Many years ago, I started a diorama project that will show a scene on the Nile in Roman times. But until today, this project is still essentially a large box with figures, animals, vegetation, some architecture pieces etc. that I want to use. My earliest notes and sketches date back to 2007, and around 2010 I have started to really build something for the diorama: Two items of buildings/terrain, that were intended to be placed in the background of the base.
One is a small temple:
The other is a sort of monumental statue carved into a rock formation, Abu Simbel style (you may also recognize to small figures from the old Atlantic Egyptian set, giving an idea of the size):
In reality, the two items are not as pale as they appear in these test shots, but I was never happy with them: The colors, the textures, the … everything. I just did not like the results and actually had the plan to discard them.
Then I had another idea: Instead of using them as pieces on the diorama plate, I can integrate them into the background photo. Thus they wouldn’t figure prominently in the scene, but the work I had invested wouldn’t be completely wasted either.
Using a landscape photo from Wikimedia Commons, the effect may be something like this:
(Background photo is South Sinai desert (c) user Mohamed3171979 (Mohamed Saeid), CC-BY-SA-4.0)
I think the temple looks quite good in this landscape setting, but the monumental statue is still not convincing, so probably I will use the temple only. What do you think?
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