Need Help with Webflow Collections/Dynamic Content

Hello savvy webflow users!

I’ve been using Webflow for quite some time now, but new to using dynamic content and collections in my sites.

I’m building an art gallery for my client. His work is broken into four categories. Each category has different works of art within. He builds intricate and complex dioramas and each piece has support images so that you can see different details. He needs the ability to add new works as they are created to the site, so I’m using dynamic content to achieve this.

What I’m trying to do is create a page for each category with thumbnails to each piece of art within, when you click on a thumbnail, you are brought to a page where you can get more detail about that piece including the name, specs, description, and other detail support images. I’d like to create a lightbox out of the support images where there are thumbnails of each supporting image that you can click on to enlarge.

The issue I’m running into is each piece is different some pieces have over 20 support images, and some don’t have any at all. How do I create a collection field to accommodate this, is it possible? Each piece can’t have their own collection because there are far too many pieces, and each time a new one is added a new collection would need to be created.

Here is an example using the work-in-progress site I am building, the link below is the Diners & Eateries Category page, and it is pulling from my Diners & Eateries collection. If you click on one of the thumbnails, you will be taken to the description page, and on there you will see a series of magenta boxes below the hero image. I’d like to fill those magenta boxes with thumbnails other associated images and make them clickable to enlarge. However, as I said, there is no set number of images, some have none, or just 1 or 2, and there are a few that have lots:

http://alanwolfson.webflow.io/diners-eateries

Any ideas how I can make this work?

THANKS!

I think this may be what you’re after:

I found a work around that requires a lot of extra work, but this should work the way I want it to now. Thanks everyone.