I’m way behind the times on posting this. The Instagram Doomsday Diorama II Challenge ended on Halloween 2022. It was an enjoyable challenge put together by @craftyric, @modelrailroader and @retro_roboland. I had a lot of stuff going on around Halloween as well as planning to launch this blog. Somehow, in all of the craziness, I forgot to put up a post on this challenge. Better late than never, I guess.
In this particular challenge, everybody participating had to create a diorama depicting an escape from a doomsday scenario. The threat and method of escape are determined by a roll of he dice. The way the challenge works is each person rolls two, six-sided dice. The first die determines the threat and the second die determines the method or place of escape.
For the Halloween Challenge, the monster or threat was 1. Humanoids, 2. Mutants, 3. Paranormal, 4. Aliens, 5. Plants or Animals and 6. Zombies. The method or place of escape included 1. A Graveyard, 2. A Castle, 3. The Woods, 4. Water, 5. Abandoned Building and 6. Badlands.
I ended up with a paranormal threat and an abandoned building. It really took me about a week to come up with a good concept. I stumbled across a Mystery Machine in what I estimated to be about 1:42 scale. I had also seen some 28mm Scooby-Doo gang minis on Etsy. Since the challenge lasted two months, I had plenty of time to order the miniatures.
I wanted to do a simple haunted house on top of a hill with the villain looking out of an upper floor window. Below, the Scooby Gang would be planning their investigation, unaware of the threat inside the house.
I wanted the overall diorama to have a cartoonish appearance and I wanted a drab color pallet so the brightly colored miniatures and the Mystery Machine would stand out.
I watched a lot of Scooby-Doo as a kid and I always remembered the characters and the van being bright and everything else on the screen being rather dim and dingy. So, I wanted to replicate that in the diorama.
I started the project with a 12″x12″ inch wood base. I sketched out a simple house and then transferred the design to some black 3mm foam core. I pinned the walls in place and secured the structure with Aileen’s Tacky glue.
All of the clapboard and shingles were made from cardstock and the planking covering the windows were made from a strip of 1/16-inch balsa wood. I made the roof and walls as two separate pieces to make storage of the diorama a little easier. I based the model with a black primer and then brushed on various shades of gray from different lines of craft paint. I wanted to keep the paint job neutral and mainly went with dry brushing and no weathering to give it a cartoon look.
I left space inside the structure so I can wire in some LEDs sometimes down the road. There’s also enough room for a AA battery pack inside as well. I could most likely fit an Arduino in as well if I decide to get a little more creative with controlling the lights. I plan to revisit this project around Halloween and include some better looking trees on the front lawn.
The basing was made from a 3/4-inch, 12-inch-x-12-inch artists panel with a layer of foamcore glued to the top. I built up the model with a foam project board from Lowe’s. I marked out the location of the house and then added a stone stairway made from foamcore “bricks.” I marked off a few areas and sanded them with a fine model railroad ballast. The driveway was laid out and the remaining areas were covered with 6mm static grass and I added some lichen in a few places in the stairway area.
The base was primed and then painted black. I used the color pallet from the house and built up the color on road and stairways with an airbrush. The static grass was airbrushed a dark brown and I made several passes with lighter colors on each pass. I highlighted the grass with a light tan and a mixture of yellow and tan. The foliage was airbrushed with a dark green base and the color was built up by layering in lighter shades.
The miniatures were from STLPrintShop on Etsy. The shop has a wide range of Pop Culture Minis, Aliens, Predators and Humans. That’s just a few of the interesting miniature sets available. I used some reference photos from Scooby-Doo and tried to replicate the colors as closely as possible. The minis are mounted on a clear, plastic disc. That allows me to move them around and set up different scenes. It also makes it a lot easier for storage.
When the fall rolls around, I plan to revisit this diorama to finish out some ideas I had. I ran up against a deadline for the challenge and had to scale back some of my plans in order to finish the project on time. I’m really not happy with the trees. The existing ones will be replaced by some more sinister looking wire trees. I also plan to cover some of the areas I sanded with a pumpkin patch. The Headless Horseman is the villain, so he needs somewhere to get his heads. The last upgrade will be interior lighting on the house.
Boondock Bight 