Diorama
Entry
3 - Eugene Branham
1st
Place
“Once upon an
Upper Paleolithic Nightmare”
This scene depicts a Cave Bear’s nighttime
attempt to reclaim a cave from its human
inhabitants as interrupted by a Natural History
Museum (hence the floodlights).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Camp Fire - the top left is the standard cave
campfire, bottom (left to right) is red LED
flashing badge light without 2” round
reflector, the flames are replaced by translucent
orange and red plastic with fiber-optic cable to
simulate sparks, campfire hollowed out to accept
the LED, badge bottom with the clip removed
orange on-off switch. Upper right is the fire lit
up.. The batteries supposedly will keep the LED
flashing for up to 2000 hours.
Add-ons - The brown handle knife (center) is the
Cave original, the white one above it is made of
3 layers of flat plastic glued together and
shaped with a Dremel tool grinder. Round coat
hangers make great Mammoth tusks with only a
little bending and shaping.
The scratch build additions were made using
mostly scrap plastic (from coat hangers and model
spurs, etc), glues and putty with the following
exceptions; approximately 12” of 1/8”
oak dowel (form 2 spear shafts), 1-3/4” of
3/4” popular dowel (hollow log drum), 24 pea
gravel (different supports), 2 sea shell beads, 4
sq. inches of aluminum foil (basket forms), about
6’ of artificial sinew and 12” of tan
thread (for misc. bindings).
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 Here is a little
description of the things done that were enclosed
with this entry.
“Once upon an Upper Paleolithic
Nightmare”
30,000 years ago in a Central European Cave
Diorama by Eugene Branham contact at
ewbranham@netscape.net
With assistance from Colleen & Caitie Branham
AURORA PREHISTORIC SCENES (PS) series models
Cave, Cave Bear, Cro-Magnon Man & Woman.
Dog from Polar Lights 5021 Customizing Monster
Kit "The Vulture & Mad Dog" Model
Log from PS Neanderthal Man
This scene depicts a Cave Bear’s nighttime
attempt to reclaim a cave from its human
inhabitants as interrupted by a Natural History
Museum (hence the floodlights).
The battery pack and switch for floodlights is
located under the wooden plaque between the
lights. This plaque is mounted on a "Lazy
Susan" carousel or turntable that allows 360
degree viewing around the central vertical axis
without moving.
My family has referred to this diorama, as
“Daddy’s never ending model”. I am
pretty satisfied with the overall model as is and
it will sit on the corner on my home desk covered
by a plexiglass dome. I do plan in the near
future to add a motion activated switch to turn
on the floodlights and digital sound recording of
a crackling/popping fire, barking dog, growling
bear and screaming woman (approximately 15 second
long).
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