The images below are of various box dioramas and “mini-boxes” that caught our attention on social media or were seen at recent shows (and generally snapped on the fly with the cell phone, unless otherwise credited, so apologies for the quality). Please, if any of these pieces are yours, or you know the modeler, contact us and send us some more information and images so we can create a proper gallery page for you.
Paul Schindler first posted his box diorama of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine on the Facebook page for the podcast hosted by this site’s editors, Small Subjects. The artist wrote: “Paul re-discovered scale modeling after many years away during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not long after, he found the Small Subjects podcast and Boxdioramas.com which provided much inspiration for this Yellow Submarine box diorama. He works and lives in Atlanta, Georgia hoping to make more stories through this magical art form.”
Click here for some additional images of the work in progress.
Seen at the 2023 MMSI Chicago Show: Open Wide by John Werwie; photos by Felix Gonzales.
A WWI flats diorama posted on Facebook by Robert Blokker, who wrote: “I finished my first ever flat figures diorama as well. This was also in time for the SMC and it actually won bronze in the historical figure diorama masters class. Pretty chuffed with that. I present you with the Prussian charge at Tannenberg 1915. The complete interior of the box is handpainted and has a sliding backdrop that reveals a mirror that allows you to see the backs of the figures. Also it let's you see the inside of a trench that has 11 more figures painted on the backwall.”
This ambitious Waterloo diorama was posted on Facebook by Bert Elbertse, who wrote that he supposed the figures were “Airfix and Historex, 60 years old, maker unknown.”
“Berlin Year Minus 2,” posted on Facebook by the great Jean Diorama, who wrote: “This one is not even taken out of my fantasy. It shows the real story of that Berlin nurse that collected that shoebill after the zoo was bombed in 1943. If you Google the event you will see a picture of her handfeeding the bird in her bathroom that she transformed in a zoo cage. Of course I transformed quite a bit the settings even though I tried to reproduce most of the visible furniture. Oh yes before I get any comment on this, I replaced the shower's hose which is definitely too thick.”
To the best of our knowledge, Andrea Miniatures’ new “box within a box” is the first commercially pre-made box diorama kit since the Tonka/Smithsonian box diorama kits decades ago. Read more about it here.
A dedicated fan of this site who’s been digging deep for research about pioneering box diorama maker Theodore Pitman, Phillip Young wrote: “I came across a pretty cool “article” about the making of the US Department of Interior Dioramas. I think it is interesting and something maybe for your website: Stories in Miniature — Google Arts & Culture.” Phillip also passed on the following links, noting that they are “the most I have seen on Pitman [and] the Harvard work with Samuel Guernsey.”
Construction of Dioramas | Harvard Forest
The Harvard Forest Dioramas | Harvard Magazine
Model of Betatakin cliff dwelling by Guernsey and Pitman – Objects – eMuseum (harvard.edu)
Added Phillip: “And then some details about the work in Newton – two informative articles.”
Battle Dioramas at Newton City Hall – Newton, Massachusetts - Atlas Obscura
In the same spirit of sharing links of interest to fellow fans of this site, our dedicated correspondent John Fraim passed links to several “Box Dioramists That Don’t Necessarily Know The Are Box Dioramists,” either from the fine arts world or the model railroad side of things. All are well worth checking out!
Matthew Albanese: Promised Land; A Clearing Winter Storm; Wildfire; The Grand Illusion; Meteor of 2021; Train Wreck; A New Life; DIY Paradise; Burning Blues.
Lori Nix and Catherin Gerber: Empire; The City; Unnatural History; Lost; Accidentally Kansas; Some Other Place.
Gregory Crewdson (“A Staged Photography Dioramist” who notes, “Staged Photography is Creating Real Life Dioramas): Twilight (2002); Beneath the Roses (2005); 2008; Sanctuary (2010); Sanctuary (2011); Cathedral of the Pines (2016); An Eclipse of Moths (2020)
An exhibitor at the 2023 MMSI Chicago Show brought along the diorama above to display after picking it up at, as I recall, an estate sale; the artist was unknown to him, and to us. Any ideas? Email us! (Photo by Felix Gonzales)
Another find from Facebook: Rendezvous Over Bougainville by Mike McFadden, winner of the Popular Vote for Best of Show at IPMS Nationals 2023 in Texas.
Yet another fan of this site, Martin McClendon, made us aware of this impressive box diorama by Masa Narita, writing: “Came across this site, this guy is a master modeler and does CGI work for Lucasfilm, etc. And in his spare time, made this huge Star Wars box diorama!
The Fiddler by Ken Hunt; photo by Penny Meyer at the 2023 MFCA Show.
The Magic Circle by Matt McKeeby; photo by Penny Meyer at the 2023 MFCA Show.
Guardians of the North by John Meeks; photo by Penny Meyer at the 2023 MFCA Show.
Hawkeye, artist unknown; photo by Penny Meyer at the 2023 MFCA Show.
German Paratroopers at Monte Casino (1/32nd); a small shadowbox by Jan Baschek found on Facebook, 2023.
Another small but effective box found on Facebook, in this case, the Modelismo BCN page. Artist unknown.
Inspiring other modelers—especially young ones—that’s what this site is all about. Here you see a box diorama that co-editor Barry Biediger’s great niece Carina Martinez made for him for Christmas 2022, inspired by the Small Subjects podcast. Well-done, Carina!
Consistently impressive, gold-medal-winning modeler James Rice wrote of this piece: “This is the Young Miniatures Spitfire bust in 1/10 scale. I like doing up a ‘bustorama’ from time to time, but, how to do it with a pilot bust? I created a portion of a Spitfire and mounted the bust inside. I further wanted to do up this one as a night fighter, so I created a styrene box and painted a night sky with spotlights and a crashing bomber. I then used acrylics (inks and scale artist tube acrylics) to create a light blue light effect to try and mimic moonlight. I did the same on the front and face of the bust to mimic the interior/instrument lighting. The blue was further supported with a piece of blue plastic serving as a blue filter as the room light comes in from the top. The interior/instrument lighting was supported with a couple of small red led lights. I like the final effect, but, a lot of work for a single bust project!”
I stumbled across this dramatic box, which Eindhoven-based modeler Joris van Os calls “Paradise Lost,” on Facebook. Click here for some additional views.
Inspired by an episode of Small Subjects about box dioramas hosted by this site’s editors, fellow podcasters with the wargaming-oriented Plastic Crack Podcast Facebook Group conducted a challenge for their members to try their hand at this form. Listener Warren Cann sent us the photos, including his own effort above, “The Witch's Cabin,” and wrote, “I can say with certainty that all these efforts were the first ever attempts at box dioramas (excepting primary school shoe-box creations! ). Five people entered; two of them submitted TWO boxes.” To see the other artists’ efforts—fantastic first attempts, one an all—click here. We love this idea, and the results!
Another Facebook find: I came across this box diorama of a boat shed by Ogan Akinci on the IGMA Miniature Community Facebook Group page; click here for two additional views.
We saw this impressive “partial box” by Athens-based modeler Vasilis Triantayfyllou, “The Spirit of Princess Lucia,” on the Miniature Figure Collectors of America Facebook page. Click here for some additional views.
And the “Metaverse” continues to deliver: Lorenzo Bernardin said this box was “old work in 80mm,” but it’s new here, and it was new to me when I saw it on the FigureMentors Painting Group page. You can find some additional views here.
Irish modeler Mike Lynch has been featured here before (further down this page, actually!), and he recently submitted a shadow box of Edward Hopper’s brilliant “Nighthawks.” According to Mike, “The whole scene measures 2ft by 2ft by 18 inches tall in British 0 gauge of 7mm = 1 ft or 1:43.5 scale. You can view all of my railway and shadow box type dioramas at paternosterrow.blogspot.com.”
Our pal Joe Berton, who follows the auction catalogs because of his interest in militaria, recently found this listing at Sotheby’s for “A Pair of Frog Dioramas, Probably French, Late 19th Century.” Curious, indeed, but even more odd was the estimate of the price: “8,000 - 12,000 USD.” Wow! Click here for a closer look at each.
Here is a small WWI box seen on Facebook by an artist who calls themselves Warhammer Adjacent; they write: “Some decent pictures of my WW1 dugout box dio. Figure from Tommys War. I tried out some techniques from Mike Butler’s book which is ace. The rest was built from balsa and aluminium pie tray along with some 3D printed gadgets and simple LED lighting.”
Above: “The Plague” by Bob Huryk (54mm, 2022), as seen at MFCA 2022.
Below: Several pseudo-boxes by the artist of Jean Diorama, who was recently featured on an episode of the Sprue Cutters Union podcast.
Below: The “Stuff You See on Facebook”
A charming box diorama of a gnome (artist unknown) and a Star Wars scene by Bulgarian artist Ивайло Спасов. We’d love to see more of both modelers’ work!
The Work of Andy Acres
Also Discovered While Surfing Around: Several box dioramas by London-based model maker Andy Acres, who specializes in eerie scenes and who was featured in an article here, and who, again, we’d love to learn more about!
Above: Two creative twists on the “half-box” by Gold-medal-winning artist Jim Rice, both displayed at the MMSI Chicago Show in 2021. At left: A 79th Cameron Highlander bust set as a sort of three-dimensional picture; at right, an imaginative fantasy piece called “The Keykeeper.”
Above are two flats boxes by an unknown French artist (and I’m not even sure where I encountered them!). Anyone got any info? It’s very nice work. Accompanying text for the top box: “Napoleon at the foot of the pyramids.A new diobox based on a series of 30mm flat figures engraved by MOHR for WIMOR. From a painting painted by Maurice ORANGE in 1895 on the Egypt campaign.” And for the bottom: “The action takes place in 1870, around Metz. Prussian scouts captured a man who was trying to cross the lines. While he is being searched, he remains encamped in front of the foreign officers, seated in front of the reliefs of a lunch. The figurines come from the catalog of Christian Carl Cortum Zinnfigurinen, they fairly faithfully reproduce the painting. And a little DIY to make the decor, the box and its lighting.”
We came upon this cool box of astronauts floating in their space station displayed at a recent show and featured on one of the modeling sites on Facebook; alas, there was no information about the artist or anything else! If you created or recognize the piece, drop us a line!
It took us a while to get a good image of “Serenity,” the first box diorama by Chicago medalist Noel Meyer, displayed at the MMSI show a few years back. Noel found the challenges of doing a box daunting, but we hope she’ll try another again soon!
Jean-Bernard André moved from traditional 1/35th scale modeling to more artistic realms with sometimes fantastical nature themes. He reached out to this site to highlight a few of what he calls “3D boxes,” writing that he favors “no lights or whatever because I believe a diorama should encapsulate its own light within.” The pieces above are titled “Babe-Yaga” and “Zig and Sharko.” You can explore much more of Jean-Bernard’s work on his Web sites here and here.
Linda Mayer is an artist and art educator living in Northeast Ohio. She writes, “I've very recently discovered the wide world of miniatures/scale models/room boxes/shadowbox/assemblage. I'm actually not sure what to call what I’ve done because it draws on so many areas of interest at once. During my endless Internet searches I came across your wonderful website and I’m sending pics of my first piece, which I call “The Back Stairs.” It's a lighted shadowbox that hangs on the wall, and I created all the architectural elements from scratch. I also created the miniature books and my husband, who is a wood-turner, created several small turned wood pieces. You will also see some store bought props amid the bits of hand assembled twigs and debris. If you had to relate this to a particular scale it would half-inch.” You can visit Linda on the Web here and see additional views of the piece above here.
Anthony’s Boxed Dioramas, “The Haunting of Hill House”
Michael Carnago, Alley box/book end
Jordan Baker, “Patting a Panther in the Dark”
Jordan writes: “I’d like to submit some pictures of a boxed diorama I made in 2017, my first ever. I used many of the articles from your website as inspiration and help in building mine. The diorama is based off an actual account from some night fighting in Normandy. The story was taken from the book Guns of Normandy by George Blackburn.
Andy Acres
Box dioramas master Nick Infield first turned us on to artist Andy Acres. (From an article Nick found on the Web: London-based model maker and founder of Chimerical Reveries Andy Acres invites you to “peer into another world” with his hand-crafted shadow boxes. Inspired by the art of storytelling, each enchanting model depicts eerie, abandoned scenes in miniature scale. Derelict farmhouses, old attics, and fog-filled forests are just some of the places you will find. Ranging in size, each shadow box features meticulous details, rich textures, and deep colors. Viewers are able to inspect Acres’ spooky scenes at different angles to discover intriguing, hidden details and envision their own story.) Andy specializes in what that article called “Spooky Miniature Shadow Boxes.” You can see images of his fantastic work on his site here.
John Fraim point us to Joshua Smith, an interesting artist doing miniature scenes in Norwood, South Australia. Visit his Web site and see a fantastic gallery of his work here.
While you’re clicking around, Matthew Albanese is an artist in upstate New York who does amazing dioramas of nature scenes. (His work is copyrighted and I cannot post an image here, but do check out his gallery!)
Storefront window box diorama in Madrid (photo by Joe Berton)
A wonderful box display of vintage paper toy soldiers by Herb Metzler at Chicago World Expo 2017. (Photo by Penny Meyer)
Two shots of a very nice partial box diorama featuring a Japanese mini-submarine by Asian modeler Francis Lee found on Facebook.
A wonderful and whimsical little fantasy box by Massimiliano Amon Richiero found of Facebook.
Irish modeler Mike Lynch submitted the shots above via email; they depict a 20 x 20 inch model of a railroad roundhouse. Mike writes: "I was always very much taken with the way Shep Paine used artificial light in his dioramas and so have tried to emulate his techniques in most of my layouts. Modelling can bring much joy and it can be great medicine when wanting to block out the troubles of the real world. I try very much to promote this and am always looking at ways to encourage people into the hobby." More of his work can be seen at www.paternosterrow.blogspot.com.
Above is an excellent single-figure box recently completed by Greek modeler Vasilis Triantafyllou. The link will take you to his Facebook page, and we would love to feature more of your work, Vasilis!
Above are two shots of a Medieval-themed box shown by Adrian Smith at the Eindhoven show in 2016.
Here are two ambitious dioramas show in 2016 by Mike McFadden, a member of the U.S. Junior Scale Modeling Team. Well-done, Mike, and keep at it! Photos by Penny Meyer.
A nice still-life box found recently on the web, artist unknown. Great work; contact us! We would love to credit you, tell the story, and see more.
A striking Historex scene found on the Web with the following description: Vincennes, 21 March 1804, three in the morning. Very odd things are happening in the ditches of the castle... Kidnapped in Germany where he had migrated, summarily tried by a military tribunal, Louis Antoine De Bourbon, Duc D’ Enghien, accompanied by his dog Mohiloff (a pug). Listen to his death sentence was read by an Adjutant-General by the light of a lantern. The Army Platoon, elite guard consular is ready, the grave too... On the bridge crossing the divide, the generals savary (Panache to the cocked hat) and hulin (scarf of command on the frock coat) were present at the scene with the other officers forming the military tribunal having signed what Talleyrand will say that it was more than a Crime: a fault! Contact us for credit!
A Star Wars box seen on the Web. Nice stuff; contact us for credit and to tell us the story!
Mitsuo Kure, Fantasy Box inspired by Shep Paine’s diorama tribute to Frank Frazetta (54mm, approximately 1986)
Kelly's Heroes By Brian Duddy
A 1/35th scale box diorama based on the classic 1970 movie seen at the 2015 MMSI Chicago Show, uniquely (and appropriately) set in an old TV. (Photo by Bob Sarnowski)
Hunchback Box
Beautifully displayed by Ken Hunt at MFCA 2015 (photo by Penny Meyer)
Jesus and the Demon Possessed Man
By Andy Axtell
The Death of Nelson
(Barry King, scale unknown; photo from Historical Miniatures magazine.)
Best of Show at SCHAMS, 2000
Sinking of the Titanic
(Randy Myers, scale unknown; photo from Figure International magazine #27.)
Best of Show at SCHAMS, 2008
There and Back Again
(Artist unknown, as displayed at World Expo 2013, beside the following box diorama, another fantasy/hobbit scene. The one failing of the otherwise superb Expo was that the names of artists and titles of their pieces were not displayed, remaining a mystery to many admirers!)
Wrong Exit
(Luca Masetti, 54mm; as displayed at World Expo 2013)
Mine!
(By Ken Hunt, scale unknown; photo by Nick Infield, as displayed at MFCA 2013)
Jack the Ripper
(By Bill Donohue, 54mm; as displayed at MFCA 2013)
London, 1943
(By Didier Hachem, 54mm; as displayed at MFCA 2013)
Bottom of the Fifth
(Fletcher Clement, 54mm; photo by Bob Sarnowski)
The Kid
(Dieter Mattingly, 54mm; photo by Bob Sarnowski)
You Shall Not Pass
By Ted Kalinowski (Figure International #5, April 2003)