some questions and answers

My friend, Sus, from Denmark had some questions for me that I'll attempt to answer here:

You really have an eye for it from start to finish. Wish I had that. Sus, I’ve been doing this off and on for about 35 years. When I started I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But eventually I collected a lot of books, magazines and, eventually, got a computer and discovered online groups and learned so much more from other miniaturists around the world. It’s something that develops over the years. And especially in someone like you who asks questions.

But for how long do you collect items for a specific “job” before you start? Depends what I’m working on. In the case of the Christmas Shop, the last five or six years that I worked, I often made five or six Christmas vignettes as gifts to co-workers  each year so I ended up with an incredible supply of Christmas items. After I retired, I had a lot of items left over so it made sense to put the leftovers into a Christmas Shop.

Sometimes I find a piece (usually furniture) that ‘speaks’ to me and I build a whole scene around that. If you read the descriptions at the beginning of the albums, they’ll give you an interesting picture: http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/church/ http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/two-story-roombox/ http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/victorian-parlour/

Do you make all the little items, done by yourself before start or along the way? Again, it depends on what I’m working on. My absolute favourite rooms/scenes are those that are copied from real life. http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/camping-scene/ http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/classroom-vignettes/ http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/dads-workshop/ http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/denniss-office/ http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/leo-nickerson-art-studio/  In those cases, I look at the photos of what I’m trying to copy and figure out how to replicate them as I go.

On the other hand, the perfume shop, Scentimental Journey http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/scentimental-journey/ came about because I went on a perfume bottle making jag and needed a place to put everything!

Are all your room boxes the same size? I wish they were! It would make displaying them much easier. Many of them are at least close to the same size and therefore fit on a regular 11 ½” deep bookshelf  but I’ve had some major problems lately in placing them because the Penthouse http://public.fotki.com/stalbertmini/penthouse/ is 16” deep and the Christmas Shop is 13 ½” deep. And the music room that I’m working on now is 12 ½” deep

Do you make a drawing… Do you write a lot down…. What is your “story”? Sometimes I sketch out a layout of a room on graph paper but since I usually have the actual roombox available, I’m more likely to try to move furniture around to get a layout that works for me. I’m constantly making notes (mostly in my mind, but often on my blog).

The “story” is most often in my mind and I hope that the scene will express it. Hopefully it speaks for itself – but sometimes I feel I have to tell the story on my blog or hint at it in the description on my Fotki site.