Posted: 02.10.2024

Marine's Pirate Hangout Diorama

This is the first (and currently only) diorama I've ever made.

The Houshou Marine figma is absolutely bonkers. In fact, she's the figure I'd give the 2023 Toy of the Year award to if I were in the position of giving out awards to tiny plastic women.

Naturally, that meant I felt compelled to create Senchou a place to call her own.

I started working on this room in October 2023, and finished it in about 2 months. The room was made of lots of foam board, tons of Re-Ment accessories, and a metric asston of glue.

Marine's room is roughly a square foot with a floor made of bamboo dollhouse floor planks. The 'brick' walls are plastic sheets with embossed brickwork, glued to the foam boards. The rear wall is again, foam board, with some fancy craft paper pasted to it.

To say I learned a lot while making this diorama would be an understatement. In short: I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. A lot of trial, error, cursing, walking away, returning, praying, and your regular ole sweat and blood went into this project. I'm currently working on my second diorama; a much larger room themed towards Usada Pekora. With the knowledge and experience from Marine's cove, I'm sure this second diorama will go swimmingly! (It is in fact, not going swimmingly. send help)

More photos and info below. Enjoy my little passion project!

The bamboo floor in progress! I laid the floor pieces staggered as that's what I felt looked best. They're just glued to the foam. I do not recommend this method, as the board ended up warping and had to be pressed flat for many days after the glue cured.

After trimming and sanding the boards that were hanging off the edge, I wrapped the two sides in tape to prevent splinters. Using a dremel, I made holes and installed magnets under the tape in hopes of making the walls modular and removable. This idea did not work out in the end, unfortunately.

The seedy underbelly of the beast. There are some metal pins connecting the two foam boards to hold them together and rubber feet were installed on the corners to make the room sit flat and ensure it doesn't slide around when seated on a shelf.

The side walls, before paint. They are simple plastic brick sheets I found at my local craft store, glued to foam boards.

I carved “concrete” bases for the walls out of some spare foam. They're secured to the bottoms of the walls with glue and small nails.

One wall, painted and weathered. I added some browns and greens towards the bottom to give the wall a dirty and damp feel. I am happy with how the concrete base came out.

The same wall, now with a pipe! The pipe exists solely to cover the seam between the two brick panels. Said pipe is made from a model kit runner painted silver and is attached to the wall with some bent nails.

A (dusty) close up shot of one of the finished wall bases. I painted a few random bricks different colors as well.

Baseboard for the rear wall. I went with a different style for this wall while keeping the dirty and dingy aesthetic in mind.

Rear wall window installation step 1: use mounting putty to hold window in place.

Step 2: trace the window with a sharp knife.

Step 3: use more mounting putty to secure window into window shaped hole.

Using some chopped up spare foam pieces, I created some rough wood planks, intentionally making them uneven and crude. I carved some grain lines into these to give them a more realistic appearance.

After some paint: shabby! But like, intentionally shabby. The window looks as if it was slapped together by a pirate who has never done woodwork before; exactly what I was going for. There is a sheet of thin plastic sandwiched between the decorative window pieces to give the illusion of glass (you know, like a real window).

A fireplace from the Re-Ment Rosen Palace series. I received this blind box as a gift from a very dear friend and wanted to incorporate it into Marine's room somehow.

With a little paint, I was able to soot this baby up and make the fireplace a bit more used and worn looking. I had the idea of using the fireplace to help cover the seam between the panels on the second brick wall.

Test fitting the wall and fireplace with the floor! At this point, I felt things were actually starting to come together. The fireplace only covers a small portion of the seam on the wall, so I created a chimney that would cover the remainder. You can see said chimney in some of the photos if you continue scrolling.

Following the same technique I used for the window frame, I created some wood beams out of foam to line the chimney. I failed to take photos of these once painted and I also failed to take photos of the chimney while I was making it. Blame the me that existed 4 months ago, not the me that's typing this.

Test fitting the rear wall to the base.

Slapping another wall on was easy enough.

Three walls! That's more than two and that's just awesome.

It is really starting to look like a room! The chimney is made from one of those brick wall panels, folded into a rectangle and glued together. The cabinet on the wall is from the Re-Ment Taisho Roman A Great Family series with custom supports added to make it wall-mountable. The photo frame is an unused window painted gold.

The standing bookcase was a generic wood dollhouse bookcase that I stained brown and added decorative pieces to. The gold decorations are cut up bits of another unused window, painted gold. I think these little accents help make the furniture look more like they're from the same set or at least belong together in the same room.