2016 and Life go's on

Happy New Year, February already and life go's on and I keep forgetting to write about what I'm up too, so here go's finally!!!!.

I have been designing a 1930s Queenslander house kit based on a house my wife and I spotted when we where in Brisbane last year. I had been asked to do a Queenslander as a workshop for the Linnwood House workshop over the ANZAC weekend of April 23rd - 25th, which is the weekend before the Sydney Dollhouse and Miniatures Fair in May at Homebush. Because I had already sold quite a number of the 1920s Queenslander kit I didn't want to teach that so created the 1930s version instead, which is in the next architectural style, being what the call an asymmetrical design.

The workshop is almost completely booked out and to assist over the weekend I have Elizabeth Barnes and Adelaide Cann learning the assembly and finishing with me to assist in teaching, as well as my wife Elizabeth and Marilyn Pride to assist on the Monday when we will be doing landscaping. It should be a great weekend and I have people coming from all over Australia as well as New Zealand to do it. Elizabeth and Adelaide are now looking at doing new 1/48 kitchen and furniture kits to dress out the house.

I will be supplying 4 paint selections from the period as well as 1 of 3 random interior wallpaper schemes in the kit. We have decided that the Instructions will be mailed out to participants a week before the workshop so people will be able to have a jump start on the weekend.

I have also been working on a series of other 1/48th houses and buildings including an Art Deco single story house with attached garage, not the promised house, but a new one, as well as a Spanish revival mission house, an Art Deco petrol station and a small restaurant with car park and drive thru. These will be on display as part of a larger display of street scenes at the May show.  I have also created roads and foot paths that connect to the front of the houses and will populate these with cars and people. The pair of Fire vehicles now have working flashing lights and I really am tempted to set fire to a house to park them in front of. O well, maybe not today ?

As well as the above I've started on pieces to use to hopefully attain Artisan status through the IGMA. http://www.igma.org/    I am going for recognition in small scale structures and have to supply 3 structure pieces for consideration by the middle of April, which should be interesting. I am working on a pair of the same houses at the moment, but with some variation in execution, and will send off 1 of the 2 as well as a couple of other pieces. I have basically decided on the 2nd and 3rd pieces but I will leave details of these until after they have been considered by the committee in late April. I am taking what I do and giving them a twist forward. I look forward to showing you what I've done in May.

Until next time, hopefully not so far away.

yours in miniatures

Warren

Embassy Theatre workshop

 Class of 2015

We got started but we didn't quite get finished, but we will.

 

The Australian Miniatures Enthusiasts Association Convention over the October long weekend has been and gone and everyone seemed to have a mostly great time. Me, well I had my first miniature workshop as a tutor, It was a bit more intense than I had expected and we didn't get as much finished as I planned before hand, but considering the complexity of the project everyone seemed happy with what was learned and what we got done. A group of 4 are going to come up to my workshop a little later in the year to finish off.

The top photo shows the exteriors but the interiors were also mostly assembled and in the process of being decorated and wallpapered and not ready to fit inside the exterior as we were packing up when we took these photos. 

yours in miniatures

Warren

Airbnb commercial

I know its been a while so firstly a video of a commercial for Airbnb that I had the pleasure to work on. All projects of this nature are made by a team of people but I was offered the job of creating the miniature sets for each of the 8 levels and then to replicate 36 models for each level. I spent 5 weeks of long days creating all the scenes plus the scenes that also weren't used. That's life in this business.

I've also attached a 4 minute video of behind the scenes which helps to show off the model better.

Please enjoy.

Warren

A Quick Post

Just a quick post to let every one know that I've been swamped under with miniature work for a new commercial that is very interesting and exciting set in a miniatures world. I can't talk about it at the moment as I need to get back to work but in a few weeks I'll be able to talk about and show you all something pretty special.

Yours in miniatures

Warren

Queenslander Lighting kits now available for order

The components have now arrived for the lighting kits for the 1/48th 1920s Queenslander kit. they are now listered in the shop for delivery starting next Monday 8th June. Their are 2 versions available,

Kit QL1 includes all components (replacement ceiling, 7 warm white Led's, wire, battery box with switch and battery and instructions for you to assemble, soldering required for $20+ postage.
1/48th 1920s Queenslander lighting kit. QL1

Kit QL2 includes all components pre-soldered for $30+ postage.
1/48th 1920s Queenslander lighting kit pre soldered, QL2

yours in miniatures

Queenslander kit parts missing

It has been bought to my attention that the rear doors are missing from the latest batch of Queenslander kits that were sold primarily at the Sydney show, If you purchased 1 of these please let me know with your postal address and I will post a replacement set out to you.

Because I am a 1 man band, sometimes these things happen and I'm sorry if it slows you down but as with all my kits, if you have a problem let me know and we'll resolve it.

Yours in miniatures

New 1/48th kits being worked on !!!!!!!!

My final post today is to let you know that I have spent this week amongst other things, working on the design drawings for the "Blue Waters" Art Deco house and a Spanish Mission revival 2 story house (also in 24th as a 1 off), both of these will be pretty spectacular houses to build and decorate, but they are a lot of work to get the design and construction method right to make a successful kit. It's not that easy taking a real house and making it work as a miniature without loosing the characteristic of the original, but people seem to like what I'm doing with my kits and it's what I want to do so I'll just have to keep at it.

I have also been playing with a Miami Beach Art Deco Hotel frontage for a 3 story hotel that would be a single room deep so on the ground floor is the lobby and on each floor will be a room on either side with a hall between, this would allow rooms to be done in different styles with the halls and lobby providing continuity within the building.

However I am having to balance my time between these and the train carriages previously talked about so they will be coming as soon as I'm able to get them ready. 2 other projects that have been added to the list for later construction are a New Zealand Bach (North Island) or Crib (South Island) which is a small holiday house built around all the coastlines of NZ, probably an early post war fibro version and also a more modern Eco version and finally a medium 1970s style caravan also in 1/48th.

All these projects will come with time as I can fit them into the space I have available inside my brain.

 I would also like to thank Melody for her kind wish's, the seagulls arrived this morning, they obviously had a tail wind and didn't care about the time difference.

yours in miniatures

1/48th 1920s Queenslander lighting kit.

The lighting set for the 1920s Queenslander will be available in a couple of weeks,I am just awaiting the last couple of components to finish the kit. I have decided it will be available in 2 versions,
1: as a kit with instructions for you to solder and assemble for $20Aud
2: a pre-soldered assembly ready to paint and fit for $30Aud.
Both will include replacement ceiling panel, 7 warm white led's, battery and battery holder, switch, wiring and heat shrink plus instructions.

I will announce them here as soon as they are available in my shop, but I wanted to keep people updated as I have been getting requests for these.

yours in miniatures

1/32nd NSW "RUB" train carriages

Hi all,
Something a little different , the other project that I have been working on is a set of 1/32nd NSW "RUB" carriages, these are photos of a proof of concept model that I quickly knocked together for a train meet, now I have to get down to building a full set of 8 carriages in 5 different styles to make a set.
They will also need to have all the small castings and details designed, mastered and cast to finish them off, things like door handles, hand rails and a full interior as well as all the decals to replicate the sign-writing. These will probably take me the next couple of months to get done, but these are a project I need to complete as there is a lot of interest in these models due to a new live steam model of a NSW 38class locomotive coming out.

These carriage are to Gauge 1 specs to run on 45mm garden rail track.

yours in miniatures