Rock Me Gently

This is a picture of Eagle's Nest Pub, in its early stages.  It's currently gracing the kitchen island (and preventing me from cooking dinner).  In my sketches, and in my imagination, this is a small tudor-style pub on a craggy hill, alive with all sorts of plant life.  When you're building a dollhouse of any kind, you start with the "bare bones" and work out--so, here, I have the basic structure of the house, and the hill it sits on.  Before I can finish the pub, I need to electrify it, and finish constructing the hill--which, at this point, is giving it a granite finish.  

Easier said than done.

I imagined, in my foolishness, that this would be a relatively simple step--surely no more than a few days!  Hah, little did I know.  I slaved over the hill, laboriously painting it with coat after coat of granite paint--I even mixed multiple colors of paint, for the most realistic effect possible.

This is what the hill looked like, after three coats of paint:

Yes, it still looks like styrofoam.  Which is exactly what it is.

Ultimately, I realized I had to try a different tack.  Instead of painting it on with a brush, I decided to ignore conventional advice--several thin coats are better than one thick coat--and slather it on.  My theory was, the coats were so thin, the paint was simply soaking right in to the little holes.

I discarded my brush in favor of a sponge applicator, and began to shovel it on.  Here, you can see the difference:

At first, I was a little discouraged, because the paint looked very soupy.  I worried, would this look like an alien's favorite pub?  Maybe the moon really was made of green cheese!  However, as it dried, the paint definitely began to take on a granite-like look and feel.  Now, if only I had more paint...

The Great Outdoors

I'm doing a few shows this fall and winter; first on my list is the Taylor Jade Productions Danbury Miniatures Show, and I'm really excited about it! Although my kits are currently available in stores, and on my website, this will be their first show. I'm also working on a couple of fantasy pieces, as well as a new line of food, and other small accessories. Unfortunately, when it comes to technology, change comes slowly--I hope to have pictures of some of my new products online soon!

In the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to do a few posts on outdoor landscaping. Last week, I began working on Eagle's Nest, a fantasy-inspired pub on a hill. I decided to include the hill. I'd seen other artists do outdoor scenes, using insulation foam, and I thought, hey, how hard can it be? As it turns out, these were famous last words. After purchasing several sheets of foam--at great expense, I might add--I returned home eager to rip them up. I'd already built a plywood base, and the basic procedure seemed easy enough: stack small pieces of foam on the base, building up a hill shaped object, and then finish it with landscaping materials. For inspiration, I looked to a fantastic model my boss had made of a very famous lighthouse in Maine, for a regional museum; her rocks, sand, water, and even seagulls, looked completely realistic. I knew it was possible.

An hour later, my kitchen floor was completely covered in foam bits, and I was no better off. I had several bizarrely shaped pieces of foam, and no clue what to do with them. Eventually I figured out, I needed a different adhesive; I made another trip to the store. When I returned, I had slightly better luck, but realized that my hill, while more cohesive, was still really wobbly. "This hill needs an armature," I thought. A few minutes later, I was jamming sticks of wood down into the hill. I almost gored my cat. Eventually, several hours, and a not inconsiderable amount of blood, sweat, and tears, later, I had a semi-stable hill. I was just about ready to attach the dollhouse to the top of the hill when I realized, wait, how can I wire this? Now, for those of you who haven't yet had the experience of wiring a dollhouse, it's fun in the way golf is fun. If you can get past the fact that you're basically tormenting yourself to no purpose, you find you really enjoy the time you spend on it! The house was a small, as yet unfinished, shell, and I planned to wire it with two circuits. If I just glued the house to the hill, then the wires would come down over the hill, and completely ruin all of my hard work! I realized, I needed the wire to go through the hill and come out the bottom.

That was, naturally, easier said than done. Once again, I got out a stick of wood, and began jamming it down into the hill. My idea was to thread the copper tape, which would form the two circuits, through the hill. Although it took the rest of the afternoon, I actually did succeed.

The first moral of this story is, don't be afraid to try new things--but consider locking any and all pets out of the room before you start. No human beings or animals were harmed during the creation of this hill, however, my kitchen floor might never be the same. The second moral of this story is, don't be afraid to ask for advice! I found out, after I started creating the hill, that several tools existed, like special styrofoam glue, hot wire cutters, and flexible metal armature posts, which would have made my life a lot easier.

In the next few posts, I'll be walking you through creating a miniature landscape.