I'm almost finished a small diorama for the contest, when I showed it to a friend she said it was a nice little 'vignette'. Looking at it again she might be right.

My dio is about a Candian bren gunner diging a firing position into the rubbel (sic) of a street in a Dutch Sea port town when the Candian army had to free up port facilities on the north sea, shortly after the Falaise Pocket. My base is probably only 15x15 cm, with one man, rubble and a window frame. Does this technically count as a diorama or is it too small?

Thanks

Jeff

I would say that's a vignette.
But it's an interesting discussion... what's the difference between a diorama and a vignette.

Will this count for the contest then? It's a first attempt at a diorama so I'm not going to go nuts, building the pope in the sistine chapel.

Jeff

Jeff,
You don't need the pope, nor the sistine chapel here. Your WWII gunner is an individual figure, there's a window in it ... As long as your base is limited to 4x6 or 6" circle, it plays in the competition.
But even if your base is just a little too big, It's worth sending it in to have it discussed, to have comments by others and to learn others about your techniques !
Not many Canadian figures around, so this will be interesting. But when you start painting the ceiling of your sistine chapel, we're interested to see that, too.

Two part response from me. As GF mentions, one figures, 4x6 base, window - you're in the campaign.

As far as a difference between dio's and vignettes. Hmmmm, the last posting I ready about the difference was that a vignette is small and does not tell a story. Where a dio is bigger and conveys a story.
I now beg to differ on this point. There are some amazing stories bolstering all of these Great ideas for this campaign.
Oxford (as in the dictionary) says this about vignette: 1. a short descriptive essay or character sketch. 2. (not related to modeling) 3. a photograph or portrait showing only the head and shoulders with the background gradually shaded off. 4. a brief scene in a movie, etc.
Oxford says this about diorama: 1. (not related to modeling) 2. a small representation of a scene with three dimenstional figures, viewed through a window, etc. 3. a small-scale model or move set etc.

Ok - now that makes it clear as MUD. As I gleaned from a recent post, this sounds very similar to judging overall. It is an interpretive artform all to its own and can be adjusted to fit the need.

Where your figure goes will depend on the contest rules as applied by the head judge. I would be inclined to say a single figure is not a diorama unles there's a whole lot else going on. Being as there's just one figure, I'd be inclined to put him in a single figure category appropriate to his scale. Some folks maintain a vignette cannot tell a story, but in figure competition/displays, vignettes often show significant action of as many as 7 figures in close proximity. I tend to think of the break between vignette and diorama as being the inclusion of a piece of machinery and/or building structure and figures. The figures should be doing something, even posing ofr a picture, as opposed to a tank crew sitting in the hatches of a tank or a pilot standing next to his plane to give it scale. Multiple figures spread over a large piece of land would be more of a dio to me than, for example, Andrea's Custer's Last Stand, which has 5 54mm figures on a 4 inch base.
Put another way, Armisted stepping over the wall at Gettysburg, single figure category. Armisted falling next to a Union cannon with several troops around him, vignette. The Union center at the copse of trees with several dozen figures, diorama.
Tank with crew in hatches on a muddy road, single vehicle. Tank with crewman reading a map next to it on a muddy road, single vehicle. Tank with crewman in hatch, several troops walking next to it, diorama.

I'm sorry for you, but 15x15cm is too big for the contest. You'll have to schrink it down to 10x15cm...

Actually it's closer to 7.5 X 7.5 CM very compact (3in sqr). I live 25 minutes from the american border and have a bastardized measurement system. I don't understand miles or yards, but I use inches and feet in most measurements despite being one of the first metric generation. I use Kilos instead of pounds and farenheit instead of celsius. I used metric becuase of the large european contingent here. It wasn't untill I read 15 x 15 that I thought "wait that's half a foot". I shouldn't feel too bad I guess, remember that Satellite that blew up last year becuase half the work was metric and the other imperial.

Anyways like you said, I'm just building this becuase its there, I'm not here to win anything, It's for kicks. That and I'm sure that everyone will provide me with some constructive critisim to make future projects better.

If I ever get around to the Sistine Chapel mine will be better then the original, women will be able to wear mini-skirts inside.

Jeff

I think the number of "figures" in a scene, or even the shear size is ultimately irrelevant in consider ing the highly debatable "diorma vs vignette"... kind of like the old "number of angels that can dance of the head of a pin... Still - here are my two cents....

i have always held that a "vignette" is a "photograph" of a singular concept... ie, a tired soldier drinking a cup of coffee in a doorway of a cafe"... a thought or emotion is conveyed, but it does not tell a full story line. Here, a mortal man might be taking a common comfort we take for granted as his connection to life in a tiring and deadly world that surrounds him most of the day. (gee - kinda poetic, ain't it!?)

A diorama (by my humble definition, for what that is worth) is a grouping of vignettes that tell a broader expanse of a storyline... the same soldier, standing in the doorway drinking his coffee, while beside him, a fellow soldier is chatting up a local young lady hoping the evening holds more in store for him than java or decaf... and then down the street comes a group of fresh recruits, marching into the town, down the same street in high spirits and eager for a taste of battle.

Here we see several concepts playing against one another... one "photo" is the tired man, another is a "man trying to do what men most like to do... even in the face of battle.... and a third photo contributes by showing the bliss of ignorance and the innocence of youth, in terms of both love and death.... (quick... somebody call Cecil B Demil... I want a contract on this story!)...

Summing it up, a diorama is more of a panorama or a motion picture frozen in time... while a classic vignette is a "3D photo" of the mind.

Again.... for what it is worth. But then again... the terms can be inter-exchanged freely and it doesn't really matter at all... long as you have fun and are pleased with your work!