Miniaturist get-together

Maybe I mentioned before making miniatures as an art or even as a hobby is barely known in Hungary. But there is a little group of miniaturists (including me) who keep connection with each others. We shared our experiences mostly via emails but once or twice a year we meet personally, too. The first get-together was last Saturday and it was amazing. It's so wonderful to get to meet others like me. Here is a little list of the members our group. They are so talented and I'm very glad and honored to get to know them and that I can call them friends.

Livi is the group manager, who organizes all of our meetings. She is a woman of many talents and a real reformer. Recently she shows her little scenes and other miniature works in exhibitions in varios towns in Hungary. Here is her blog,
http://liviminivilaga.blogspot.hu/
She is starting her shop right now, where she will sell miniature themed jewellery,
https://www.etsy.com/people/livimini

Anda makes beautiful vintage miniatures. Her scenes are full of life and style. You can see her works in her blog,
http://hobbynagyitoalatt.blogspot.hu/
or you can buy them here,
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MiniatureMoods

Melli our youngest but unquestionably the most enthusiastic member. Her blog is here,
http://iciri-piciri.blogspot.hu/

Kati make breathtakingly beautiful animals, fairies  and other magical creatures. You can find her works here,
http://www.ebay.com/usr/dokart
https://www.etsy.com/people/FairiesMiniatures?ref=owner_profile_leftnav

Fanni makes perfect miniature birds and insects. She missed this get-together, because she is at the end of her pregnancy with her second baby and she didn't take the risk of travelling to Budapest in the stormy weather.
Her blog is here,
http://paranyivalosag.blogspot.hu/
And here is her etsy shop,
https://www.etsy.com/shop/FannimiNiATURE?ref=pr_faveshops

Please visit their sites, you surely can find some wonderful miniatures.

My meat grinder

Whenever I want to make a miniature with difficult and composite build I dissect it to simple  parts in my mind and I try to find the best material and method for making these parts. At the end the paint would cover all the different materials. This little meat grinder was made of polymer clay, air dry clay, paper, wood, aluminium, wire and some micro beads. And there were some mistake, too, so I had to change my first choice of material, but I think it's worth all the efforts. Of course I couldn't help it, I had to place some rust onto the grinder.

Easter is coming!

And here is my new apologizing for being away so long. But I have a very good reason this time, I had the flu. And tearful eyes, continuous sneezing and miniatures just don't see eye to eye. I speak from experience. Once I manage to destroy my work of two hours with a giant sneeze. Never again! And I felt so miserable I couldn't do anything but lying in bed.
Now I try to make up for the lost time. But with not much success...
It's time to show some Easter themed miniatures I made the last month. I had so much fun with all the bunnies and eggs. This theme has endless potential, and the bright colors of spring are just reviving after the dull winter time.

My chocolate glaze

Surely everyone has their own fake chocolate glaze recipe they stick to. I have my version, too. The glossy acrylic paint or a final coat of varnish just aren't right. So I mix dark brown acrylic paint with some droplets of Still Water (a brand of modelling water, Vallejo product, technically water-based polyurethane dispersion). The Still Water helps the mixture to expand smoothly over the cakes and the glaze has just the amount of shine a glaze should have after drying. Of course you can use this trick for every kind of glaze not only for chocolate.
Here are some miniatures I used this glaze for.

And this is the Still Water.

New book on the market

László Adóba is one of the best diorama builder I know and I'm a big fan. I recommended his previous books here, in my blog before, now there is a new one. Of course I already have it (actually it's a dedicated gift from the author) and it's just wonderful. The descrition of the book and the sample pages are from László Adóba's website (http://adobadiorama.hu/), where you can buy all of his books.

In the second volume of Building Dioramas, I’m going to present the process of creating everyday objects, some of them being absolutely common, others being less conventional. Recognizing tiny manifestations of things met regularly in real life makes much deeper impression in the viewer than objects seen rarely or never at all during our lives. Dioramas built using familiar accessories will seem much more life-like as the viewer gets involved easily at the very first sight.

The book presents the detailed description of making more than 50 diorama accessories. Pieces of furniture, bathroom equipment, kinds of food and some metal objects take shape in front of the reader in 5 chapters on 78 pages. There are several simple pieces made of common materials, as well as more complex ones that need some special equipment and ingredients. This way beginners may find the book just as helpful as advanced modellers. The text is illustrated with more than 400 colour photos to make building much easier.

I'm back in town

First of all, Happy New Year! I know, January is almost over, but it's better late than never. So I had a very restful holiday in December and the Christmas was wonderful. I have to admit I was a little bit tired of all the miniatures I had made for the Christmas rush, and it began to affect my mood. My husband said it was time to cut all ties to the miniature world for at least two weeks to charge my batteries. First I was sceptical if I could bear it for such a long time, but it was really helpful. I played with the kids, read a lot and there were many rounds of Carcassone (strategic board game) with my husband at late night. Of course I spent the first two weeks of January only with catching up, and now at last I have time for blogging, too.
I show you some of my latest works, all types of food as always.

These are not miniatures, though they are not average sized either. My daughters are always the shortest in their class, like I was, too. (I'm still very short and I have no hope to get any taller in this life.) I made some good photos about the kids and had the best ones printed onto canvas. They were my Christmas presents for my husband. Absolute success! Now they are on our "famous" red wall of the living room.

Some ramblings again

I'm a little bit depressed. We barely can see the sun these days, the lights are on in my workroom all the day and there are days when I can't make a decent photo about my minis (Taking photos using artificial lights is absolutely not my territory! Shame on me, I should have learnt it years ago...) So I try to cheer myself up by constantly change the theme. (The Christmas topic a little bit worn me out.) Here are my latest babies. Maybe you don't believe it, but the plum cake was the most challenging. I formed and colored all the plum pieces one by one and baked them before pushing them into the "dough". I think the simplest the real food the hardest for you to make it realistic in miniature scale.