Way back in the mid-1980s, I created a bunch of HO scale, mini dioramas of desert scenery, featuring the types of plants and terrain found in parts of the Anza-Borrego desert of San Diego County. These were sealed under glass domes and given to various family and friends for Christmas.
One of these little dioramas has just come back into my possession. It’s four inches in diameter. Here are a few photos of it. The colors have faded slightly over the years, and it’s kind of hard to get good photos through the glass:
Thanks! All of the mini dioramas were given away almost 30 years ago. This is the only one I’ve seen since then.
The scenery was pretty basic stuff… the boulders are plaster casts of real rocks, the ground is plaster with some real dirt and grit. The plants were made from various types of dried flowers or twigs; some I bought from a craft store and some were from the garden.
The agave stalks (tall things with yellow flowers) were the most work. I started with dried stalks of sweet alyssum flowers, and trimmed them to shape. Painted them with acrylics, then dabbed on small blobs of yellow paint, and sprinkled it with yellow ground foam. The spiky base of the agave was some kind of dry floral thing from the craft store, painted with acyrlics.
I used short pieces of pipe cleaner to make barrel cactus.
