There are three sections to this tutorial. This page is the introductory section. The second page goes over using foam to build structures and the third page covers how to make terrain right on the diorama.
Here is a picture of the near completed diorama. There are still a few more things I need to do to it but it is pretty close to completed.
The scene is easy to understand. It is a wizard standing on his tower and he is battling a dragon.
This diorama captures one important thing: A diorama is a single moment in time captured in miniature.
The basic focus of this tutorial is to show some of the various uses for foam in construction. Foam is very flexible and can be used in a lot of different ways. I used a two inch thick sheet to do a simple terrain and on this sheet I added terrain materials, trees and other stuff.
I also used foam to make the wizards tower.
This picture shows a few different sheets of foam. It comes in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and thicknesses. It comes in a variety of textures too. The typical sizes are measured by thickness ranging from 1/2 inch to four inches.
You can manipulate the foam in many of the ways you work with wood. Cut it, sand it, Glue it, or even use a hot glue gun with it. An important thing to note is that the cut open surfaces have a different texture than the outer surface of the sheets. You should take a good look at cut surfaces and note this. If you are using styrofoam as a surface in your diorama it will look different depending on whether you are showing an outer surface or the cut inner surface.
One of the best things about working with foam is that you can glue it together. In this picture I have glued two pieces together and these will be the tower. The rubber bands hold the halves tight while the glue dries. You can glue a lot of sheets together to make tall mountain ranges or other terrain features that can be sculpted.