[JohnReid]

You are right, Stephen, it is important to please yourself as your creative heart has to be in what you are doing at the moment.I remember once on a trip through St Jean de Port- Joli here in Quebec I once requested a well known woodcarver to do me a copy of a piece that he had done for me, for my cousin, at my cousins request.There just was no comparison between the original and the copy .One he wanted to do ,the other he had to do and that made all the difference.

About Key ingredients in a diorama, on another level the first thing I look for in a great diorama is,is it believable?Does it look natural?When I taught decorative bird carving ,the hardest thing to get across to my students was to avoid lining things up in a row,having things equi-distant or 90deg to each other.In fact, even today when I am working on a piece, I willoften have to go back and screw things up a bit to make it look more natural.What may look perfectly natural has sometimes taken hours of thought,placing and replacing things until they look just right. Only man plants trees in rows.It is a human tendency that I find that I have to be constantly aware of when I am working.It cannot look too staged,too square,too correct ,to be believable.In life things get dirty,dusty,worn and a good diorama must reflect this. What do you think,Stephen? Cheers! John.