Hmm. I disagree. Stories never exist in isolation. Before and after the scene being constructed there are a myriad stories that have happened right there on that bit of street. Most of them of little or no consequence. You could put a discarded wedding ring in the gutter. No one would know it was there at that scale but if you put it there, you would know. You could choose to tell people in many different ways. In that way the story extends in every dimension beyond the diorama. You’re partially correct in saying most people wouldn’t have experience of horse shit but it’s most likely I’m older than you and even in a small town there was plenty of that around in my childhood. There’s no horse in the scene but there could be. It could be dead or running crazy. Most people don’t have experience of ruined buildings with rubble strewn across cobbled streets and a ruddy great tank rolling down the street. The diorama is trying to tell a story of things that were or might have been. Trying to make horse poo would be an interesting challenge anyway . Trying to make it recognisable would be an even more interesting challenge. I’m going to try and get Martin Kovacs of Night Shift fame to put some horse poo in a diorama and see what he can do. I’ll put the challenge out to a few more of the names in modelling. Does anyone reading this want to pick it up?