原创 Conversations with a caveman

I once had meandering musings from a few years ago about constructing a Caveman Diorama in an old television set. Sad to relate, things became stalled for a while, the problem being that I had no clue how to set about building the cave itself.

Well, as you may recall, my wife (Gina The Gorgeous) is a blond-haired goddess realtor. A few weeks ago she met a couple who were ambling around looking at houses. It turns out that the husband -- we'll call him Mike (because that's his name) -- creates monster model railroad dioramas as a hobby (check out Mike's Website to see photos of his creations). Mike wants to learn how to use an Arduino to control things like his streetlights, traffic lights, and houselights; I want to learn how to make the cave for my diorama; it's "a marriage made in heaven," as they say.

Mike and I have started to meet up on Saturday mornings in my office. We kick off with a brief hands-on lesson about microcontrollers, and then move on to constructing my diorama. Below we see a rough sketch showing my vision for the future of this little scamp (by which I mean my diorama, not Mike).

Our perspective is that we're looking through the TV screen into the back of the cave. The entrance to the cave is located toward the back of the TV set. Through this entrance we see a depiction of mountains and trees and sky, all of which will be displayed on a flat screen computer monitor, thereby allowing me to have special effects like lightning and the moon crossing the sky and meteor showers and suchlike.

There will be a group of people sitting around a fire in the middle of the cave. Most of them will be cavemen, but yours truly will also be there in my Hawaiian shirt (an H.G. Wells-esque time machine in the corner of the cave will explain my presence).

One problem I faced was how to create the figures themselves. I've decided to work at 1:32 scale, so a 6' man will be 2.25" tall. Then, yesterday, I discovered the creations of Leonardo Torricini on his Phersu Miniatures website. Leonardo's work spans time and space, from Etruscan warriors to characters from Monty Python's Holy Grail. Of particular interest to me are his Prehistoric Cavemen and Animals figures and dioramas.

Leonardo typically works at 1:72 scale, but on occasion he's created models at 1:32 scale, such as these Etruscan characters. We are currently bouncing emails back and forth with regard to Leonardo crafting the figures for my diorama.

But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about... The reason I'm waffling on about it here is that I also plan on including sound effects, such as the wind blowing on a frisky day, rolls of thunder on a stormy night, and so forth.

In particular, if you listen carefully, you'll hear a background conversation taking place between the characters sitting around the campfire. Most of this will be in caveman-ese, of course, but every now and then you'll hear my dulcet tones regaling the assembled throng with some astute and pertinent tidbit of trivia or nugget of knowledge like: "Corr Blimey, it's #$%%^* cold in here!"

My comments will be appropriate to the time of day and the season. During the summer, for example, I might make mention of the advantages of air conditioning and the joys of ice cream; throughout the winter months, I may note the benefits associated with thermal underwear; and during a storm, I could explain the well-known fact that lightning and thunder are caused by Thor the god of thunder.

When nothing particularly interesting is happening, I might comment on random and diverse topics, such as how the taste of mammoth burgers would be much improved by a dash of Heinz Tomato Ketchup and a squirt of French's Yellow Mustard, or the inadvisability of transporting ferrets in one's loincloth (as I'm sure we've all discovered to our cost).

So, this is the point where I hand things over to you. Are there any visual effects and/or sound effects that you think I should add to my diorama? And can you think of anything I could be / should be dropping into the conversation (please make note of the time, season, and context)?