Scenic Development

St Donats 1963 has very few structures, and only a single track to carry trains from one side of the diorama to the other. Consequently, the scenery and particularly the trees form an important part of the illusion of recession. Trees salvaged from Kyle of Sutherland are used here to help create a mock-up view of the diorama with an out-of-region goods passing through in the direction of Llantwit Major.

The choice of the horizon height, 5 inches above the baseline of the 13 inch deep viewing window, will be key for the success of the finished diorama. This will hopefully also be the natural viewing height, and is the height at which the photograph was taken, just slightly above the height of the mock-up mini-view pinned to the backscene. This is above the model height of the bridge and so I've artificially compressed the bridge perspective and “pointed up” the parapet towards the horizon.

At this stage the trees, scenery, bridge and track bed can all be removed in order to work on individual items away from the diorama.

Diorama In Progress

The diorama, now with track, scenic jigsaw foamboard bases, a trial horizon and the trial bridge shaped to accentuate the perspective, is at an experimental stage. The temporary, wallpaper backscene is pegged to a semi-elliptical shape with cocktail sticks in the foamboard bases of the scenic jigsaw.

The proscenium arch is clearly too high and reveals the top of the backscene, but if the viewpoint were raised to hide this, the horizon would cease to be horizontal. Already it is very slightly curved up in the middle. The scene is lit by LEDs, the position of which need adjusting to flatten the sky.


The objective is to be able to photograph (or view) the scene at horizon level with the backscene appearing flat to the rear wall of the diorama for almost its whole width, the view being limited only by the proscenium arch and wings.