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Dioramas of Kuwait’s Deserted Driveways

@dr_diecast_models is a Kuwait-based diorama artist I’ve admired for years. He specializes in driveway dioramas, with my favorites being his incredibly realistic recreations of deserted driveways with abandoned cars. Last week, I reached out to him to learn more about his story and see how he brings these dioramas to life.

Dr. Diecast (he wants to stay anonymous) has loved models and cars since he was young. One day, he built a diorama set for one of his models, and when his friend saw it he was impressed. That friend also happened to run a popular auction account and offered to help sell the dioramas if he could make two sets a week. The dioramas became popular, and his hobby quickly turned into something bigger.

The dioramas are 1:18 scale, meaning everything is 18 times smaller than its real-life counterpart. He builds all his sets in a small room tucked away in the corner of his house. I watched him work on a wall for one of his sets, and the level of detail and weathering he painstakingly applies with a paintbrush is mind-blowing. From the size of newspaper boxes to the dimensions of each brick, everything is accurately measured to stay true to scale.

His most popular sets are those depicting cars parked outside old homes, untouched for years, or cars that have been abandoned near electrical substations in neighborhoods.

The cars are a whole other story. He has his own ‘car bank’ you can choose from, but if he doesn’t have the car you want, he can help you source it. From there, it’s up to you whether the car stays as is or gets customized to look a certain way. My favorite is the red car covered in dust, with its protective cover ripped, the driver’s window smashed, and the typical white sticker with a red ‘X’ on the windshield. It’s such a mundane yet familiar real-life scene, and I love it.

Depending on the diorama, he charges around 65 KD, excluding the car. His customers are mostly in Kuwait but he also gets a lot of orders from around the GCC. If you want to check his work out more of his work head over to his account @dr_diecast_models

10 replies on “Dioramas of Kuwait’s Deserted Driveways”

Never heard the word diorama before. This kid is super talented & creative. Hopefully he gets recognized for his skills or will be another case of wasted talent.

There’s so much drama in a diorama, I tell you. Incidentally, diorama as a word a concept is totally alien to me. It would be useful if he could also construct dioramas of stores and businesses that shutter to make way for new ones as well as of abandoned houses in Hawally and Nugra neighborhoods in the wake of the exodus of the Palestinian and Jordanian diaspora from Kuwait in the early 90s

The attention to detail in the first pic is incredible. The car has little paw prints in the dust. And if you notice, the home has been retrofitted with a split AC unit like many older homes. He even wrapped the AC refrigerant hoses in the typical brown packing tape.

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