It's a Piece of Cake

How many of my fellow '80s kids read the title of this post in the voice of Sarah from 'The Labyrinth'?!

It was my birthday this week and the most fabulous thing about it was the cool gift I got this year - a very powerful and brilliant new light complete with barn doors and gel filters! I've already begun using it. And being my birthday I decided to make myself a small cake (pretty much so I'd have something new to shove in front of my new light).
Only last week I'd been in miniature cake-making mood anyway, since I had to make black forest cakes. So, the cakes you're seeing here are small enough to fit on a quarter. In fact both are smaller than a quarter. At 1:12 scale they are only 3/4" in diameter. As with most of my photos, the images you see on your computer screen are bigger than the miniature items themselves.

But onto something much more interesting (making miniature cakes bores me to high heaven and low hell), I have just started on a new witch character. Take a look at this glimpse into my workspace below and stay tuned for much more interesting updates by early next week!

Before I sign off, I want to share another 'Caroline illustration' by Dreamworks artist Nico Marlet. He captured a funny moment at the awards the other day. I had settled into a comfy big auditorium seat, and as I tried to rise to greet someone, I found myself consumed by the chair which wouldn't let me back up. I've always been sparrow-like but this was ridiculous and my friend Nico found it so funny, he sketched it and gave me this. Funny, isn't it?!

Getting on my Wick

It still bemuses me when I throw out an everyday word or phrase and find that no-one here in America knows what the heck I'm on about. A week ago, in a shoe shop, I asked the bored twenty-something female staff where the 'trainers' were. This was met with confused stares quickly succeeded by giggling. Here in America they're not 'trainers', they're 'sneakers'. I don't want to train, I want to sneak up on people, apparently. My friend translated for me and after I'd been led to the right aisle they asked "what word did you say before??!!" followed by "what language is that?" I said, "oh, it's what we call them in England" to which the response was "oh, is it like old English?"

Similarly I recently learnt that Americans don't use the phrase 'getting on my wick'.

Yesterday's commission saw me making dozens of 1:12 scale fiddly realistic candles with dripping wax, and minuscule wicks that I had to attach using jeweller's tweezers. The phrase "getting on my wick" sprang to mind for obvious reasons. Points if you bother to Google the definition and etymology!

On a side note, I was so pleased to attend the Annie Awards on Saturday evening with friends from Dreamworks who worked on the film which won Best Animated Feature - How to Train your Dragon 2. However, it was hard to see The Boxtrolls not receive as much recognition as I think it deserved.

And just because it's too cute not to share on this blog, my friend Nicolas Marlet (character designer on How to Train your Dragon 2) did a new drawing of me. It's meant to be me sitting at my local coffee shop, The Alcove, sipping tea.


Here are some quick candle photos from yesterday. They are not wax, but a blend of polymer clays with enough translucency that they do look like wax when you hold them to the light.
fantasie miniatuur modellen

Starstruck and Hutch

Awards season here in LA is always fun for me because I never stopped being that awkward English girl from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, who clipped images of Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson from TV Guide and plastered them all over her school textbooks.

Last Saturday was the Producers Guild of America annual awards ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, and I loved sitting a few tables away from Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt, stunning Keira Knightley et al. The highlight was listening to producer Gale Anne Hurd describe how she climbed that ladder as a female producer in the '80s. 

Photo courtesy of John Shearer

Anyway, I owe you photos and explanation as to how I made more of the furniture in the Santa's Workshop miniature piece. People have asked about the hutch, so I've explained below.

Note to non-American English speakers... 'hutch' is not something to keep your pet rabbit in. Here in the US 'hutch' means Welsh dresser. Yes, hutch means dresser. I know... baffled me at first too.

When designing the Santa / Father Christmas Workshop set, my aim was that it shouldn't look too realistic or dollhouse-esq, but like a whimsical, magical little world. I created the furniture to be a bit kooky and asymmetrical. You can see a sketch of the hutch in a previous post here. It should look a bit like a gingerbread house, full of unusual sweets and with painted decals like something from Germany or Switzerland. 

I started by cutting odd shapes of basswood and gluing them together with wood glue. I built up the shelves and sides of the hutch with further pieces of basswood. Each time I glued something down I had to clamp it and wait as basswood easily distorts. 

I cut the top front piece with an arch, to display something decorative inside it, and made sure the heights of the shelves would fit my tiny glass jars.

The candy took days longer than the hutch. Pieces were made by me from polymer clay using a caning technique. I made lids for these tiny glass jars (jars were sourced), filled them with different colourful candy and glued the lids down.

The cupboard doors and drawers didn't need to open, so I made paper templates of different fun shaped door facades, then traced them onto basswood, cut them out, sanded them, stained them with the same wood-stain and glued them down.

I drilled holes into each door facade and glued tiny wooden doorknobs in. This really helps to create the illusion of an opening door / drawer. I also painted detailed tiny patterns at this stage.

Next all I had to do was glue all those tiny glass jars of candy in place, and paint a wooden ladder in a candy cane design. I also added individual pieces of candy on the bottom shelf and tiny folded silk cloths which were ironed and glued into shape beforehand.

California Dreamin' ~ Happy 2015!

Happy New Year everyone! I am usually off somewhere else for NYE, such as New Orleans, Europe, Vegas etc, but this year I spent it in beautiful Malibu for a change, and watched the sun rise over the ocean on New Year's Day from my balcony. It was brilliant.

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas / the holiday season and I wish everyone a fun and successful 2015!

Here's a year's round up - the highlights of my 2014. The year started with a giant commission for Paris (see the rows of realistic miniature fruit below), followed by 10 more magazine features of my work, including two front covers, and then two exhibitions on my work - one in LA, one in China. I also flew a plane (Cirrus Sr22), paid a visit to the Grand Canyon, traveled all over China at the beginning of the year, stayed in a chateau in France in May and then wound up back in Shanghai for my exhibition in Dec. I taught workshops in China and appeared in several Chinese newspaper, magazine, web articles and videos. Who'd have though it, eh?!

Check back here soon for behind the scenes of the Shanghai miniatures, new characters for an animation project, and much much more this year!

The 'Big Apple' commission for Paris

Hong Kong, Guilin, Xi-an, Beijing, Shanghai China trip

Editorial work and a ball

Painting characters and micro baking

Chateau in France, and miniature breads

the miniature forest set piece

flying a plane to Catalina, various miniatures

preparing for Halloween and editorial spreads

Barbarella for Halloween 2014, making train station

press conference in Shanghai, China

some pieces for Shanghai exhibition

some pieces for Shanghai exhibition

Burbank exhibition

the Unusual Suspects

This line-up of elves is brought to you by Tall Tales Productions...!

I promised a few photos of the making of the characters of the Father Christmas / Santa Workshop (as seen here) and so here it is. Don't miss the previous post about constructing the set as well.

The characters were all made using polymer clay and are in one inch (1:12) scale. The elves have aluminium wire necks and legs, for added support. but the very simply designed penguin and snowman do not. All were finished with chalk pastel pigment and / or paint. Take a look at some of the steps below and as always, feel free to email me with any queries. I am still selling elves at the moment, but will finish at the end of Jan 2015.

As you can see, I started with the heads and hardened them separately. The feet and hands were also hardened separately before being attached. They were assembled and painted in stages.

Don't forget you can right-click image and 'open in new tab'. That way you can zoom.

The penguin had candy glued to him, which was also made using polymer clay. 

Designing and building the Workshop

Because people always ask to see photos of the process, I now take 'making of' photos much more frequently.

The last big piece I made (which is currently being exhibited at Creature Features, Burbank), is the 'Father Christmas Workshop' (US English - 'Santa's Workshop'). Here are some work-in-progress photos for you.

See the finished piece here.

Check back here (or the Facebook page) in a few days for a 'making of' the other furniture and the elves.


In a nutshell...
I always start by doing a few quick sketches. (Might want to right click and open the image in a new tab, so you can zoom). You can see below that I hadn't decided if it would be elves making toys (like rocking horses and dollhouses) or if they'd be making gingerbread houses and confectionery. Ultimately I knew I didn't want Father Christmas (Santa) in the scene, but I did want a conveyor belt and several elves. After a few drawings I decided to add a window with an outdoor scene, a tree with lights and a large kooky Welsh dresser (hutch) on the back wall.

Here's a basic step-by-step. I started with some large plywood pieces and used scratch paper to plot the basic size and shapes in the scene. Then when I knew what the measurements would be, I cut the wood and assembled. The windows were cut out and whole scene painted with a white base coat. The walls of the main room were finished and floor laid. Then it got more interesting. The 'outdoor' scene was created with wire mesh, plaster of Paris and paint. It needed to light up (so that you could see the outdoor scene, and it would look like daylight outside the windows), so I created a frosted perspex ceiling with a string of LED lights above it, to cast a soft even light. The snowman was attached to a dowel that came from within the plaster of Paris snow mound. Coloured lights were also added to the tree (whilst all cables were completely hidden).

The windows were made (more on that below), outdoor scene was finished by nailing and gluing those inner walls in. The candy cane columns were put in, the furniture glue-gunned down, and the removable perspex (Plexiglas) display case added.

I used wooden dowels as candy cane columns. They were first painted white, then I used masking tape to stencil over the pink/red stripes. The wooden floor was laid and painted with a mixture of pinks and blue washes.

I wanted the windows to be off kilter, like the furniture I made, so I cut basic straight holes in the walls, but then made the window frames wonky. The frames were cut using a Stanley knife (X-Acto blade) and I carved and sanded the edges into fun wonky shapes. The wood was basswood. I used epoxy to attach the perspex 'glass' to the back side of the windows. The frames were painted red-pink, then dry-brushed with white and the glass 'panes' were frosted. I added scenic scatter snow to the outside window ledges, and finished the other side of the walls with brick texture (not that it's easy to see it through the window).

The furniture was made using basswood and paints. This shelf has hand-blown glass jars (made for me by a glass blower in NY) filled with candy I made using polymer clay.

The conveyor belt was harder to make than perhaps it looks! I wanted it to be off kilter, again, and so it meant making it first out of paper, and adjusting the design until it felt right. I took the paper one apart and used the pieces as templates to create the shape with foam core, basswood and heavy cardstock. It was a fun challenge making the 'slide' part for the gingerbread houses to drop down onto a lower section of conveyor belt. I also made the top of it curve up and down so that the gingerbread houses would get a bumpy ride. The final details were simply painted onto cardstock, cut out with tiny scissors, painted with paper glue mixed with hologram glitter and attached.

Stay tuned for the making of the elves and other furniture...!