Talking in pictures,what you see is what you get, with no communication barriers.

Starting to storyboard the diorama.

According to Christopher Finch in The Art of Walt Disney (Abrams, 1974), Disney credited animator Webb Smith with creating the idea of drawing scenes on separate sheets of paper and pinning them up on a bulletin board to tell a story in sequence, thus creating the first storyboard. By 1937-38 all the studios were using the storyboard idea."Gone with the Wind" was completely storyboarded.
When I storyboard my dioramas I usually work from left to right,starting at the front of the diorama and working all the way around the perimeter and then into the interior. The same way as you would normally read a book.

Putting your storyboard ideas in sequence.

Fleshing out your ideas.

The story of storyboarding
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/storyboard
Here is a good primer of what I am talking about.

The story of storyboarding
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/storyboard
Here is a good primer of what I am talking about.

Artist Lori Nix working on her diorama.ClampArtGallery.
"Otherworldly:optical delusions and small realities"
Museum of Arts and Design.

With a little photographic imagination even a vignette like this could be storyboarded.

The more that I study and research dioramas the more that I am convinced that there really three basic types.The open,the closed and the storyboard types.
The difference between them is mostly characterized by the amount of control that the builder of the diorama wants to exert upon the eye of the viewer.
Open dioramas exert little control, while closed dioramas exert the most.
Open dioramas allow the viewer the most freedom to let the eye roam wherever it wants,and are pretty much laid out in front of you to be viewed at any angle and under any lighting conditions.
The most restrictive type is called a shadowbox.Shadow boxes are meant to be viewed from one angle only and under very controlled conditions.
The storyboard diorama falls somewhere between these two extremes.Let me explain what I mean...

I am doing a little research on storyboard dioramas,trying to find out where the term came from.While leafing through my wear -worn copy of Ken Hamilton's book it finally dawned on me that it was there that I first got the idea.Thanks Ken ,was this your term or where did you get it from ? Just curious.
I once ran the term by Shep Paine and he asked me what was that ,Storyboard Dioramas ,as he had never heard the term used before.It was new to him as his definition had always been "a diorama with figures" which really doesn't cut it for me.I figure if he didn't know of the term it probably didn't exist before Ken first used it.
I have come to realize lately what a wonderful contribution that book has made to our hobby.
Why it isn't it still in print is beyond me. Thanks ! Ken.

Future postings to The Homecoming thread will be posted here.Thanks!

This is the latest addition to the diorama ,a bird bath and a fish pond.Their grandsons made them for letting them use half of their backyard for storing and selling wood.
The bird bath is obvious but I will tack a No Fishing sign to the tree for the fish pond.
You can see that these are scratch built as they are not perfectly round etc.. but neither would they be in full scale ,when cast in cement by amateurs.It will also require a little building up of the landscaping and some leafing up around the edges when it is finally installed.I left a slight cupping in the center to indicate greater depth below.

What started off as a dollar store bird house is slowly becoming a garden shed.Here I have started the weathering.

Any color acrylic used thin enough can give the old paint/barnsiding type look.

"Storyboard dioramas are full-blown,highly detailed dioramas whose sole purpose is to tell a story ,with or without a vehicle as a focal point.This type of diorama uses any combination of structures,scenic techniques,vehicles,and other peripheral details to deliver the point.Overall composition and visual impact play a key role in the storyboard diorama.This is the Unlimited class of diorama building."

Ken Hamilton.

In my research I have found that this is the first use of the term Storyboard Dioramas .Ken coined it way back in 2001 in chapter one of his great book " How to Build Creative Dioramas."

I will finish the rest at final assembly.

Replacing post of June 3

replacing pic of June4

My version of a porch swing in the form of an old car seat.This will be finished upon final assembly when I will have to decide where to put it,hanging from a tree,beam etc....
I wasn't going to make it given the time of year I am depicting but they could have put it out of the first warm day of spring or left it out all year therefore there will be no cushions to sit on.

He was my father in law and I stuck this to the side of the footlocker in the diorama and only visible to those who really look.The footlocker was his and I have it in my home.I have research this and it seems that it is typical of the Canadian Forces in both wars.The 1/16th scale will go in the backseat of the 4 door Ford military car.