New Blog!

Like I need yet another one of these things. I think this is going to be the place for the miniatures I make. We'll see how far I get with this new fascination of mine, and I imagine the posting will be spotty as it's a hobby blog, but lately I've been making some things that I think would be fun to share.

So. This is going to be stuff in 1/6 scale, also called play scale, as it's about the scale Barbie and her ilk need. Even when I was a kid I thought the more common 1/12 stuff too small; it's always been about the characters for me, i.e. the dolls living in the space rather than the things in the space, and 1/12 dolls are too little to have much personality. Not that the things aren't fun, but they're there to serve as the character's setting, and aren't the end result. I'm an illustrator, so I guess that fits. It's not about the background, or a still life, but about the story: and that means the characters, the people are the most important part for me.

Anyway. So from time to time I'll post some 1/6 scale stuff I've made, and, hopefully, if it isn't just a pipe dream, a roombox or two. Because of course 1/6 means everything's (relatively) huge; but I've got plans for Joe.

Oh. I should mention. I never played with Barbies as a kid. Never liked them. We had a GIJoe (or two). But growing up just after the hippies came and went, he was never a soldier. (He was also inherited, and so didn't come new, with a gun or anything). No, our Joe was a single father to the three Holly Hobbie girls. Single because, like I said, we didn't really like Barbies, so there was no corresponding correctly-scaled Mom to his Dad. That's really the only reason why, not because we didn't worship the nuclear family or something. Oh, we had The Sunshine Family, but Christ they were creepy (if you don't believe me, google them. They remind me of the Beldam from Coraline.)

So that pipe dream: Joe for some reason, seems to want an Arts and Crafts bungalow, or at least a room or two of an Arts and Crafts bungalow. Living room and a first-floor bedroom, I'm thinking, which is perfectly in line with how some of them were laid out from the research I've been doing. He'll want a fireplace in that living room, with built-in bookcases to either side under a pair of high (stained glass?) windows, and some Gustav Stickley furniture, probably. Big beams in the ceiling, too, and of course warm dark wood and olive green. The bedroom I think will have a window seat and a pair of shelves or closets to either side.

I have some woodworking experience, though I'm a bit rusty, but I do have a scroll saw that I really should take out of the box.

I think I picked Arts and Crafts not just because it seems to suit Our Joe, but because the furniture looks fairly simple. By which I mean, in large part that style uses nice right angles and there aren't too many complex curves to the construction. So it seemed a good place to start.

So anyway, there's the pipe dream. We'll see how it plays out. Next I suppose I should get some pictures of the things I've already started.