Building My Dio Scene for the Kansas City Joe Con
 

This year I decided to Finally enter a Dio in the Diorama Contest after 4 years of thinking about it. It went through many ideas but finally I decided on something I could use later and would tell a story but be simple to make and display. I decided on a dirt road in the Rainforest on Cobra Island.

First I had to pick my base. I grabbed a piece of Green foam from the hobby store like this.


Next I waded up some packing paper I had and created the foundation of a road and small hills. I just taped it down with packing tape. Nothing fancy because it only has to stick for a little while.

Next I grabbed Some plaster Cloth from Hobby Lobby, about $10 bucks for The terrain. You just Drag it through a tub of water and lay it down over the textures you made on the foam like this.






Smooth out the edges where the cloth over laps and let dry. This takes about 8 hours so be patiant and go watch some reruns of LOST or something. When dry it will be reletively hard. You can add more texture with more cloth or cut out anything that does not look right but the terrain with have enough strenght for just about any vehicle or figure so dont worry about it caving in unless you press pretty hard on the surface.

After it dried I painted it with a few layers of Brown paint to simulate dirt. This was done so that it would be easier to cover up all the white.



Next I cut out the bamboo trees that I had used in some shots I posted up a few months ago.

Drilled some holes in the surface where I wanted the trees to go

And used Hot glue in the holes and around the bases of the trees to hold them in place. Worked great and they hold really good.


Next I used varies Model Train Terrain Textures that you can get at just about any hobby store to start filling in the Terrain of the Dio. This is where everything really came to gether. I just used Clear Spray Glue from Walmart to make it stick as the Hobby store glue sold for this stuff has never really worked that good for me. Be careful about touching the surface because it will stay sticky for a few days. To get the stickyness to go away faster, when your done with the terrain, Grab some flat Clear Spraypaint and Spray over the entire Dio about 2 layers thick. It will dry and seal in the glue.


And then it was all done and on display.....

I took a few other picks but all came out blurry at the show. I wanted to depict a Viper commander paying off One of Bludd's troops to do a special Job. I Titled it, "The Hand Off". Hope this helps anyone wanting to make terrain displays, and if anyone has a tips for me I would love to hear them because this is only my second display and Winged both of them. Decided to Photo this one for you all though.

cool!
 

Plaster cloth!!
I wonder if i could get this in the UK? :confused:

Very smart dio dude and thank you for posting up these awesome pictures, I'd never of guessed this is only your second dio, had you not told me.

I really like this, its very creative :)

Congratulazioni dall' Italia! ;)

If there is a model train store over there then you can probably find it. If not maybe we can work out something so I can send some over to ya.

About this being only my second Dio, Yep I read a modeling book a few times on lunch breaks but other then that Just winged it based on displays at the Hobby store. Just like you all know, its very much trial and error on this stuff.