Book Review - The Art of The Diorama by Ray Anderson

Book Review

The Art of The Diorama
Ray Anderson

Photos by Roland Patterson

Copyright 1988, Out of Print

ISBN 0890240922

Kalmbach Publishing Co.

56 pages

Soft cover

Wonderful! Inspiring! Every model railroader should read this soft cover book as Ray C. Anderson was one of America's finest diorama builders. Also impressive is how much of Anderson's modeling is accomplished simply with Durham's Water Putty, a product found seemingly on every hardware store shelf. It seems every day we model railroaders find more and more expensive scratch building tools and supplies to accomplish our goals - Anderson's techniques are an antidote to that. Contact Kalmbach and ask them to reprint this book. It puzzles me why Kalmbach Media has not reprinted this book. 

About The Author

Ray was the second person to earn the title Grand Master of the Miniature Figure Collectors of America. Andersen purchased his first figure castings in 1965 and entered his first competition three years later in 1968. Published in 1988, his book The Art of The Diorama consists of a series of articles published in Fine Scale Modeler. His degree in mechanical engineering led him to a 30-year management career in automotive and aerospace industries. In 1972, he began to work full time in miniatures. Anderson was building box dioramas before famed Shep Paine. To see some of his work visit www.boxdioramas.com. My own favorite is Ray's A Problem on the Powder River. Reportedly, some of his work can be seen at the Miniature Craftsmanship Museum in Carlsbad, California.

Indicative of the respect accorded him in the hobby, Campaigns had published five articles about him. Soldier magazine (date unknown) added to the accolades with its own article about Anderson.

Model Railroading and Anderson's Insights

Model railroaders would benefit from reading Ray's own words in "Recipe for a Diorama" Campaigns # 34, May/June 1981. In this article he lists nine "ingredients" for a successful scene. Ingredients number four "The scene should tell a story, the conclusion of which is left to the viewer's imagination" and five "The scene should 'surround the viewer, making him feel a part of it, rather than his viewing it remotely" are the most relevant to model railroaders.

Model railroaders should also take note of the following formula he lays out for a scene: "The proper balance of man-hour construction time should be approximately sixty percent for the background, twenty percent for the figures and the remaining twenty percent for the case." How do we translate that advice for a model railroad? Certainly, the analogy to a model railroad may be a bit loose - but if our backdrop and our false flat structures are analogous to Anderson's "backdrop" - are we devoting sixty percent to that - not likely; but should we put a bit more effort into these? Probably. Again, when he suggests "twenty percent for the case" the analogy just may be to our facia, valence, skirt, and the "wings" as Iain Rice describes them. How many layouts have we seen where about "zero" would be the most accurate description of the owner's devotion of effort to this area? Anderson is urging us to do better.

If you are into large scale modeling, you might benefit from Ray's "Building Character" article published in the March/April 1978 issue of Campaigns magazine. In those pages he talks of the benefits from giving your figures some character. Thankfully www.boxdioramas.com has posted scans of Anderson's articles in full for modelers to enjoy.

Final word

Do not confuse Ray Anderson (Born February 26,1919; died September 7, 2018, California) with another famous creator of box dioramas - New Hampshire native Roy Andersen who was a professional illustrator.

Source: www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com

Revised March 14, 2022