Palm Sunday Diorama

I decided to work again on this diorama following a break. The key thing here appears to be the representation of Jerusalem town, the East or Golden Gate by which Jesus entered Jerusalem from the Mt of Olives. During this time, that part of town was dominated by the Holy temple, overlooked by the Antonia fortress, all built during the time of Herod.

I cut up some cardboard pieces to represent sections of the wall, gate , the temple and the Antonia fortress towers. Simple non-rigorous perspectives were observed. I posed some figures from the zinnfiguren set to get a sense of scale.

This initial layout shows the main features wall, gate, temple and the Antonia tower. I rather liked it as it could show quite a bit of Jerusalem spilling over the hills behind. However, it seemed to waste quite a bit of the sky portion which would be unused. So I decided to enlarge the front elements and, maybe later, to paint in higher hills in the background.

               

In this next layout, I created more of a perspective in order to enlarge the gate.

Deciding that the gate had to be even bigger, I sketched in the main features of the gate as a guide. Its turning out to be quite an interesting project.