Title: The Elephant Date created: December, 2015 Description: An African elephant approaches a source of water that is slowly fading away. There are two trees nearby and some green and yellowing grasses also taking advantage of the water before it dries up for the season. Notes: I made this diorama for my wife, who loves elephants. While it was finished in December, it was part of a new round of diorama making that I associate more with 2016 than 2015, thus it is in the 2016 section of the website. The elephant is HO scale and the diorama was designed to be displayed in a 9.6 cm x 9.6 cm x 9.6 cm display cube. The sand is from our sandbox in the backyard. The trees were bent into flattened tiers to look more like trees in an African desert. Here's a shot from early on, while base was still soft clay as I worked on placing the elephant and the trees. As you can see from the ditch, the idea of a water feature was present from the beginning. I've baked the base and started adding sand and grasses. The elephant is now glued into place, as are the trees. I needed a way to catch the sand which was getting everywhere. This setup worked well. It took several applications of glue and sand before the entire base was covered in sand. I added some rocks to the drying stream bed and then poured the water. This is the finished piece with a gray background. Different background, different camera angle: Here it is in the display cube: Copyright (C) 2016, Thomas Vaughn.