Papercraft: Street Fighter Diorama

Street Fighter 2 Diorama by Luxembourg-based Wuppes

Papercraft: Super Mario World Diorama

Super Mario World Diorama by Luxembourg-based Wuppes

Dioramas: Palm-sized Railways

Palm-sized Railway Dioramas by Japanese model artist Akihiro Morohoshi

Via: Spoon & Tamago

Simply building model railroads wasn't enough for Akihiro Morohoshi.  After years of creating more traditional models, Morohoshi decided to put a fresh twist on his traditional miniature models by embedding them into everyday objects.  He sets scenes of imaginary worlds on top of Pringle chip cans, across electric guitars, and inside matchboxes.

Lego Creation: Star Wars Relativity

"Star Wars Relativity V2" by Paul Vermeesch

LEGO Star Wars sculptural rendition of the famous Relativity lithograph by M.C. Escher

"This diorama is fully lit from the inside, presents the original Star Wars trilogy in a roughly counterclockwise format, and even features a minifig-scale theatre in the back which plays Lego’s CG version of the Star Wars saga.

I attempted to stay as true as possible to the geometry and proportions of Escher’s work, while bringing in the colors, worlds, and characters of Star Wars, and the freshness of the Lego medium."

Lego Creation: Rivendell

LEGO Rivendell by Alice Finch and David Frank

[Previously: Rivendell 2012]

Alice Finch, who you may recall did the amazing LEGO model of Hogwarts, has teamed up with David Frank to re-create one of the most renowned settings in all of Middle-earth, Rivendell, in LEGO bricks.  Anyone frequenting this blog will recall that Rivendell is “the last homely house west of the mountains,” where Elrond hosts first Bilbo and later Frodo at the beginning of their quests.  While the fabled realm has fired the imagination of nerds for generations, Jackson's recent films have acted to codify the actual appearance of the city, which has given rise to all forms of artist interpretations.

This model is composed of 200,000 Lego bricks, and it ended up winning the People’s Choice Award at BrickCon... you know, right before they shut down the competition altogether because clearly no one will ever top it.  Make sure you follow the link to The Brothers Brick for more pictures and an interview with these two too-humble builders.

winning the People’s Choice Award at BrickCon
Read more at http://collider.com/lego-rivendell-lord-of-the-rings/#rHIyhWTv5HY8gfwE.99

Dioramas: Institute of Intimate Museums

A Miniature Post-Apocalyptic World by James Cauty

A 1:87 scale model of what appears to have been a post-riot London.

Lego Creation: Fallout

"LEGO Fallout Diorama" by Sabre-Scorpion

Lego Creations: Leonardo’s Workshop

Leonard of Quirm’s Workshop by Captainsmog

When I first came across this short, I mis-read "Leonard" as "Leonardo," as in DaVinci.  Dunno who Leonard of Quirm is supposed to be.

Dioramas: Institute of Intimate Museums

"Institute of Intimate Museums" and "Viewer Outside" dioramas by Kenji Sugiyama

A series of intricate dioramas created in 2005 that replicates the museum experience.

"Viewers create their own museums from my work by remembering the museums that they have visited before and reconstructing that memory in their minds. What viewers see depends on their attention area, their eyesight, and their past experiences in similar spaces. In other words, each museum looks different to each viewer."

Diorama: Miniature Libraries

Miniature Library Dioramas by French artist Marc Giai-Miniet

French artist Marc Giai-Miniet makes some of the most incredibly detailed (and disturbing!) dollhouses that we’ve ever seen. Marc started creating these disturbing shadowbox dioramas rather late in his career, recurring themes include libraries, furnaces, laboratories, submarines and intestine-like tubing in lonely, decaying spaces.

Diorama: Tiniest Apocalypse Ever

Tiniest Apocalypse Ever by Brooklyn-based photographer Lori Nix
[Previously: January 2011]
Via: Wired

Constructing these dioramas is a painstaking process. Nix only manages to create about three in each year.  Because it takes so much effort, she constructs them with extraordinary care.  In this series, she portrays crumbling institutions in the aftermath of the apocalypse.

“I think these are incredibly important places to learn about ourselves, learn what it means to be human,” says Nix. “These institutions are telling us about our pasts so that we may avoid the same mistakes in the future. Unfortunately, we’re not listening very well.”

Diorama: Strange Worlds

“Box of Lightning"

"Strange Worlds" by Matthew Albanese

New Jersey photographer Matthew Albanese creates small, meticulously detailed dioramas of beautiful natural landscapes using everyday materials like coffee, cotton, feathers, paper, or salt.  He then photographs them under dramatic lighting to transform them into super realistic scene you could swear had been torn from the pages of National Geographic.  See more of Albanese's work at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery.

"My work involves the construction of small-scale meticulously detailed models using various materials and objects to create emotive landscapes. Every aspect from the construction to the lighting of the final model is painstakingly pre-planned using methods which force the viewers perspective when photographed from a specific angle. Using a mixture of photographic techniques such as scale, depth of field, white balance and lighting I am able to drastically alter the appearance of my materials."

Papercraft: Rouleaux

Rouleaux Papercut dioramas by Anastassia Elias

The intricate cut-outs of Anastassia Elias are created from the most mundane of products - toilet paper rolls - and while we’re not a fan of them stacking up on the bathroom shelf, for her, I might make an exception.

Diorama: The Mystery Box

The Mystery Box by Mick Minogue

Mixed media diorama inspired by the worlds of J.J. Abrams. Created for the Bad Robot art experience at Gallery1988.  If you don't get the "Mystery Box" reference, you need to watch Abrams' explanation of where he draws inspiration for his writing at TED. (See the video below.) It's a fantastic talk.

Diorama: Ancient Marienburger

"Rime of the Ancient Marienburger" Warhammer diorama by GMM Studios

"Here is my finished Adepticon army. Thanks to all of those that followed and/or commented on my blog. I hope you like it!

It is inspired by Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem has always been a favorite and has inspired a lot of my other work and tastes in art. I love all things nautical (even though I rarely see the ocean funnily enough). Empire, cephalopods, old time imagery, movies, the trunk itself (a 100 year old family heirloom), and all things in, on, and around sailing ships have always been interesting to me, so they all come together to make an army that is very sentimental to me.

If anyone is interested in the process of building the display over the past month or so, please check out my blog thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/515905.page" 

Diorama: Consolidated Life

"Consolidated Life" by David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton, 2010.

Exhibited at the Australian Museum of Arts and Design

"In Consolidated Life the artists have recreated the scene of a seemingly endless corporate office, a recurring motif that has been repeated in a sequence of films: The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928), The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960), The Trial (Orson Welles,1962) and The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen, 1994). This scene merges the mundane and the spectacular, and is a metaphor for all that is at once immense and insignificant."

Diorama: Battle of Hoth

Battle of Hoth Diorama by Barry

Source: Fighting 118th

"This dio is in my living room. Thanks for looking. No photoshop in any picture."

Barry had a spare 140 square feet in his living room. Some folks would've bought another couch, but Barry went in a different direction.  He re-created the Battle of Hoth in excruciating detail. Take a look! None of it is Photoshopped.

Papercraft: Mario Picnic Diorama

Mario and Princess Peach Picnic Diorama by Gigi DG

"This is the diorama I submitted to Nintendo’s Paper Mario: Sticker Star contest. (How perfect, right? An excuse other than “I just felt like it!” for me to make a big paper cutout diorama expressing my passionate Paper Mario love.) It was a great opportunity for me to apply everything I learned from making paper cutouts for Cucumber Quest, and I’m really happy with how it came out.

I only had a week to put it together, but it was a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll do dioramas more often?"

Lego Creation: Dante's Inferno

"The Nine Circles of Hell"

Dante's Inferno recreated in Lego by Mihai Marius Mihu

Via: UK Telegraph

Romanian artist Mihai Marius Mihu has created yet another Lego masterpiece. This time, he spent seven months recreating each of the nine circles of hell from Dante’s Divine Comedy.  The nine dioramas are composed of nearly forty thousand individual pieces.

Lego Creation: Rivendell

Rivendell (from Lord of the Rings) by Blake Baer and Jack Bittner

Via: MOC Pages via Brothers Brick

This LEGO diorama of Peter Jackson's rendition of Rivendell from the Lord of the Rings trilogy is composed of over fifty thousand pieces. It measures thirty inches by forty inches and weighs one hundred twenty pounds.  Check out Blake's Flickr for high-res shots.