Props Fashion-Size Tabletop Gaming Den/Diorama - Feats of Tiny Writing

I really, really need to cut up the Doritos. I'm just annoyed that the Mod Podge made them glossy. Stupid humidity, keeping me from finishing!

I love that fabric! I think I need to make a comforter out of it and get it in this picture somehow. I'd love to make another couch, but where would I put it?!

 

I think my dolls would kill me if I made them bunk beds at their ages, but they would love blankets for snuggling. I've grand plans to make two or three sets of different decor for this room, so yes more blankets! I'm already knitting another now that the rug is off my needles.

Someone make me work on food, not knitting!

 

I should get a case of Mountain Dew. For research, of course, so I can test scale.

Oh my stars and bars, a bed cave. This may need to happen. I'd need some lights if I wanted anyone to see inside it, but ooooh, it would be so fun to decorate.

 

It's been a while since I could do a weekly game! Everyone in my group now is on different schedules, so it's very hard to get a game together. If I'm making things myself, it had better be the right scale! It's half the fun.

It's the details that are fun! I can't wait to get the big furniture things out of the way so I can focus on the small things that make it look real.

 

I'm trying something different with the photos this time.

I accidentally gave myself a crafting day, so I've knitted another throw blanket, painted the walls gray-blue (after the photos were taken), and cut about a hundred strips of paperboard for window panes. I also cut the window larger and added more since I wasn't impressed with the size once my doll was next to it. Now I've got a faux bay window.

What do bay windows need? That sinfully ugly thing I built below. I can't wait to decorate it!


It's big enough for two dolls, three if they like each other, so yay, more seating! I didn't want another piece of furniture even if I could have made it (a lot more easily!) to be solid and hold things. I've got the seat cushion half-built and improved over my sofa cushion. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

Because I'm a perfectionist and stickler for details, I must point out that I know one side is longer than the other. It's done on purpose so the seat can be the right width. The short wall isn't at a 45-degree angle and the longer walls aren't perpendicular. I wanted the space to be more open, thus giving me more floor space, so I pulled the walls further apart when I made the floor. If I swap out the window and window seat for the future fireplace, it will have narrow windows on either side. I couldn't have those being different sizes!

 

The good idea fairy visits often when I sleep.

One thing at a time! Although I might have some design ideas for when the room is a little further along...

 

I used to think these dolls were so small, but now, I really wish I liked tinies instead! Then I could use cereal boxes to make and store their rooms.

I do have a room for my dolls!



Unfortunately, it is also called The Library, and the books are ungracious about sharing space with the dolls, much less the crafts on the left. What you can't see behind me is the wall unit that holds more books and my wee furniture. I put out my girl with the sofa and her new fuzzy blanket so you can get a sense of scale.

Whenever I get my diorama out to work on it, my cats think it's a playspace for them. They love crawling in and out of the windows. They're going to hate it when the windowpanes and "glass" go in, and I'm going to hate wiping little cat noses off it.



This whole project is getting much bigger than I'd planned.

 

Here's today's progress: the collapsible window seat is done! I practiced the technique I wanted to use on the walls on the base. I've had that black spiderweb sticker around forever, and painting over it looks shabby chic like I wanted.

The fabrics hanging over the seat will be my first set of curtains. I've wanted to use that map fabric for a long time, and I had the perfect colors for the curtains to tie those colors together... I hope. Everything came out of the craft and scrap bin, so no money spent here!

This will be the "Rainy Day" decor versus the "Basement Dungeon" that will have a fireplace and brick walls instead. If this all works out, it will be awesome, but I'm really playing it by ear at this point.

Project Journal - Rainy Day Window Seat by Saphariel, on Flickr

My hubs and I are both bookworms, so we have an absurd collection. Ours are also multi-stacked. I think the movers die inside every time we move.

I love those wretched fluffballs even if they make crafting annoying. I even have some small cats that I should put on my window seat to see if the scale works.

 

And what I feared has happened. I'm stuck at painting the walls, and I'm disgusted by all the half-finished bits and bobs I have lying around. Perhaps my fear of failing in front of an audience, however small, will keep me going.

Thanks! And I've hardly gotten started on the proper gaming parts! Now I just need more girls in my wee crew so my Raffine isn't my sole girl gamer.

Oh gosh, I can't wait to see it completed too! I'll do my best to make sure there is an end to all this!

 

Oh, they are sturdy! They're either either triple-layered (with the corrugate layers going in opposite directions) and braced at regular intervals (the window seat) or double-layered and held up with too many clothes (the sofa and ottoman). Fortunately these dolls are light enough that their behinds won't go through anything, and I don't leave them seated to keep the batting from getting compressed.

This is why project journals are great: advice! I hope your guys survived undamaged!

And thanks @Belaraphon. You're helping.

 

I enlisted my hubby's help after the last post. He kicked me off Skyrim: The Life-Eater like I asked him to so I could paint the walls. It turned out not to be nearly as difficult as I'd planned to make a dull matte gradient that resembled a photography backdrop.

Then I finished the window frames and built curtain rods, so I've made progress on the Rainy Day room! That gray thing is actually a super furry blanket I knitted a few weeks ago. I wish it was life size...

 

I saw this when I walked into the craft room this morning. I don't have a paper cutter, and that's at least a few hours of really tedious work with a breakaway razor blade... that I get to do for a fourth time given that the first two kinds of material didn't work and this one's garbage now.

I don't like my cats some days, but here's my incentive to put removable cardboard reinforcement behind it for when I'm not using it as actual windows.

 

I'm still mad at the windows, so this week I made some of the clothes for my gamers because yes, there are even more components to this project than furniture and gaming props. I wanted some normal(ish) clothes for my fashionable crew to game in so they didn't look like models for Gary Gygax's line of D&D haute couture.

First off, no skinny jeans: too "fashionable" and too hard to sit in! I altered a pattern I had to be straight-legged and got these. They don't actually have snaps/closures yet because I'm about to do terrible things to them.
Project Journal: Bootcut Jeans by Saphariel, on Flickr

I made the white shirt and black hoodie above from a Designs by Jude pattern and a tutorial on DoA, respectively, but both needed serious tailoring to fit. They need geeky slogans and designs next. I'm thinking "+2 Charisma" on the white shirt and a Dethklok gear on the hoodie.

I distressed the jeans this morning because that was the whole point of making them! I realize this probably crosses the line into "fashionable," but I can't help it. I loathe sewing, but I love distressing denim. I scrubbed them with coarse salt in a mortar and pestle to soften them before using grip tape to rough up the seams and the bottoms of the legs so they looked worn. I used a foot file for the creases and to make the bleach take to the indigo jeans better since they were stubborn, and I bleached some areas with sponges and others with a paintbrush.
Project Journal: Distressed Jeans by Saphariel, on Flickr

 

Oops, forgot to mention that FID Rex, seen above, has joined this ridiculously man-heavy crew, so space in the diorama gets even more cramped after this.

 

Thanks! I wish I could buy someone else's jeans so I could just focus on distressing them, but that wouldn't be very inexpensive.

Oh! I made a pair of plaid pajama pants for one of my guys because one former DM used to wear them all the time. I just forgot to photograph them! Now I have to find them... I'm usually the one gaming in jeans and nerd shirts. I'm playing a druid for the first time now; the spells are a bother compared to just being a fighter! But our crew of squishies needed a healer who could tank... The sacrifices I make.

 

I thought I responded to this! Must have been in my head. It sucks for my game because I'm playing a shapeshifting druid in a party with no healer, so I get Spontaneous Rejuvenation and no animal companion because I was supposed to be playing with a Conjuror, so she would have provided all the field fodder, but she moved! So now I have to keep leveling until I can take some feat that mimics an animal companion. Boo.

Our temperature/humidity is FINALLY decreasing so I might be able to make snacks again. I can't spray Testor's until then or everything will probably just be white and grainy.

I hate the very idea of furniture that just takes up space. Why don't we do this with human furniture? You'll have so much fun building fold away rooms once you're settled.

 

I finally tackled handwriting those character sheets once I built some original characters. I know I could have saved time with the printer or special fonts, but I managed with a 0.05mm pen and some swears. I changed handwriting styles a few times so it would look like different people wrote some of the sheets.



Then I decided to see if I could write my name on a grain of rice like those people at state fairs when I was young. If you're curious, you might have to click for the full-size photo on flickr. Then I drew smiley faces on grains of millet, which are really hard to hold in place.



Finally! More steps I get to cross off. I may put some Mountain Dew, Doritos smears, and coffee stains on these to make them look more authentic.

 

Thanks! I don't think I've ever gotten that kind of eyestrain before.

 

My old DM had these official PDFs, and he shared them with us. I'm not sure where he got them, but I liked the giant character class being printed across the top. I just printed them 4 across, 4 down, or sixteen to a page, depending on your printer settings. I left the margins between each page at 0.2 inches, and they look the right size compared to my dolls' hands.

Yes, more junk food research will be necessary... I can't even grind now. Our bard is out of town, so the party is too small to even play with. I need more games.