Making Animals and Plants

To make the animals in the coral reef diorama I used a variety of materials. For each animal you should make a plan of what materials are best suited to making each animal. There are many different ways to make the animals and palnts. Before building each plant or animal do some research and look at the basic shape of the animal or plant. If you can see the basic shape it will help you to make a more accurate model. Sometimes it is better to keep models of small plants and animals simple.

When making your animal and plant models always keep your plan in mind. When you made your plan you tried to keep things in scale. For example, you should not make the mouse in a diorama as big an elephant in the same diorama. This helps to make your diorama much more realistic.

Clownfish

To make a clownfish start by selecting the colours you will need - black, orange, and white. Then make the basic shape of the fish and add the fins. Then make the stripes of black and white. Put the white stripes on the body of the fish and then put the black ones over them. I chose not to add googlie eyes to the clownfish because of its small size.

Anemone

To make an anemone start with the colours and basic shape of the anemone. I chose to make the anemone white and blue. There are many varieties show use the colours you like. I made a base by rolling out a short cylinder of white and then squashing the top and bottom. I rolled out small blue cylinders that will be the tentacles of the anemone.Then I put holes in the top of the white cylinder that the tentacles would fit into. Then I attached the tentacles by placing them in the holes and layering them. Last I placed theclownfish in the middle of the anemone.


Green Moray

To make a green moray start with green plasticine and roll it out into a cylinder shape. Add a mouth, some teeth and googlie eyes and it is nearly complete. Then use your fingers to shape the fringe around the body of the moray. To show the moray interacting with its habitat I made a small fish and placed it in its mouth.

Hawksbill Turtle

To make the hawksbill turtle take 2 pieces of yellow plasticine and roll them into balls. Then flatten the balls into discs. Make one disc the bottom and one the top of the turtle. Shape the top disc to match a hawksbill turtle shell. Place small pieces of brown plasticine on the shell to simulate the markings on the turtle's shell. Next add fins and the head to the bottom of the shell. Press the discs together and add googlie eyes.

Common Sea Fan

To make the common sea fan I used sparkly pipe cleaners and tissue paper. I cut a pipe cleaner into various lengths and then glued the lengths together in a pattern to match living sea fans. Then I cut a piece of tissue paper using the perimeter created by the arms of the pipe cleaners to form the delicate "fan" part of the coral and glued it on. Then I made holes in the base and glued the sea fans on.

Pillar Coral

To make pillar coral I just cut some gold coloured sparkly pipe cleaners into various lengths and glues them in groups onto the base of the coral reef.

Brain Coral

To make brain coral I used small styrofoam balls and tissue paper. Take green tissue paper and soak it in white glue and then wrap the styrofoam ball in the tissue paper. When it dries you can paint the balls with some brown paint for a more natural brain coral look.

Purple Tube Sponge

Sponges are interesting filter feeders. To model them I decided to use pipe cleaners and tissue paper. I cut strips of tissue paper into varying lengths and then cut a piece of pipe cleaner to match each length. Then I soaked the pipe cleaner in white glue and wrapped the tissue paper around it. When the glue was dry I put holes into the base and glued the purple sponges in a group.

Stinging Jellyfish

Making a jellyfish was a bit of a challenge. I used clear nylon bead necklace string for the tentacles and half a styrofoam ball for the body. I put holes into the bottom of the styrofoam and then cut the string onto various lengths and glued them in the holes. Them I took some purple tissue paper and glued it over the top of the styrofoam ball. Finally I painted a tooth pick blue to match the background of the diorama and make it look like the jellyfish was floating.

Southern Stingray

To make the southern stingray I used some gray clay and some googlie eyes. I formed the clay into the shape of ray and then put the googlie eyes on. Then I glued the model to the base and put some white glue on top of it. Then I spread sand on top of the glue and model to make it look like the ray was hiding in the sand just like it does in real life.

Starfish

Making starfish took very little time. I looked up a few different types of startfish and just shaped different colours of clay into the shapes of different types of starfish.

Placing Your Models

Place the models you make to match their placement in your plan. Remember that the animals placement should relfect their natural habits. For example, a stingray is placed hiding in the sand and an octopus is hiding under an overhang.

Use Your Imagination

The above examples are only suggestions of some ways you could use to make your plants and animals. There are many more materials and methods you could use. Use what works for you and have fun with it.