One of the absolute best things (in my opinion) is to travel to an exotic location and then come home and make a diorama based on it. It really doesn't get any better than that! And this is exactly what this guest diorama maker (Charles B.)has done. He used his trip to Rome as inspiration for his dioramas. Here are a series of pictures of two dioramas he made. One is based on Hadrian's Villa and the second is loosely based on the ruins of pompeii and buildings that he saw around Rome. He tells us that the Romans had a standark building structure that they followed so it could be based anywhere.

If you are going to do something like this make sure that while you are on your trip you take lots of pictures! And my thanks to Charles for the wonderful diorama and for submitting the pictures. He also outlines a terrific technique he uses for making realistic looking bricks. I have broken this off into a separate tutorial here: How to make miniature bricks for your diorama

His other Dioramas: Roman Bath Diorama based on Hadrian's Villa- A roman coliseum diorama with battling warriors

Here is what he has to say about these dioramas:

These pictures are of  a ruined street and building based on pompeii and buildings I saw around rome. They had a standard building structure that they followed so it could be based anywhere.How I made the bricks? The material is a self hardening clay called das pronto(PLUS and TOVI are 2 other brands I use) First I roll out the clay to about 1/8 or a fraction less . It needs to dry but not 100% .just enough to keep it shape. Then I cut it into bricks  or long strips.I can notch the strips so they look like a long row of bricks. It saves a bit of time .Then I just lay them like bricks.It is very tedious but I have it organized so I can do a 3inch by 3inch square in an hour.So if you have seen or come across any less time consuming way to do this I am all ears.I also have several other buildings using a different technique almost like a 3 D puzzle.

How to make Realistic Looking Bricks and BrickWalls - Charles shows us how in this tutorial

Great little tutorial showing you how to make realistic looking bricks and brick walls.