This diorama has been displayed under several different names. Sometimes I
call it "Sweet Home Alabama" or "Rednecker Paradise" or "The makings of a Jerry
Springer Episode". I guess I name it depending on the mood I am in.
I have always wanted to build a trailer home as the centerpiece for a
diorama. I did some research on the internet under searches for "Trailer Parks".
You can only imagine what kind of sites came up. Let’s just say I am still
getting spammed by some of those sites. I did find some ideas of trailers and
decided to scratch build from the information I could get.
The trailer is scratched from Evergreen siding sheet plastic. The window
frames from strips and the panes from clear styrene. To simulate the screen in
the windows, I found some thin mesh type ribbon in the wedding gown section of a
fabric store. I scratchbuilt the front screen door from evergreen and the inner
door and stairs from balsa. To put the trailer up on blocks was to "easy" so I
put blocks under one corner, a car jack under another, some stacked logs and a
pile of rocks finished off the other corners to simulate the trailer being held
up. Various computer generated boxes and litter was scattered underneath to look
like years of neglected cleaning.
As for the outside areas, I built an old cop car turned civilian car from
the 64 Dodge Lindberg kit. I had built this car years before the idea for this
diorama. It was originally a spoof of a D.A.R.E. program cop car as I had filled
the back seat of the car full of empty, crushed beer cans. I then added some
other photoreduced items created on my computer such as a pizza box and slices
of pizza and left over crust inside the box. If you look closely, you will
notice a small rat eating away at the leftovers on the passenger side seat.
Various photoetched tools and photoreduced magazines litter the area around the
car to make it look like someone is working on the Dodge to get it running once
again. I built up the sod around the car so it would look as if the car had been
sitting there awhile and has started to sink into the soft ground.
The tree that is growing around the car is made from wire, water putty and
Woodland Scenics various colored leaf coverings held into place with hairspray.
As for the rest of the area around the trailer, I tried to make this look
like a person who may have to "live-off-the-land" lived here as there are
various animal carcasses hanging on his clothes line. I used masking tape and
Kens Fuzzy Fur to simulate the animal hides.
Looking closely you will notice some other things such as a kitten living
under the porch, A pistol in the back yard that is being used to shoot some
liquor bottles as I scattered some broken bottles around a rock to make it look
like a well-used shooting range. Crushed light bulbs work great for broken glass
in 1/25th scale. A switchblade knife is stuck in the picnic table, the grass has
obviously been neglected and if you look closely at the lawn mower you will see
why as the pull-cord has broken a long time ago and still dangles from the mower
handle. An old window air conditioner was made from styrene and tin foil and is
being held on the window with 2 x 4 braces.
Crushed beer cans are littering the scene and can also be found in the back of
this country bumpkins everyday ride, a 53 Ford pick-up. With a canoe secured to
the top of the truck and on scratch built rails, a shotgun on the rack in the
cab and a case of beer in the bed, this guy is ready at a moments notice to hop
in and go find his next meal courtesy of Mother Nature.
I hope you enjoy viewing this dio as much as I enjoyed building it.
