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Wigglesworth:
I've bought the 3666 castle for my kids birthday (turning 7 in November) and although the box is in great condition I thought it might be fun to put the castle together in a kind of Playorama TM for them so that it's there on the morning of their birthday.  Perhaps put some blankets in the box to give it some weight, wrap it and let them open it in a traditional fashion and have the castle in another room ready and staged.

They are just a bit young for the "putting it together is half the fun" and are more in to playing with the toys.  So I usually do the dad bit of assembly in the mornings anyhow...

So, on to my question.  I have a square board but need suggestions on making it ready for siting the castle on.  I basically want something like:



Space for castle, little river, for drawbridge to go over, space for red steck house and a small road.

I figure i've the following requirements:

* Suitable for playmobil figures to stand on
* Relatively hard wearing
* Vaguely realisticI did have a quick look on the forums but perhaps not well enough...

If anyone has any suggestions on materials or techniques that I could quickly get to grips with it would be greatly appreciated.

Comments regarding my sanity are probably pointless as I'm too far gone to seek help.

tahra:
Well, a sturdy table with a plastic cover (like a tablecloth, I think the word is?) with a nice print... That's what I use for my dios - the "plastic cover part"...

Or just the floor...  ;D



--- Quote from: Wigglesworth on September 15, 2021, 11:35:27 ---Comments regarding my sanity are probably pointless as I'm too far gone to seek help.

--- End quote ---

... what's "sanity" ?

playmofire:
Mount the board on a 2 by 1 timber frame  You could then add a removable 5mm MDF upstand to go behind the castle, cutting it wavy topped and painting it green as hills.

Make a smaller baseboard to represent the other side of the moat so the drawbridge can land on it and have another strip of blue painted MDF between the two for the moat.

If you'd rather not have the base raised by the 2 by 1, then just go with what you've got and add the green hill upstand at the back, using a bit of 2 by 1 again.

GrahamB:
I'm no expert with dioramas, but I think the two following are pretty good for land and water respectively;

1. For land, use a sheet of grass-like base like this, sold in model railway shops for about £7 for a 300x1000mm sheet. You can stand buildings on this, so the grass looks like it is growing right up to the walls. Two slight drawbacks; sometimes it is hard to get figures to stand on the 'grass' and bits of grass get shed from the base. Here it is in use:


2. For water, crumple silver foil and lay blue cellophane over it. Here's one I did earlier.

tahra:

--- Quote from: GrahamB on September 15, 2021, 16:55:23 ---2. For water, crumple silver foil and lay blue cellophane over it. Here's one I did earlier.

--- End quote ---

That looks wonderful...

I think my attempt worked well too - a blueish "plastic table cloth" (cut) covered in plastic film...

If you want to look, dios here:

Xmasy dio 2015 - with the tablecloths and water

Xmasy dio 2018 - The Gathering - with the tablecloths and water

Roman dio 2019 - with the tablecloths (no water)

I also think adding some pebbles and such (I used bits of cork too in those last two) on the ground makes a big difference.

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