Alice in Wonderland Mallymkun Dormouse in Dollhouse Miniature

I just finished her up today and I think she's really close enough to Tim Burton's dormouse version as seen here:

I tried to get her as close as could at my skill level in sculpting so hopefully you all think my version is passable:

Of course the glare here is much worse because the light is too bright outside.  Hopefully soon I can take far better pictures because my darling Mother in Law just got me a great new camera for my birthday and Christmas present this year :)  I'm so excited!  Finally I'll be able to take decent photographs without a huge different in how the minis look from the photograph to seeing it in person.  Can't wait!

What do you all think?  Does this look enough like her that you'd know who this character is if I didn't tell you?  Let me know.  Hugs everyone, now onward with the March Hare!  

Alice in Wonderland Miniature Dollhouse Table update 8-30-12

I have FINALLY got this table all done!  Yay!  And it is a full as I could get it, echoing all the parts I saw on the actual table from the Tim Burton version of Alice.  Well not all of the parts, because the table setting kept changing! I paused the movie during the tea party scene from various angles and made everything I could fit on here that stood out to me on the table.  Today I begin the characters, first the door mouse.  I thought of making the stunning broken down windmill but decided that it couldn't just go anywhere so instead I'll be making the phonograph music player on a stand as seen in the movie.  Enough chatter, I'll just show you my icky glared up photos (Hopefully at some point I'll be getting a new camera).  I'll try shooting these pictures better soon.  The light was wrong outside this morning.

                     Nothing like a tower of sugar cubes to be really really tedious to make lol

Ugh this shot is so very bright it glares everything on the table :(  I just filled the teacups so they are bulging over right now but they will settle down as they dry up.

Gosh I hate my camera!  This is 100 times better in person and my camera makes it look bad.  Be back later with more pictures as I work on this.

Hugs-Tara, 19th Day Minis

Ok, kids back in school and time to work finally :)

My little mess makers-ahem, I mean kids have just gone back to school, yay!  I love 'em, and yet somehow though parting is such sweet sorrow I'm sure I can think of something to take up my newly freed time.  Like working on minis again :)  I might go stark ravin' mad from the drastic change of peace and quiet in this house after all the noise and confusion of the kids being home, but then I should be for this project I'm finally getting back to!  It is a mad tea party after all, hehe.  I've barely been able to get to it, or anything else in miniature.  But hopefully now (barring my parents popping in at all times now that they are retired) I can get some work done.  Whew!

Now during what little free time I've had that wasn't taken up by everything else, I've been making pieces for the table top.  Little cakes, rolls, lemons, teacups, teapots and dishes of all kinds have to be completely handmade from clay and then painstakingly painted in the tiniest patterns that are really just killing me :)  Ugh wow, painting such tiny things is really difficult for me.  I wish I were better at it.  But I'm trucking along as well as I can.  I have froze and refroze all different angles of that tea table in the Tim Burton movie version of Alice and I can tell you one thing-the table changes!  What's on it in different scenes I mean.  There is no recreating it perfectly because different shots have different items in the exact same places!  The table placement changes and items completely disappear in some shots.  Not quite sure why that is but it's one of those crazy movie mess-ups I guess.  If you watch a movie carefully there's always something awry in every movie.  My husband can usually spot a mess up but I generally miss them.  But on closer inspection of this one there sure are some different place settings in front of the same characters :)

Anywho, no matter.  I'm trying to make the neatest things off the table and I have quite a few left to make.  Each piece has such intricate paint work and sculpting that they are just taking me awhile.  Like I said, it's a struggle for me but I'm doing the best I can.  Mess ups are scrubbed off and repainted until I'm satisfied.  These pictures are going to be of the same thing over and again but it's all I have done right now.  If you watch the movie (if anyone owns it) you'll see key parts of the table copied in miniature as close as I could get them to the originals.  The pottery and dishes are quite pretty in the movie and I'm making the ones that I love best or that really stand out to me.  And I have yet to make so many of them, who knows when I'll get this thing done!  I must have been "mad" to even try it :)  And of course I can't just buy the dishes because they won't look like the ones in the movie and that will never please me :)  They all have to be made to look like the ones in the movie or I'll never be happy with it.

Here's what I have so far:

Like I said, so much still to fill in on that table top.  That must be done before I start making the characters for the seats.  And I keep staring at that gorgeous broken down windmill in the background on that movie and thinking I might have to make that to go with this in the end.  I simply love the scenery in that movie, it was so haunting, dark, fantastical, and gothic.  Simply magical!  Still even though it's been awhile since it came out I still marvel at the scenery they created for Underland when I see it.  It was so beautifully done.  The decaying elegance of it was pretty incredible.  

This is my last Alice in Wonderland piece unless I make an occasional talking rose.  I'm ready to move on to new subjects but I really needed to make this one and get it out of my system.  I've always loved this scene since I was a little girl before this version of the movie came out.  It's so funny, so preposterous that it's charming.  So I'll finish this up and then I have a few other projects I'll be getting on to as soon as I can.

Stay tuned :)  

           

Dollhouse Miniature Alice in Wonderland Table Updates, and some witch miniatures

Still working on this in what little time I have before our family trip to Universal Studios Orlando.  We're leaving in 8 days and my store will be in vacation mode in 6 days.  Otherwise I won't be able to ship anything out.  So this set will have to be finished afterward.  I'm really wanting to try out the characters and place them in the chairs they're supposed to be in.  I'm not sure how that will turn out, but I'm going to try.  Alice will be really tricky for me, but I'm going to see what I can do.  I also made the stack of books Mallymkun stands on:

I need to put braces on the legs of the stool but other than that it's done.  I got in some chairs that are as close to the originals as I could find from the movie.  One was a cane back chair and instead I bought this chair because I couldn't find one close enough to the one in the movie but this is close enough:

Here's the final chair, the March Hare's chair which had a torn back and was pretty worn out looking which I tried my best to copy:

I also built the aged and slightly dingy padded bench at the end of the table for the Cheshire Cat as seen in this picture:

See it down there on the end of the table?  Now I have all the chairs.  After I brace the stool legs I was planning on trying out Mallymkun, the little mouse:

She needs to be standing on the stack of books/stool chair.  Truly I'm going to try really really hard on these characters so I hope they turn out ok. 

I did put together a couple witchy minis as well in between when I got to worn down on making that stuff, I always need some sort of break when working on a larger project:

Available here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/103122835/dollhouse-miniature-witch-kitchen

And a dragon book:

Available here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/102970311/dollhouse-miniature-harry-potter-or

Ok everyone, this is the last post for now until I get back from Florida!  Hugs and have a great couple of weeks :)  Enjoy the summer!

Now listed for sale-Miniature Alice in Wonderland Rabbit Hole Scene complete, available for sale tomorrow night :)

New pics:

These below will be dark inside shots of the lights inside the rabbit hole lit up:

Previous pictures below:

Layers of the earth in sand and stone with a poly coating over it.  Very sturdy!

Can't clearly see "Dinah" the cat here in this shot but she's up there looking down the hole.

This shot is to show scale, taken next to my teenage son.

Anyway, it'll be listed tomorrow night after I package it up and get a shipping price idea from the post office on international and domestic.  I know for sure this will have to ship at the higher international rate because the box will be too big for the cheaper option. 

Miniature Rabbit Hole Alice in Wonderland updates 4-7-2012

All I have left to do is make some curtains for the window and dress and hair Alice and add her into the bare spot in front of the lower part of the mirror-plus clean it up really well inside (I sand everything in my craft room and the sanding dust gets all over everything before I realize what I'm doing) and the inside is done.  Then I can start the outside!  Yay!  So close to being done with the inside I could jump up and down!  The outside will be much easier to do, and hopefully faster :)  Of course like everything else this is much nicer in person.  My camera does bad things to my projects. 

Wow you can really see the dust inside from me sanding, but it'll come right off with a nice soft paint brush with a touch of windex on it.  Eeeek, it looks so gross right now :(  That'll teach me not to cover my projects while I'm building parts for them and sanding :(  I'll wipe it all out and get it sparkling before the final big reveal :)  If I had figured it out before I shot these today I would have cleaned it up.  Natural light has a way of showing everything I can't see inside in my craft room.  That white rabbit took me three days to sculpt!  It was a painstaking clay-building and sculpting process.  He really came out accurate to the Disney movie one though.  This is such a horrible, dingy-looking picture I'm ashamed :(  It makes it look so much worse than it does in person!  This project is going to be cleaned super well before the next pictures are taken.  I can't believe I did this!  Yuck.  Embarrassing.  Well I guess I have been working on it for months now, it should be dusty after sitting in my craft room where I'm working all the time.  I'll be back when I get curtains and Alice done :)  And for goodness sake, it'll be cleaned up then :)

 

Miniature Alice in Wonderland Rabbit Hole update 3-24

A talking rose grouping in a wonderland-style planter box, a book shelf with yellow flower vase, and the chair gets a shabby chic little lap blanket :)  I have to make a tiny open book for the chair, as though someone was reading it and set it aside to come back to it later.  I decided to coat the floor with a thick coat of polyeurthane before I start the tiny table, drink me bottle, and eat me cake.  And I decided I have to make the white rabbit (orginal disney cartoon style) because it's impossible to have a rabbit hole scene with no late rabbit running for the door.  Currently I just have his head made, so no pictures yet.  And a few wall decoratons and these other things and then I can start clothing Alice.  She has no hair right now :o  I pulled off the hair to add my own that looked more like her hair in the movie.  I won't put hair on her until she's dressed or it'll get messed up.  Anyways I'll shush up and show the updated pictures:

I'm finally getting somewhere :)  And this looks so much better in person, anyone who's bought from me can tell you that :)  My camera isn't great at this stuff.

Going to see Hunger Games tonight, it looks pretty good.  Here's a good song from the movie...shut off my blog music player (click the stop button) if you want to watch them and if you don't don't worry about it.

   

Miniature Alice in Wonderland Rabbit Hole updates

Ok, I worked my way through my chimney troubles with the fireplace.  It's all in there now except it has nothing on it yet as far as decorations on the mantle, etc.  I still have to do that part so this is just a basic sculpted clay structure I made at this point.  And after I get the ac adaptor rigged up both the table lamp and fireplace light up.  I tested them as they are now with a 9 volt battery and they both work.  I actually have the bottom of the table removed right now due to needing to get the fireplace chimney in there but I'll reglue it after I finish blogging this update.  It's rather hard to see in these photos but there is a tiny little man face on that doorknob down below that looks just like the one in the original disney cartoon movie.  And keep in mind this is a cartoon version of the rabbit hole, based on that disney film not the Tim Burton version with live actors.  So everything needs to be cartoonish in design :)  Here's what I did:

The light was bad outside by the time I shot these so they are blurry :(  Can't help that right now but you get the idea.  See how the colors and style is very cartoonish?  That's intentional.  There will be so much more to this in the end it'll be shockingly different in the end :)