Diorama Rabbit

History / Background
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Looking backward...

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History of My Hobby
 
I cannot possibly pin down the exact era where the diorama first took shape, but I have seen with my own eyes the dioramas that have graced the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History that were from ancient Egypt.  For me, knowing that some artisan created a slice of their time in miniature, was extraordinary.
 
Just go to any antiques show, or even a jaunt of antiquing, and you'll see the remnants of diorama pieces that must have graced everything from a child's dollhouse, to an architect's isometric projection.  I have marveled at the great care involved in creating, casting, and painting such miniatures that are made with exact detail in a time when the items such as rotocasters, laser prototype machines and the like did not exist.  These, my friend, were fashioned by pure sight and hand alone.  You have to really marvel at the quality.

When you have the opportunity, and the interest, I suggest you try the above, as well as peruse the sadly disappearing icon that was the family hobby store.   In this part of Florida, they have all but disappeared entirely, and with them a part of history.

Sketch of an Elven Girl with a musical instrument.
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I did this one tending print pool for over 15 hrs. Done on cardboard left when the boxes were done.

My Background
 
Like many an artisan at a time when tactile artists were underappreciated, I've had to spend far too much of my time in uncreative fields.  Yet, one with a creative spark and wanderlust can never truly stop.  So to anyone who may have found my scribblings and sketches discarded from the paper products all too common in the computer field, well, enjoy(chuckling).
 
I'd spent decades in Computers and Information Technologies' infancy, only to leave it bitter and unimpressed.  Yet, a decade later I marvel at the advancements that were indeed made by the pioneering artistic spirit.  The simple bits, bytes, and punched cards of my time gave way to such advancements and optical wonders.  The languages and operating systems such as BASIC and DOS are replaced with high tech wonders that enable such programs as DAZ, Carrara, BRYCE, Maya, and many others that have brought imagination to rendered product that astound and entertain today.
 
For myself, I have had the pleasure of a simple artistic public school education.  One art related public school after another, in the great New York City.  Fine arts, commerical arts, and even some architecture on my own as well as my major, theatre arts.
 
Freelancing, as most do in this day and age, I have lent or sold my talents to enable friends, family, and the imaginative to see their "thought bubbles" become reality.  Even though this site is about my diorama related talents, I still am very much the tactile fine artisan, as well as fledgling writer.  I enjoy creating my own graphic novel in my spare time.
 
Time was less kinder than Fate, and I have endured some limiting disabilities, which sadly one is the area of any tactile artisan's fears...the eyes.  But I still create every single day; a luxury I denied myself for decades due to the responsibilities of home and hearth.
 
Regarding my dioramas, I have created many of them over the years  for the Historical and Fantasy gaming set, but mostly for the appreciator and customizer of the 1:18 or 3 3/4 inch scale figures from Hasbro's GIJOE line of figures.  My own dioramas (when I can afford to personally chase my own "thought bubbles") are in both the 1:18 world, as well as my newfound plastic love, the 1:24 scale of figures.  These include the ranges from the historical CanDo line and the excellent Armies of Middle Earth Lord of the Rings line, to the also exquisite offerings from Japan: Disposable mold "gashapon" and "shokugan" toys.  These toys from Japan are without a doubt some of the best toys one can ever find, and to think that many of them are found in a 500Yen vending bubble machine.  Incredible. 
 
I enjoy mostly 1:24 scale, which is just over 2 1/2 inches, because of space it frees, and because my eyesight has degraded to where I can no longer see the 1 inch figures I acquired and enjoyed over the years.  So for now, this is the minimum scale, and most wonderful for me, it is a scale filled with something I have wanted since the first figures of the 1960's....Fantasy related figures.

A brace of Mind Flayer customs.
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They will be for my diostory hopefully soon!

Pity that the companies that created them, and their design teams fall to transitory tastes.  There are so many wonderful stories that would relate to fabulous figures, if given the chance.

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.