moving old entries

apologies if old posts seem to be popping up - I'm moving all my miniatures posts from my other blog Gramarye to here.

unfortunately I can't bring the previous comments with the posts, so if anyone would like to take a look and comment again, I'd love to hear from you

Removing the illusion

A good magician never reveals his secrets, but as I'm neither a magician nor particularly good, I'll show you how I created the library illusion with mirrors.

It took quite a few hours over several days playing with the positioning to make sure the viewer didn't see themselves looking back at them.



If you can't make out the mirrors in this picture, click and go to the Flickr page, I've been able to add tags to the picture on Flickr but they don't show up on other sites

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog - I decided my miniatures deserved a home of their own.

I'm also trying out for the first time, the static page labels and have written two long posts, one about my interest in miniatures and the other about an ongoing project "The Library" inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and the Library of Unseen University.
Then, of course, I found that being static information pages, they won't show here as a normal post, so here I am, welcoming you and hoping you'll go and read the other pages and come back for more!

The Fringe Dwellers shop

I spent a rainy Saturday slicing up pieces of slate to go around my strange block of shops, I think it's the sort of shopping centre I could spend a bit of time in:
Antiquarian books, antiques at Needful Things, new age products at Aries Ascending and Madame Zelda's fortune telling establishment where she offers
Fortunes Told
Crystal Ball Scrying
Tarot Readings
Potions Prepared
Sabbats Catered
Devonshire Teas

It should be ready for the Sydney Miniatures show next weekend - after all I still have this week, we can't rush these things....

The Castle Kitchen

A few years ago our miniatures group decided to make a castle to display at the annual Sydney Miniatures Show. We each made a room box with an open front, the boxes stacked together to form the whole castle.

I somehow got the kitchen - I finished up making another kitchen for our group project the following year as well, for someone who dislikes cooking as much as I do, I don't know how I manage to score the kitchens each time.

I made the disreputable looking cooks and servants from polyclay and the food was a combination of polyclay and fired pottery clay. I used to make miniature pottery to sell at the shows but haven't done this for a few years now.

I've decided to take the kitchen apart now and use the empty room to make the pub the "Mended Drum" from the Terry Pratchett Discworld series, so I took some photos before it was dismantled.

This is the full view of the kitchen with and without the work table:

Over in the corner of the kitchen is the spit boy whose job it is to keep turning the roast pig over the open fire.

Here are the cooks working on the evening banquet

The head cook looks a very calm chap despite the not-very-bright kitchen staff he has working for him.

Here's the baker taking a load of bread from the oven (the oven was lit with a flicking red LED)

 

This door leads through to the larder and corridor with stairs leading up to the banquet hall above:

In the larder, a servant stacks kegs of wine, another servant takes plates up to the Lord and Lady of the castle, and the butcher slices ham into a tub of salt.

 

Baskets of pumpkins, brussel sprouts and barrels of preserves are stacked in the larder.

Back in the kitchen the cooks have been busy with the banquet.

I made all of the pottery dishes used here, some were hand built and some thrown on a full size pottery wheel.

Next time you see this room it will be as the pub.

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miniatures

The Lower Library

Our miniatures group met last night, there's only four of us, so our meetings are very laid back. I always set up the kitchen table with plastic covers and those green cutting board thingys on the off chance that someone will feel inspired to work, but it is soon covered with coffee cups, muffins, biccies and dip (all fat free of course)

I'll be in trouble if Marilyn reads this, because she *did* work last night - making fimo lizard eggs for her witches kitchen and Di has been making wooly things for her miniature yarn shop. Gail was 'researching' through my miniatures library and I was 'thinking' about my project (but I did cook muffins - it's hard to cook and think at the same time)

I've decided to continue with the Discworld theme - Terry Pratchett has provided enough fodder to keep me going for a long time - I'm adding a lower floor to the Unseen University Library and decided to photograph the lower floor as it progresses - working backwards because I still have to photograph the library itself.

I'm still not sure what to put in there - I thought of stacks for the library but I am SO over making little books (I made several hundred for the library)

I might move the Alchemist's Guild into it.

I'm using mirrors again at each end of the centre hall so that they reflect back on each other creating the illusion of long corridors and extra rooms - this is looking down into it -
that is real slate on the floor, dug from a bulldozed pile of rubble on a friends property.

this next shows the position of the two mirrors at the end of the corridor, they reflect through the door of the small room, the mirror on the left has another backing it which reflects along the corridor to the same set up at the other end (does that make sense?)

In the next photo I'm using a torch to experiment with lighting,

and this is what it will look like from the small room

In the next picture the torch is over the centre passageway

When this is seen from the other side of the building, the mirrors give the illusion of an L shaped corridor

so now I have to pin DH down to installing the lighting, and then decide what is going into the rooms.

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Sydney Miniatures Show 2006

The librarian is having another outing:

My library from Unseen University is on display at the Sydney Miniatures Show at the Sports Centre, Olympic Park, Homebush - this weekend.

I've made a lower level for the library, but ran out of time to fill it, not sure yet what is going in there, maybe the stacks for the library or perhaps the mad alchemists could move in.

For anyone who has not read Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and doesn't know about the library or the librarian
a quote from one of the books describes it

"The layout of the Library of Unseen University was a topographical nightmare, the sheer presence of so much stored magic twisting dimensions and gravity into the kind of spaghetti that would make M.C.Escher go for a good lie down, or possibly sideways."

I've used lots of mirrors in my library to reflect back on themselves creating the illusion of corridors stretching on and on, but very hard to photograph. I'll try for some better photos when I get it back from the show

meantime the librarian visits his favourite store:

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