Where I am so far.

It is important throughout a shadow box build to check every once in awhile to see how things look under what will be the principal lighting source.In this case it will be somewhere from above but the final positioning will made only late in the build when the composition is finalized.

I will put the composition back together now in order to see what parts of the Camel will actually be seen from a shadowbox perspective.There is no sense in building stuff that will never be seen.It did that when I built the Nieuport shadowbox and wasted a lot of time.At the time I was not planning to make it a shadowbox but I have some really nice pics of it from 360 degrees from before it was boxed up,so it wasn't s total loss.

I am thinking about a major change in the composition and storyline for this shadow box diorama.
I am thinking about eliminating the DR1 completely and concentrating on the Camel .Two large aircraft in such a limited space bothers me especially because this is a shadow box type diorama with very limited viewing angles.Too much up front and the whole back wall would mostly be hidden eliminating the perception of depth that I am trying so hard to achieve.
Instead I would like to concentrate on this scene as being a research area, with wing load testing and wind tunnel experiments going on.
So now it is back to square on the composition.I will move things around a bit and see what I can come up with.
The DR.1 I'll let go for another day somewhere down the line, but at 73 it better not be too far down,I guess.I still have a Peregrine Falcon /Bleriot 11 sculpture to finish and a bunch of "Old West" shadowboxes to complete.
The title "The Contenders " still works but now it is more of a fight for aircraft design between Sopwith and Fokker.Like I said in the beginning nothing is written in stone when I am working and that's the way I like it.Now for a little research on wing loading and wind tunnels.

With that I think that I will close this thread and start a new one called "The Contenders" Anthony Fokker vs. Sir Thomas Sopwith.

Closed at the request of the author.