1:35 Diorama-Base: The Hotel

The Hotel diorama base in 1:35 scale

The The Hotel base from RT-Diorama is one of the diorama groundworks and building elements for 1:35 scale. It is not a kit of a vehicle or an aircraft but a scenic accessory: a set piece on which the modeler stands vehicles, figures and other equipment and which gives the display case both action and a particular place. The subject is a hotel building, that is a city house with a grand frontage of the kind that stood on the main avenue or near the station in European towns.

What the subject offers

A hotel is a rewarding set piece precisely because it joins civilian and military space. The entrance and the regular rhythm of the windows give the scene height, so even a single vehicle in the foreground looks properly set and has something to measure its scale against. Modelers use buildings like this for views of an occupied town, for a command post, for a crew at rest or for a purely civilian scene with figures of passers-by. It works well with vehicles of the 1930s and 1940s and with postwar subjects too, because architecture of this type changed little over the decades.

How to put the scene together

It pays to try the layout out dry first: set the vehicles and figures out and look for the view from which the scene reads most clearly. It works well to leave clear space in front of the building for the figures to move in and not to fill the whole area at once. It also helps to choose one main line of sight and lead the attention toward it, so that the display case does not look scattered. Allow for the lighting as well, because a frontage with windows changes markedly depending on where the light falls from.

Who the base is for

• For modelers who build city dioramas in 1:35 scale
• For collectors looking for a set piece for their vehicles and figures
• For competition scenes where the setting counts, not only the model itself
• For model photographers who need a believable background