Our bat base are belong to us.

The tricky parts of this (other than, you know - actually creating all the little bits) is working within the space contained by this display case and working front to back until we get ready to turn everything around later. We wanted a platform base to give elevation for a grotto for the batboat, and to hopefully house electrical parts.

We tried to drop in a full-length base platform but I realized it would be better with two smaller ones so we can have flexibility and maneuvering room. Here we are laying out the new floorplan and test-fitting the underflooring. You can see our markings for where the grotto will be.

1:25 1966 TV Batcycle

We picked 1:25 scale for this diorama. That is my favorite scale for modeling and I have some nice pieces done in that scale. It does offer some challenges however. There has never been an officially licensed 1:25 Batmobile model . (In fact the only Batmobile model ever released officially was the 1966 Aurora one that was in 1:32 scale.) Nor was there ever a Batcycle, Batcopter or Batboat until very recently. There was a Batcycle in 1:19 scale and a Batboat in 1:32 (again made by Aurora in 1967) There was never a Batcopter made (though one was planned)

That may seem like a plan-killer but as custom modelers, we usually make what we need anyway. And over the years some garage kits have been offered to fill in the gaps. We'll talk about all the vehicles separately. Up first - the Batcycle. Nobody has ever bothered to make a garage kit Batcycle, I suppose they figured that the Aurora 1:19 was nice enough. But we need one much smaller than that so it's time to scratch-build.

I've known Mike Stutelberg for years. He's a great artist and craftsman and has designed many bat-models for Horizon and Polar Lights etc. over the years. If you have the Polar Lights Batmobiles or the smaller Johnny Lightning bat-vehicle diecast kits, he designed many of them and the box art as well.

Mike has built his own batcave before though it doesn't feature all the TV acoutrements that we're trying for. I knew he had a 1:25 handbuilt Batcycle that he never finished. I contacted him and he graciously lent us his master to possibly have molds made and get cast. We are cleaning it up and will hopefully get it out to the caster soon.

Then there were gadgets...

I met Roman Schelling through the Custom Batman forum where he was showcasing a beautiful Wayne Manor he had modeled for a film. I approached him about possibly modeling some peices for the batcave and he was enthusiastic and offered his very gracious help. He made these pieces by hand using balsa wood, cardboard, and Sculpy polymer clay. When they arrived, we were very excited. The plan is to modify a few of them and add to them.Believe it or not, though he made a TON of pieces, we still don't have all the familiar batcave props. What a great head start though! Thanks Roman!

It started out innocently enough.

For years I had mused about building a full-on TV Batcave in my favorite 1:25 scale. It seemed like a great way to display and showcase my various handbuilt 1:25 Bat-models and it would be a chance to do something nobody had done yet - model the TV Batcave.


But it also always seemed like a huge project that would take forever and so I never got around to starting it. Years later, I thought it would be a great project for me and my son Alexander to do together. We had already built a few mini dioramas together and this seemed like a nice big multi-weekend project to tackle. But we kept putting it off.














Then in 2004 I saw this model on eBay. I thought it looked great and was amazed to find an atomic pile already existing in 1:25 scale.

I won the auction over a holiday weekend when everyone must have been traveling and I got it really affordably. When it arrived, I was amazed at the build-quality: Welded metal struts, cast resin pieces, multi-media texturing. It was VERY nice. I then realized that this was how the big batcave could possibly get built - by supplementing our own modeling with other pieces by other craftspeople. It would still be a huge, time-consuming folly, but it just might happen.

I decided I wanted to get one that wasn't anchored already to a diorama so I contacted the builder - Jim Graham and he told me he could make me another, freestanding Atomic Pile.


And so, a Batcave - That's it. It's an omen. We shall model - a Batcave!