I was working on a Creature From The Black Lagoon diorama, and I mixed up some Sculpt-A-Mold to use as the ocean floor. I had some left over, and stuck it into one of those little circular sauce containers that I got from a Chinese restaurant. The Scuplt-A-Mold dried and formed what looked like (to me, at least) a small island. Right around this time, I was reading Frank Herbert's "DUNE" novels. Since Herbert painted such a rich and engrossing portrait of the planet Arrakis and it's people, I was inspired to turn this into a scene that might have happened on DUNE.
Whenever I would have left over Apoxie putty, I would make little buildings on the island. Then I added a "sea of sand" using Woodland Scenics Hydrocal. And then, for the last touch, I made the sandworm from Apoxie. This entire diorama was done strictly on the side, after work was concluded on my regular modeling projects.
Of course, I had to paint it. I used Tamiya acrylic paint. The sand was painted Flat Red, mixed with Flat Black and a little bit of Desert Yellow here and there. The solid rock "island" was painted Buff, and the buldings were done in various colors that consisted of Olive Green, Buff, Desert Yellow, and several shades of Tan and Brown.
The sand worm itself was painted Flat Brown, with the wrinkles paint Flat Black. I also drybrushed a little Flat Red on the worm to make him blend in better with the sand.
Because of the numberous sand worms that stalk the neverending desert, the people of the planet Arrakis--better known as Dune--build their homes and cities on large rock foundations. In this diorama, I have a sandworm sprouting right up in front of a small town. As you can see in the picture on the right, the entire diorama fits in the palm of my hand. This is just the perfect size for somebody like me, who has limited display space.