Displaying ship models in "forced perspective"?

[RNfanDan]

I have never been to a warship modelling show/expo to see one, but I'd like to know if any members here have experience with displaying models of mixed scales to create a mini-diorama, or that have used forced perspective to enhance their display piece?

I am a volunteer instructor with an interest in teaching an adult-level recreational hobby class in an unrelated field, but would like to "plug" my warship/naval history interests, as well.

I would like to build a portable showcase display of British Force H (Renown in the foreground, Ark Royal in the distance and a County-class cruiser between); Renown will be in 1:600 scale, and I thought of using 1:1200 and 1:2400 for the cruiser and Ark Royal, respectively.

Is this a reasonable scale-down ratio, or should I back off a bit with a 1:700 cruiser and 1:1200 Ark Royal? What about lighting such a project--any advice that can be given, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Dan

[ashley]

Hi,

The biggest problem I think you'll face is the depth of field problem, particularly with a digital camera, what works in reality eg physically seeing the diorama may not work as a photo used as an example. In using closeups with an attached jewellers eyepiece over the lens of my digital camera I can get really close shots of my ships, however If the top of a turret is in focus say on 1/600 HMS Hood, the waterline is out of focus. This is exagerated if your're trying to shoot a tabletop diorama. It can work if you flood the object of the photograph with tons of light ans stop the camera right down ( f22 I think from memory is the best depth of field you can get with a standard lens).

I'm going off the topic a little I know and other people have suggested a 1/600 scale or 1/350 scale HMS Prince of Wales in the foreground and a 1/700 HMS Repulse in the background, there would be a formula of how far apart they need to be to make it look OK.

I have seen in the past in one of the wargaming magazines shots of the falklands conflict showing a 1/72 lynx helo closest to the camera followed by a 1/600 Amazon Class Frigate in the near distance with a Type 42 at 1/700 scale a little further away with a 1/1200 Canberra on the horizon.

Works fine for a single shot, but how it would work as a physical diorama I'm not sure - I guess you could alter the relative scale sof the ships using Photoshop or some other trickery maybe for an image?

I have built forced perspective models for both TV and museums, they have to be really well worked out in advance and only really work from one perspective ( say view of a convoy of ships from a submarines periscope - for example). You end up with a baseboard set at about 45 degrees to the horizontal, just to get the eyelevel correct.

If you viewed your diorama from the opposite side to intended you end up with a biiger ship in the distance than in the foreground , which would look a little odd, so maybe force people only to look at it from one viewing side.

Good luck !

Ashley

[kennylibben]

i have no clue with pictures.... but it think for it to work right in person would be for it to be eye level... and very rarely will that happen...

if you were to say enter it in a contest or show it to someone they would either think it was a tiny ship.... or that you just have no clue what your doing.


cool idea tho.

[ScottBono]

I'm sure this comes too late but perhaps someone else can be helped - a few years back I worked on a project requiring the same circumstances you outline and was in a 'tizzy' until it was suggested I simply use some basic math.

In any diorama or other presentation what is the scale of the primary object? Example: ships at sea. If the foreground ship is, say, 1/700 and you want to maintain the correct distances between ships, use the 1/700 scale for distance and convert the figures onto paper. At what distance will the 2nd/3rd vessels be? At a distance of 1000 yards an object normally 200 feet long might appear to be only 2 feet long (I use hypothetial numbers, the actual numbers can be easily obtained). So you then determine the ration of 2 feet = 200 feet and chose the next ship model based on that scale. I also discovered that lighting DOES affect the presentation but can be overcome by using indirect lighting and then shoot through a fine mesh nylon stocking. It really does work

[les]

Best way to force the perspective is to make it a boxed diorama. That way the veiwer has to look at it from one angle which allows you to force the perspecitive as much as you like.