When doing a shadow box type of diorama a lot of decisions have to made before you even think of starting to actually build something.Your subject matter of course will be based upon your interests but the basics of making dioramas cross all artificial boundaries.Ship builders may want to do a harbor scene with a truck unloading its cargo,aircraft builders may want to show service vehicles,figure makers may want to include a tank and so on.
When doing dioramas you must start to think like a dioramist(word?)Dioramas generally do not come in kits where everything is usually supplied.Right from the get go your creativity and imagination is your most important tool.You are creating a storyboard scene much like a stage or movie director would do.You are stage manager,storyteller,props manager,lighting expert,carpenter etc.. etc.. all rolled into one.This is your single frame production without the luxury of music and dialogue to help tell your story.Sounds difficult? not really,it just requires basic building skills and lots and lots of imagination.
It is my opinion that lots of modelers drop out of the model building hobby because the idea of constructing object after object, no matter how intricate, becomes really boring.All the fun, creative part has already been done and you just put it together to create something that looks like what everybody else has done.You can still opt to use kits in your diorama,I do it all the time,but this is only a minor part of what a dioramist does.It is like painters who copy the masters,everyone does it in the beginning and then move on from there to do their own thing.What really separates the artist from all the others is his imagination.A lot of dioramists are just frustrated directors, but even Stephen Spielberg doesn't build everything on his movie sets.He has others do it for him.He says where the objects may go and how they relate to one another but even his job is easy compared to what we do when making our storyboard dioramas.How much we scratch build and how many kits we use is really irrelevant ,it is in how we use these objects to tell our story.I know many model makers take a lot of pride in scratch building stuff,I know I do,but if I can find an object as a kit or already build, I will use it in my dioramas but it is usually a highly modified version of the original.
Remember our primary goal is to tell our story.It doesn't matter if it is fact or fiction or fact with even a lot of artistic license thrown in.If we are successful we will raise an emotion in our viewers beyond just "isn't that a nice ship,car, truck figure or whatever it is."For the storyboard dioramist that is simply not enough,we have stories to tell and that makes all the difference.The Art is in the storytelling not the craftsmanship.