HOW TO BUILD AIRCRAFT DIORAMAS

[Patrick]

The houses rear facade would probably been about the same in design and dimensions ,so how would you guys go about making the composition more asymmetrical ?

Back porches and exterior wooden stairways to make the rear facade more irregular. In Chicago, many of the rowhouses from this era had attached porches and stairways to the upper levels in the back, often in different configurations. Very popular for sitting out in the evening and grilling or having a beer. Would give you some more storyline possibilities too. Another possibility is iron fire escape stairs, but I can only recall seeing those on buildings of three or more stories.

And instead of the backyard letting onto a street, much more common in urban areas for it to let onto and alley that connects two sidestreets at the ends. All kind of interesting possibilities with an alley. Utility poles with porcelin insulators and tranformer cans, some with attached lights to light the alley at night. Many yards had garages or sheds that could be entered from the yard, with bigger doors opening onto the alley way.

[JohnReid]

Thanks Patrick for the ideas.My problem is that I am trying to keep everything confined to a 4X5 sheet of plywood.At 1/16th scale that can be challenging given the size of the airplane.I could move the back fence a little closer to the aircraft's tail which would give me more room for the lane way.I'll give it a try and see what I can come up with.I am also thinking about a duplex where the back doors of each unit would be side by side instead of each unit being identical(sort of a mirror image)The carport idea has been eliminated.

[JohnReid]

[JohnReid]

Luck of the Irish I guess!!! This pic was in my morning newspaper today.What I really like about it is that it also includes a human scale.If the white bar at the cops knees is actually a kickplate I would judge that the door is probably 7 feet tall excluding the window above.The windows appear to be about 5 feet high and almost the same width on the ground floor.
My house is a little wider than this one(dictated by the airplane's 30 foot wing span)

[JohnReid]

With lane way in front.

[JohnReid]

Very rough revised drawing.

[JohnReid]

I think this solves the symmetry problem and well as eliminating some of the 90 deg angles.Now I will revise the mock up.

[JohnReid]

[JohnReid]

Nice poster to go on the fence! This poster was actually used in the US to recruit British citizens living there.

[JohnReid]

Well here is something different,making brickwork for dioramas.After having spent some time on research there is one particular method that I found on another forum that I really like.It requires making the bricks individually out of artist's watercolor paper and then gluing them to foam board to make a brick wall.I haven't found anything else that looks as realistic as this in any scale.
I expect that it will be time consuming to do but luckily I only have one backyard wall to do.The same watercolor paper can be used to make foundations and stone faces too.Should be fun!