This is a multiple part series for my Binding of Isaac Diorama, if you haven’t seen the previous parts check here
Change of design
As the plan grew and the diorama came more into shape (also spoke with the wife and some things that I thought didn’t really made sense), I moved the scene to depict Isaac after winning the boss floor, with the pedestal I had in mind in the center and the latch open to move to the next floor or go back to the stage from the open boss room.
This made things a bit simpler to plan, no enemy to build and I had to focus on smaller details which I actually liked more.
That said after planning anything I started planning how to build the 3 walls, the main floor as well as the 2 doors, Devil and Boss.
Doors and Walls
First planned how to make the first wall and door together.
Drew the door roughly on a piece of graph paper to keep the dimensions right and roughly I assumed a 4cm wide door would be enough to fit the scale of the room I am making.
I planned the main part of the door head to protrude above the floors as it’s shown in the game as well us to utilize my plaster molds to cast the door parts. Anything left after that would be molded by hand with air dry clay.
For basing the wall I used some thick cardboard or chipboard (the material used at the back of clipboards).
The door and panel progressed fast. Cut multiple coffee stirrers from 2 different width in side and the broke them in some parts to emulate the same look and feel of the game. I wanted to leave some open gaps between the wooden plans to make the fire looking effect that the game had, which I failed later and ended up covering it up and calling it good as is 😛
The door frame (the devil and ended up doing the base boss in a similar fashion) was made from my favourite Hirst Art rock molds, sanding them in some places to fit and arranging them to look closer to the game design.
Ended up being bulkier which I liked it more than the design.
Painted the center black and started painting the wooden planks across the whole diorama, base brown followed up with darker wash for the recesses and then light brown as a dry brush.
Looks more light than I thought so I had to go again with another wash and another dry brush to highlight some places.
Also I used a lot the airbrush in this case for the places that the broken planks connect to be seen as charred or more used (black airbrush in think layers).
Second wall was identical minus a door and I followed exactly the same plan
Final wall was the boss room door and the biggest part of the wall to fill with planks.
The Boss door showed a scull of a devil goat/bull or whatever, 2 smaller sculls on the corners of the door and a weirdly shaped ribcage running top to bottom on the 2 pillars of the frame. Well more airdry clay I guess.
I painted it grey-black-ish, showed more of the clay texture to be a bit more ominous and dark. Painted with the airbrush the center of the door red and added a darker shadow on the top going to the middle of the door.
Lastly I went for the main floor and had 2 ideas for the orientation of the planks. Ended up going with the horizontal for visual difference (with some friendly nudge from my friend and wife).
The paint was similar with the wall but this time around wanted to make it more rough, dark and stained so I dropped “in purpose” some of my paint of the airbrush directly on top of the bottom parts of the floor. I rushed to wipe it off just in time to think that this would work even better for the aforementioned reasons.
Stopped, stared, admired and moved on!
Final touches was the red glow coming from the boss door as well as some faint blood stains which probably will make bigger and stronger after I finish with the rest of the small detail.
End result with all the walls and floor done:
Next one would be the the coins, rocks, hutch and pedestal items!!
