sold in the Chinese bazaars of my city.
- To do the base I used EPS and square-section sticks for the legs.
- Then I varnished the surface with a wood darker tint .
- Other painted stuff .

13. THE TOMB

- When I started the diorama I made it’s general structure using 5mm EPS
- I covered the interior using garnet velvet paper.
- I cutted EPS again for the cover; I glued some wood strokes over it.
- I added more wood detail on it, chamfered the edges and covered the sides of the tomb.
- I did a cross with ceramic mosaic in red. Is the color that best fits with a vampiro!
- I painted the tomb in black .
- I added as a final detail a chain on the border of the cover. I think it looks good, and also, gold color fits good with black.



14. THE GROUND AROUND THE TREE

- I finished the path of stones , adding some artificial grass (same as used on the tree) to give more realism.
- As is habitual on me, I prepared all the materials for model .
- I painted the EPS floor with brown varinish, which is quite sticky when is still wet, and gives the first tint color
- Then I sank some dried rubbish of my garden



- Once dried, I painted over with a darker varnish . Photo after second varnish layer .
- I also added dried branches around the tree , so the whole terrain would be more integrated with the tree.
- I added more artificial grass mostly in the borders of the terrain.
- It was not exactly is I pictured in my mind. I always use to improvise, so i decided to improve the look. It was very uniform so I added rocks to brake that look.
- I had to do a hole to sank the rocks.
- I also was too dark, so I added more rubbish, this time without varnishing to dark them. Final look of the ground.

15. THE FENCE

The Fence is used to surround the cemetery. You can leave it or you can put it away. I used some chop sticks and some Supersculpey putty to model it.
- I started doing a roll with the putty and then I squashed it a little at it’s top. I adapted it to the curve.
- Then I sank a stick to leave a hole on the putty. I did as many holes as railings it was going to have. I tried to leave always the same distance between each hole. When I was happy I baked the putty.



- I cut the sticks and I sank them into the holes.
- I measured the height and proportions with my pinky Maki. - Photo 2 - Photo 3

- General views, with the bases for the other fences ready
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3

----
And that’s all for now.
If sometime I have time, I will finish it, I promise.

In the meanwhile, I will show you more of my works. Check them out!
----

don patrick: I don't have web site because I tried geocities and it lasted too long to load the page. Is a crap.  Do you know any good host? 
I don't have flirk account already, because I'm collecting my best photos, but I'm gonna have it soon. 

Spiffle: I also love Muse.  Sure when I finish it I'll show it to all of you. 

This is the best description, with the best "in-progress" photographs, I have ever seen on how to build a diorama! I used to read model railroading magazines, which feature many articles on building dioramas, but none were as clear, detailed, or well-done as this tutorial.

And she used the word "chamfered!" Yeah, I know what it means, I but I never would have thought to use it! The English language skills of this non-native English speaker surpass those of this mono-lingual journalism major!

Genial! Lots of work there ;D It looks great!

  You've done some amazing work, Sheryl!  What a professional-looking diorama!  You're so talented!

Thank you all for posting. This is a great help and a good reason to continue. 
davidd, your comment has moved me.  Thanks a lot!

Ok! Let’s finish the explanation of how did I build the fence! 
- I prepared all the bases with their exact shape and size. I used Supersculpey putty.



- I cut each wood stick of the fence at its needed distance.



- I painted the sticks with the same metallic paint I used on the light.



- I gave a primer paint layer to the base of the fence and I painted it in black.





- I used Chinese chop sticks (those to eat) which are thicker to delimitate the beginning and the end of each fence part



- I also greened the tree by adding some artificial modeling grass.





- Look of the zone with the fences on place.



- When I started the fence, I also prepared one by one the adornments I wanted to put between stick and stick of the fence. I used same material as on the porch adornments and also used a rounded top pliers.



- I went gluing one by one between each pair of sticks, tweaking the inclination of the railings.
 




Here’s a photo of Saki y Emi to finish today’s explanation.





Thanks for reading!!

  OH. MY. GOD. THAT IS............. AMAZING!!!!!!! I wish I could do that!

  im speechlesssssssssssssss
u can make ur own pinky house too!!!!
impressive!!!!

it's a good thing there's no one around at work, because i keep involuntarily saying things like "that's amazing!" and "stunning!" aloud. i can't even believe how beautiful that fence turned out.

omg~!!

it looks even awesomer (is that a word xD) then before~!! 

*fangirl.. erm.. fanboy-y* 

Amazing!  You do beautiful work.  You could sell these for lots of money... (sorry, that's the business major coming out...  )  Again, lovely.  I wanna try one now!!!

That was AMAZING!  Thank you so much for taking your time to share it with us. I look forward to seeing more of your work soon! 

That's really awesome!