Fashion/Action Doll Dioramas by AliMcJ

The Elements of the Diorama "A Meeting of the Minds"

Please be patient -- some of these images may take a little time to open. Alison McMahon Johnson

A lot of people have been interested in just how I did this, made them look life-sized. Well, first, you have to keep everything in scale. The Barbies and G.I. Joes are on a standard 1:6 scale (the My Scene are on a 1:5.5 scale, as their heads are larger and so they, in their world, are petite women, while the Barbies stand 5'9" tall and Joe 6' -- small items are interchangeable, but larger ones shift in visual scale; you'll see that later in the scale pages).

Here you have the "set" with the tops of the walls and the bottom of the sand tray showing:

Here you have the entire set, seen from a high point of view, in relation to "the real world."

You can see how the entire perceptual scale shifts when it is seen in relation to what we are accustomed to seeing. (Charisse is visiting the theatre, trying out the Timberwolf fur, definitely the lost Gabor sister.)

The Principals Take a Well-Deserved Restthat was a long time to hold a pose, and a hi-five is in order!

After we struck the set and the principals had their well-deserved rest over the Christmas holidays, we settled in to getting ready for the Lunar New Year:

On top, in the heavens, is an Asian "perfect body" Cy Girl; on the left is a My Scene repaint, on the right is "Alison Wonderland," a Barbie repaint, all holding strings of firecrackers. The first string of firecrackers I made of rolled acid-free red paper and then I hurried up the process by using cut lengths of thin red coffee straws (Thank you 7-11). All of them are wearing jackets or sweaters I designed and knitted for the Alison Wonderland line of furs.

While I was adding elements (the rams' heads for the outgoing year of the goat), I received a doll in the mail fortuitously packed in blue cotton wool, which immediately made its way to the heavens for clouds:

Then with some closer photography and cropping, we had a "sketch" of the final layout:

...images below are left over and will change -- top images are only new ones for dolls8

Stage Seven:

Stage Eight -- nearly complete -- complete enough to show:

... just some finishing touches to add and perhaps photograph with photo floods for heightened clarity. ...and with the pages put into the books (Blacklist, The Da Vinci Code running throughout) and the sandbags sewn shut, and maybe a change of color on the middle wall, and Barbie's hair fixed nicely, we have a picture of a Book Crossing drop off in a theatre, the next person to have it boxing up a bundle to send to soldiers stationed in the Middle East -- both to meet their wish lists for books and to give them a chance to communicate back via books and the internet -- and being read there by a serviceman.

Stage Nine:

in which the picture snaps into more clarity by the addition of a blue-green in the jacket and wallpaper (and the center doll is out at Ali Baba's Spa getting her hair done)

and an experimentation with angle -- to try to get all sections important (which the blue-green did, but the soldier and his attention on the book the focus of the entire piece.

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