Post-war Cardboard London Diorama

I absolutely LOVE dioramas. They just provide a perfect zeitgeist of a certain era so beautifully. It's like a 3D picture which can be interacted with. So, I wanted to make this Instructable on a specific diorama, which is the postwar era of London, while providing some general details on the project and how to make dioramas in general as well! I will try to keep it as low price as possible so that as many people can do it from the comfort of their own home! Enjoy!

This is my general 5 step process of a diorama project, which you will see broken down and slightly muddled in this one:

1. References of elements,
2. Main element creation
3. Surrounding elements creation
4. Gesso, Paint and decorate (Can be done alongside steps 2 and 3 as well)
5. Accurately place everything.

Without further to do, let's get right into it!

PS: To make this Instructable even harder, I have some challenges in the post, which you can do to make it even more complex of a project.

Necessary supplies:

1. Cardboard (or any other material you want to work with but this would have the most flexibility) [Have thin but also strong cardboard. Examples include, packaging and toothpaste covers]
2. References [of what you want to make]
3. Hot Glue, Scissors, Ruler and Pencil, Craft Knife
4. Toothpicks (for people. trust me)

Optional:

1. Paint and Gesso, Paint brush (To make it have colour)
2. Gloss varnish (If there are metallic surfaces in the diorama)
3. Printer (If you have one you won't need to draw templates)
4. Plastic bottle (For windows)
5. Napkins and metal wire (For roof)

Start with of course what ideas and what you want to make. Firstly I would go for what era or thing I would like. While I could just use the sketch from a long time ago, the buildings and setting seem very close and not that interesting, so I decided to make it again, which also allows for a more better guide on a general approach!

This was of course the Post-war era of London. Next, think of what things that immediately come to your mind from that era. For example, in my case, I thought of the brutalist architecture and famous Bentley Mark VI, also popular from the James Bond book if you've read. For me this will definitely be a challenge if you look at the curved edges but that will be interesting to do! Here are some references I used for this project for example.

You can find them online on sites such as pinterest or just searching up key terms for your certain theme.

This is a really important step where it dictates the proportions of everything of the diorama. I quickly cut out a massive piece of cardboard, with three different island-like shapes for the pedestrian path. Then I painted in gesso and after a day, painted it with watercolour black to make it seem like an ashy road. Also make some slight markings for different elements you have thought of placing in the diorama.

Now we start creating the main thing from our references. In my case of course, its the Bentley mark VI car that will help manifest an ambience of post war London. Firstly, I started with the car schematics, which i also added all the necessary measurements which would later be required for the creation process.

To accurately measure it, I created a scale based on the base markings, which was 4:1, based on the base to schematics ratio I found online. I measured this by using canva and just measured an online version's lengths. This is really important as it takes care of most of the proportions that you will need to keep in mind while making the thing out of cardboard. Considering the car is really complicated, I will divide it into numerous steps I took.

Firstly I made the base of the car, drawing it based on the schematics For this car, I made double layered wheels with the top layer of cardboard to be wrapped around the two circles. Then, using a straw and a skewer, connect a pair of wheels each and place them on the base of the car. Also, I added a round layer to the wheel so it looked more like the car itself.

I decided to also make holes in the base to make it easier later to place everything. This allowed me to make sure that it can still move around, an extra function which I wanted to just add. (If you want you can challenge yourself further by making like an elastic powered car, this video is inspiration.

Here was one of the easier ones, where I first used a pen to mark the striped front of the engine compartment and made the irregular shape with ease too. Like all the following steps, they relied heavily on the schematics and measurements I had done previously, so keep that in mind as you make your complex element / this car for the diorama. I also made cuts based on the cars model on the compartment.

This will be a very important step to get right as if it gets tilted, it would not look good. The sides need to be curved and reach the edge of the base at the bottom, following the schematics. It doesn't really matter if the hot glue accidentally shows, as it would allow for round edges not possible with the use of cardboard.

This was purposely done on the sides of the car chassis, which would allow for the bumps visible on the original car as well. Furthermore, engravings of the door and lines on the top and sides also were made based on the car, using a pencil to make sure the are made properly. I also painted the entire body with gesso, so later I can paint it.

Using the thin cardboard again, carefully create the seats based on the references of the car that were collected. Its a bit difficult due to the small size but it's definitely doable. For this diorama, I thought of a creative way to use toothpicks and cardboard for people. Using the toothpicks, make the skeleton of the tiny driver. Using the top paper-like layer of the cardboard (just peel the top of a cardboard piece) Wrap it around the toothpicks. Also add the steering wheel to the driver.

Here, make the final things for the interior of the car, such as the speedometer and radio of the car for example and the inner pockets of the doors inside the car. Then, we start colouring. Based on the car, I decided to have a golden and black colour scheme for the entire car. Don't forget to use gesso before and letting it dry!

Using the toothpicks and wires, I made the structure of the roof of the car. Then I covered it in the napkin, with the top being black and the bottom being the same brownish-yellow colour from before. (Here I challenge you to create a convertible car! Use this video as inspiration.)

The wheel covers were a massive challenge, however, through sheer trial and error, I was able to conjure a proper shape that would work, folding it properly according to the details of the car. I also added two headlights with the plastic bottle circle as the light.

In the end I varnished it, which is not really visible here but in real life, it looks much more metallic.

Using the toothpicks again, make the small people that would be on the street. I decided to have a man looking at a book, a wife and husband and a mother and child in the background, taking references of the people which were gathered before into consideration.

It will take a little trial and error to make the clothes perfect with the paper part of the cardboard but looks very cool in the end! Furthermore I made some other details around which would fit well based on the references.

Now as the diorama will only be from one perspective, it makes it easier to make the buildings, since we only need to make one side which can be seen in camera. Using the corrugated cardboard side where the bumpy parts are parallel, I could easily bend the cardboard.

The details were also carefully crafted. I also created a dome structure for one of the buildings, by making various cuts on a circle, gluing two adjacent strips on top of each other and holding it in a round position. I found it looked better without the use of paint so I decided to just keep it that way in the end!

I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope it helped you craft your own diorama or make this diorama as well! I wanted to make the materials as accessible as possible while trying not to reduce the quality of the diorama. Of course, you can make even further complex improvements to the car for example, through the challenges I provided, and it could be much neater in some places which I was unable to achieve but yeah! Hopefully you liked it!