Diorama/Dollhouse For Your BJD

That's a really nice idea!i wish I had the space for something like that, but my room is like a warehouse for art and craft materials. And toys. And dolls...

 

I have a spare bedroom in my house, and I built deep shelving along one wall to make permanent dioramas for the dolls. There are 9 bedrooms built, plus one pub/bar on top of the dresser in there, and a 1/3 couch for the remaining ones who don't have their own private space.

 

My dolls are technically small beings living in a human-sized world, so I don't have much that's their size, but I'd love to slowly build a collection of things they "make" and create a space that's theirs someday.

 

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When getting the cabinets for my dioramas, my biggest priorities were opaque doors to keep out pets and sunlight, then enough depth so the shelves could acommodate more than a bench. That and my furniture is already mismatched. I wasn't thinking much about home decor.

 

Oooh, thanks for asking this question, OP!

I've been wondering what other people do, but I'm too much of a coward to make a thread myself since I'm like 'oh god there's probably a thread about this from 2012 and I'll get in trouble for making a new one ' lmfao.

I'm JUST getting started with this personally, but I ALSO happen to have an old but still very nice armoire! I've used it for storage for years and am now in the process of clearing things out. Once I'm done, I'll be making it into a little two-story space for my MSDs and YOSDs.
(Also beginning to work on creating little spaces for my off-topic 1/12 boys, which has been a much easier process!)

I'm also curious as to where people obtain furniture and other little props suited for MSDs and YOSDs! I've primarily been looking around on Taobao/Xianyu and AliExpress with some success!
Etsy is the absolute worst since it's like . . maybe 3 real creators making amazing stuff and charging what it's worth (aka more than I can justify paying for a teenytiny couch), and then the rest of it is just people reselling Taobao/AliExpress products for 10x the original price lmfao.

I definitely intend to make some of my own furniture/props for my babyboys as well, but that's gonna come with a serious learning curve even with the relevant skills I already have!

 

I wish I had a diorama, but I'll probably push that project off for other projects next year. My idea is clear: ground floor, first floor with a bedroom extending to about one half of the room and a door to the balcony. I would like a retro industrial style loft. Three photo locations in one. I'll see when I get around to it...

 

I’ve done the exact same thing. Those old TV armoires can be purchased for a song at thrift shops (provided you have a way to lug the big ol’ things home of course.) I’m currently using 2 of them (in different rooms) for doll displays. One is for a genie’s posh throne room (he’s a 65cm SD and resides there with 2 of his children.) The other is a huge one that I removed the doors from and used them to create a shelf separating it into two large rooms, one on top of the other. This is for my MSDs, and the rooms are large enough to easily accommodate 5 dolls or more with no crowding. Then I went crazy decorating them, and it was so much fun! The bottom floor is a Victorian plant conservatory, set up with couches, chairs, carpets and garden books for my planthros (see my avatar and you’ll get the idea.) The upper room is a Victorian attic, with old sofas, tables, rugs, boxes and trunks. I’ve spent years sourcing little things to decorate with, and I’m far more particular about having the items tell my characters’ stories in some way than being perfectly in scale. It’s a fantasy world after all!

My chosen decorative style for my home is Bohemian Maximalism…so yeah, I’m very cognizant of all my doll displays matching my decor (whether they’re a full diorama or just a grouping on top of a table or dresser.) I pay very close attention to color choices and furniture styles, so it all just flows within the context of my doll’s character and my imagination. In my livingroom I like to use things like antique looking gold frames and lace curtains as a backdrop to help create a collected old world look, and Turkish tapestries provide carpeting. The genie’s throne room is in the spare bedroom, and there I’ve used sari silks for the backdrop with a Turkish tapestry for the rug, along with a rattan chair (originally made for teddy bears I believe) for the throne and a beautiful antique looking genie bottle. All this is very bohemian of course, but I think one’s diorama could just as easily translate to modern, Asian, cottagecore or whatever their home’s decorative style might be.

 

My dolls are booting out the anime figures in my Ikea Detolfs

 

For 1/12 scale, I have a little wood shelf that has a mountain range in the backdrop and the foreground/actual shelf area has a little sandy path, and a front rail I covered with mosses. (I did a Youtube video of me painting it; am I allowed to link it?) I usually put a 3d printed bench or two on it so I can sit Ob11 dolls on it. I need to find a new spot to hang it though, as I finally got the drawing that goes in the spot I had it occupying framed so I had to take it down tonight. I also built a "snowball fight" arena that's a little outdoors area with a pond and three different elevation levels for posing Ob11 dolls having a snowball fight last winter. XD I keep meaning to finish a potion seller booth but haven't yet, and I picked up a Calico Critter house at a thrift store that I want to customize into a cute little cottage.

I don't really have any setups for larger dolls right now, though I do have some props, furniture, and cars in true 1/6 scale.

I have a DollZone MiYou (so a little kitsune boy), an Imomodoll I plan on making into a little tanuki boy, and plans for a little nekomata girl all in YoSD sizes. My story for them is that they're all shapeshifters who go back and forth from their animal and human forms.
So I've considered getting a pet bed to put them in. But would that make me a terrible doll dad? xD

 

For my 1/4 scale dolls, I have an IKEA BROR shelf that I use for dioramas. I use foamboard covered with contact paper for the walls and use magnetic battery-operated lights to light up each shelf. Since the shelf is metal, I also use magnets to attach things to the "ceiling" of each room and to support the walls. The shelf was only like $100 (looks like it's up to $120 now), and I've even convinced some of my IRL doll friends to buy one for their collections!

BROR Shelving unit, black, 331/2x215/8x743/4" - IKEA

Updated to include the link for the correct BROR shelf (I use the one that's 21 inches deep)

 

I tend to set up scenes on my shelves. I also have a couple of those presentation poster tri-fold boards that I have put together to form scenes for picture taking. As far as where I get my furniture. I have made a MSD sofa from directions on a YouTube Tutorial that came out really nice. (My adult kids even thought I bought it somewhere.) My YoSD dolls are easy because a lot of fashion doll stuff fits them. My 1/3 dolls are the hardest to find stuff for but sometimes the chairs from the original American Girl Dolls fit the 60cm ones. There is a lot of stuff on Amazon and Temu.

 

Ten years ago or so I had my own doll diorama made out of cardboard walls and such, but I had to "demolish" it because it took so much space and it was hard to keep it clean (dust everywhere -.- plus I have a cat and she tried to steal the bed for herself). Now that I'm planning on making a new one, I'm finding the best thing would be to set a scene inside a cabinet with door (IKEA's Billy extra deep ones is what I'm considering) so it doesn't get as messy. I would decorate the background to look like a fancy room and I've done some furniture for it already, but I'm planning on constructing a fireplace and a built-in library within. It's only a wip for now, but I think I'll get myself to finish it within this year.

 

I want a diorama so so bad and planned to use one of the shelves of my new bookcase back when I got it a handful of years ago but I admittedly underestimated
1. How many books I had and needed room for
2. How big my doll is in comparison to the shelf
It's far too small to look like a room with how close the "ceiling" would be to her head!! But I'm still dreaming... Maybe one day I'll figure it out.

 

I love building dioramas for my smaller dolls. I used to do 1/4 scale ones too (and attempted 1/3) but I just don't have the room anymore. Maybe some day...

I also have a thread in the Project Journals section about my various dioramas (both successful and failed project )

 

They sit on their own furniture and just share the room with me.

But for photostory pictures I pull out photography backgrounds and set the props and furniture accordingly. I wouldn't have space to keep a diorama up full time, but making temporary ones that I can put away work great for me. I make them their own rooms, restaurants, vacation spots, even places to work and go to school at. Then I take pictures so I remember where all of the stuff goes to keep the photos consistent.

 

I bought an IKEA Pax wardrobe that is split into three levels to make three seperate rooms. I wish I’d bought the wider one as two of my boys are Iplehouse 1/3 so their ‘room’ is really too narrow for the furniture they have.

 

I've finally decided to take the first step and bought an IKEA Platsa structure in the 80x55x60cm size. That was very close to my dream size for an MSD-sized room. I've been gathering references and drawing mock-ups of the different views of the room I want to end up with for weeks already, so I'm eager to start the whole process, but I'll need to gather some materials and that will take a while. In the meantime, I'll start testing the size of the different elements I want to include with cardboard. This is gonna be fun!