about inspiration, creativity & tips, PART I of VII

NOTE: Because it had gotten so ridiculously long, but almost entirely finished for a while now, I've decided to break it up in parts. For clearity and to prevent insanity and/or being overwhelmed on your side :D. So today, part I. Not really inspirational yet, but an important introduction I think. And might be a bit inspirational in a way? In any case it's long enough already ;)

I've been writing a different kind of post, adding to it from time to time and digging up old photo's or made new photo's of stuff I've made in the past to support this looooonng post ;). I realise it totally depends on where you are miniature-/craftwise, what's important or helpful to you, etc, if this post is useful at all. But it's for anyone who might be happy with some advice from yours truly and can benefit from it.

I felt like it because of things I've read in comments or blogposts, about inspiration and creativity and such and I might be able to help with a bit. At least I hope so. Not because I know everything, far from it, but I know a little bit of something that might help some of you sweet readers and followers out there.


so, here it goes.. my view on a few things. It may be different for other miniaturists who were great and/or amazing from the start, but I wasn't born making realistic miniatures like my recent mini-books, mini handcremetubes with handcream being able to squeeze out or mini-alarmclocks. Just so you know ;).

I'd like to show you that I'm not just saying things, some pictures of where I came from. What I did in the beginning and didn't have the best idea about scale, materials etc. Something that I still develop of course, although it has much approved over time. Nothing wrong with what I did, I liked it a lot and was (mostly) very proud of every one of them. They've also been important and even essential for my development. But the point I want to make is that it's a quite different from what I have done later.

BOOKS
my first book. Way too big/out of scale even for the bigger book it was meant to be, pages very thick which was already thicker than normal paper and are also glued together etc.

you can see with the miniaturemagazines and the two recent books how big it is. And in the last image of the 3 below you can see the pages don't even line up (this is as straight I could hold them down), iiieeeee! Was I making this with my eyes closed? hahaha :D

and here's a nice mistake I made with a bookkit around that time by Ann Vanture from www.paperminis.com, glueing the pages in the cover upside down! But because you glue it to the front and backcover too, there's no way I could remove without tearing the whole thing to shreds, so I had to leave it like that.. I also made the same mistake with Animal Farm, only not upside down (because I was paying very close attention to that because of that previous stupidity), but the outside of the pages to the spine! Don't ask me how that happened! But luckily that book doesn't have flyleafs, so removing it was possible, although I still had to get all the glue from the pages.. :D

the second time I had an idea for a book was much later a couple of years ago and it was so much better! It is printed on both sides and even glued the right side up ;). This is large too, but as it should be being a big book for witchcraft, it's to scale this time ;). I still like this a lot!

and of course the books that I made earlier this year, so you can see (or anyone who had not seen the bookpost of these yet) what a contrast to that first one!

WEAVING
the second attempt to make a catcarrier as the first doesn't even resemble one haha (see that one in the photo below this one). Although it's a fine carrier and will carry minicats as it should, it's not too realistic I'm afraid, but I did enjoy it and was so proud of it! And still am.

the 3rd one I didn't finish because - from what I remember, it's been a couple of years that I made it - there was no way I could proceed with the weaving. Because of the - at that point - very inflexible metal wire (too thick as I just realised when seeing it again for this post). This falls in the category of seeing layers and they can have blind spots, as I will explain in later 'editions' of this series, it's one of the tips.

different use for 'failed' items
seeing the first cat carrier some time later it reminded me it looks like some kind of planter! Not sure if it's right for that proportionally, but for this post I finally tested that by putting some greens (it's fresh mint that bloomed!) in it and put it on a wall. Not too bad huh? :) It's still not the most realistic object/scale maybe and I would like to treat it sometime to make it more realistic, like a dark wash that will get in the crevices and/or maybe some dry white (or white-ish) paint to give it a more modern look. But at least it won't be useless, yay!

a small TIP to take away from this: if you have something that is not right for what you made it to be, it might be useful as something else? Like a mug that turned out too big, can maybe be a vase or plantpot. To give an example I can now think of and you might have thought of yourself and done that already, but there are probably countless! And some 'failed' items can be used for attics or trashcans etc.

and how about bad photography in the photo below? the basket* isn't even in focus :D haha. And this is not one of more photo's where this is the bad one, this is the photo I decided to keep! I don't know if I still have this basket somewhere, I'm curious to how it looks!
*from raffia with licorice-sticks as woodblocks

don't worry, I do like the first basket, but it's quite different from my second one that I made the year after. The basket itself is not even bad, it looks just fine.  I do still need to fnish it though with some washes or so to give it some more shades of colour. It's mostly the glued-on rim on the top that makes it quite unrealistic and not my best work, but it's how I started, it's my first regular basket** after all ;). It's in my christmaslantern.
**technically this was the raffia one I had forgotten all about until I stumbled on that photo for this post!

CANDALABRA
so this is a great example of me not using the right materials for realistic miniatures in my early days. I was over the moon with them at the time, I even ordered a lot more of the same beads and beadcaps to be able to make more! And they are are nice maybe, but not very realistic. I might have an idea what to do with them to be able to use them and benefit from the ornamental detail... I'll have to see if that works and if so I will someday post that as a tip.

so there you have it! My first (baby)steps in this fun hobby.

I got where I am - and still have masses to learn - by learning from mistakes. Obviously, as that's what we all do in life and will be no surprise. Also by seeing more clearly (or at all, haha, if you look at the crooked pages of that first book). And by looking at things differently over time and changing previous aspects to achieve better results in new miniatures. For whatever reason or because I suddenly realise what will work better. It's a natural process. I've also learned from others, using their tips. And developed my own, as well as ideas that I came up with.

with mistakes I also mean all the dumb things from blowing up lights because of next to zero electrical knowledge, supergluing my fingers to a miniature or each other on more occassions than one, glueing pages the wrong way around in a bookcover, working on something only to realise I've overlooked a very important and kind of obvious part etc. Haven't we all? Well maybe not all, but I know I'm certainly not the only one!

nothing human is strange to me :D and I can assure you: very human this one, haha

See you at part II !