Diorama Kit — What’s in the box

[Tom Geiger]

I was at Hobby Lobby today and found a whole series of diorama / doll house kits. I believe these have been mentioned before. There were a bunch of them including storefronts of a book store and ice cream shop. What caught my attention is they said 1/24 scale.

Heres a close up. This scene looks great, and a super source for widgets for our own dioramas!

I was cautious and bought the cheapest one to check out. I was  hoping to get the couch, bookcase hutch and table to use as a pickup load.. I’ve wanted to do one as a low budget move or flea market vendor truck.

Considering that this manufacturer had a whole selection of 1/12 scale fully finished furniture, I was surprised at the contents of my box! Pretty much a “scratch build a diorama”! Like an old Berkeley wood car kit!  The above photo is the hutch unit.

More unfinished panels..

Most of the detail is glue down glossy paper. 
 

Here’s the couch and the window...

Directions on how to build a couch.  Instructions are well done and illustrated in color. But there’s a lot of effort. You have to stuff and upholster the thing. They want you to cut out and sew pillows.

Bag of materials.. see the couch fabric and stuffing.

Other side of bag. All the doo dads in the diorama? You get materials to scratch build it all. 

All in all, they give you quite a lot of materials for ten bucks. There is even a light kit with battery box. A lot of work to build the darn thing.  I can only imagine what’s in their $50-70 ones!

I don’t know what I’m gonna do just yet. For the $10 invested I may play with the hutch and couch. Or find something nifty to use the light kit on.. you’d pay $10 for one for your diorama.

And they even gave you a tasty snack to eat while building it! ?

[Kodiak Island Modeler]

Very interesting.  Thanks for sharing it.

[Anglia105E]

What a find, Tom !

As you say, quite unusual to find kits like this in 1:24 scale and there is such a lot in the way of materials for $9.99.

I am sure that with your creative imagination, you can come up with some good ideas !

David

[Dave Van]

When I saw this series at HL and that they were 1/24 I picked one up. The Music store. I found it a bit chunky scale wise. I may send mine to my grand daughter. Not bad...just not fine scale. 

[Tom Geiger]

6 hours ago, Dave Van said:

When I saw this series at HL and that they were 1/24 I picked one up. The Music store. I found it a bit chunky scale wise. I may send mine to my grand daughter. Not bad...just not fine scale. 

It’s about the scaling and such that doll house folks accept.  Like you, I was curious enough to spend a few dollars. I thought I’d do the review so others wouldn’t have to go through the trouble!

[Dave Van]

You did like me.....hoping that we were getting a series of 1/24 doi kits that would work in the scale world. 

A number of items are very usable but overall a few issues.