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

I just discovered fashion size dolls last September. I liked 60-75cm in the past but the size has always been a nuisance, and I never photographed them as much as I should. Then I bought my first Iplehouse FID, and it was love at first sight.

Now I have four, but I can't come up with a good photography conceit for all of them together. They're part of a story universe that's pretty violent and most of them don't get along, so an alternate universe is key. I've no plans to make a band because then I'd have to make instruments, and I have no space for big dioramas so it needs to break down easily. I'm a poor seamstress and rubbish photographer, so this would be a good opportunity to try to refine my skills, but on what?

As I was creating a character for a new D&D campaign this weekend, the Muse struck: make my dolls gamers. Easy, except for the part about finishing an entire project before I lose interest, hence this journal.

Look at this as a beginner-level project. So here are the components I need to make or assemble to feel like I have a good setup.

• DONE Gamers (3)
  
• DONE Dungeon Master (1)
  
• ONE DONE? Extra players (2): bigger parties are more well-rounded... and Raccoon is supposed to be making boys soon.
  
• DONE Sofa: for 3-5 dolls to sit on. Needs to have storage so it isn't wasted space.
  
• DONE Ottoman or coffee table: to hold gaming supplies. Needs storage.
  
• DONE Blanket: every sofa needs a blanket or five
  
• DONE Pillows: for the unfortunate dolls who have to sit on the floor
  
• DONE Rug: also for seated dolls.
• Dice: to scale. I'm not going to cheat by using mine.
  
• Dice bags
• Glasses: somebody needs them.
• Gaming mat with counters or figures (unless making figures at that scale makes me lose my mind).
• DONE Character sheets: enough sheets for the entire party, with stats. I can write that small... I think. ATTEMPT #1
  
• Pencils: because gamers don't use pens.
  
• GM screen
• Gaming manuals (started!)
  
• Snacks: Doritos, Mountain Dew, coffee, Red Bull, adult beverages.
  
• Gaming/Nerd clothing with logos: I don't want to take pics of fashion models playing games, so I need to create more casual t-shirts and maybe pants.
  
• DONE Tripod: mine's broken and needs replacement
  
• DONE Wide-angle lens: for more interesting shots
  
• DONE Walls (backdrops): must fold flat or be able to be taken apart
  
• Flooring: to hold rugs (found! - needs painting)
  
• Bookcases (with reversible fireplace?)
• Brick walls
  
• DONE Silly-ass chair: to hold the DM
• DONE Beanbag: to hold more dolls
• Window seat with windows and curtains: to hold more dolls and blankets SEAT
  
• Photos: to feel like I got the job done

I already have some parts done, and I'll try to update after work. Hopefully.

 

I've been ogling 3-D printing sites for the dice. I wonder if silverbeam was one I saw. I think I can make D6s and D4s, but D20s would be really helpful. Someone has to crit-fail so I can mock them with photos.

I've already got the character sheets but I feel like writing the information in is more authentic. I just need finer pens than 0.25mm!

 

I don't live in a country with Targets, sadly, and I'd want to see those props in person. I'm going to make most of them, or at least try. I'm also going to put all my progress here! I just didn't have time this morning.

 

I started with the sofa. I found this tutorial a long time ago and finally decided to tackle it.

I dug cardboard out of our recycling and found packing tape that was "included" in our moving boxes by our last movers. It was free; I can't complain. Two hours of Dethklok later, I had this. I was so focused that I forgot to take any progress pics, and I was so excited about storage that I filled it immediately.



I wanted wider arms than the tutorial called for because I needed dolls to be able to sit on them, so I had to reinforce them with layers of cardboard so they wouldn't break.

 

Now came the fun part: testing to see which fabrics I had enough of on hand that would cover the entire sofa and be convincing. You can also see FIDs Arvid, Lawrence, and Leonard filling the parts of the gamers, so that's another thing off my checklist.

I love this blue map fabric... but it's too busy, and you can't even appreciate the maps.


Purple is my second favorite color... but this looks like a sofa that belongs in their little sister's room.


This looks like their grandmother's sofa, and I liked this paisley too. It's hard to even see the contours of the sofa. Leonard's so upset he fainted.


I switched to boring solids because that was probably going to work best. I love this color, but it's a skirt I took apart, and there's not nearly enough fabric. It's also slippery, and the last thing I want is dolls sliding off my sofa like Leonard there.


I ended up ordering linen online and waiting about two weeks for it. Then more delays happened...

 

I did take lots of photos while I covered it! I just don't have time to post them right now. Wakeup is in 6 hours, argh, I suck at bedtimes.

 

Break for new aspect of the project! I got annoyed at the shipping delays so I worked on the character sheets. I'm a stickler for authenticity when it comes to these, hence my eagerness to actually do all the writing myself. I just used a printer to resize my character sheets.

My hand for scale. I've got pretty big hands for a girl, so this seemed appropriate.


Leonard's hand to test the sheet size.


Success!

Next to actually do the writing and character creation. This is my favorite character, now retired... who reclassed so much that it was hard to fit his information there. You can barely read his attribute scores.


Failure.

I'm not happy with how thick the pen is, even at only 0.25mm. Why does my handwriting look so wretched? Here are some coins for scale.


I ordered a 0.05mm pen off Amazon yesterday because there are no office supply stores here, and the only art store likely will not carry something this fine. Now to wait more.

But back to the sofa, which came out much better!

 

I love recycling fabric and other materials! This sofa cost me about $10 to make compared to the $80-$120 ones I was looking at. Of course, they're wood (maybe) and made by real professionals, but I bet mine will still do what it needs to in photos.

Making them fantasy outfits will be a real challenge! You saw the part about me being a mediocre seamstress, right? But I will at least try!

Leonard spends a lot of time dramatically dead in canon, but that doesn't fit the mood of my cheery project journal, so I'm sure he's just got low blood sugar. The storage was what got me to finally make the sofa; I was tired of having my clothes in a plastic bag!

Thanks! I can't wait to make more things! There are so many talented people here that it gets incredibly intimidating, but I'm going to keep puttering around here, trying to improve.

 

I didn't think anyone would use this project journal to build their own sofa, but I did take photos of my process. I might as well share them in case anyone wants more detail than was in the original tutorial.

I got the linen and the batting in the mail, finally. It always takes a while for things to get out here. I followed the original tutorial pretty closely... until I ran out of hot glue. I rarely use it, and I had forgotten that I'd sueded a bunch of my big dolls last year.

I glued down batting on the back and cushion with Elmer's glue, but I didn't trust it to hold the linen in place if I put any pressure on it... so I was stuck again. I started building the ottoman you can see off to the left. Meanwhile, my hubby ordered a shakuhachi, and it came in a woodgrain cardboard box which he promptly gave to me. Huzzah, more trash to play with!


My hubs bought out all the hot glue he found in our craft store but left it in a friend's car... where it rode around with the friend for half a week... in a desert. I'm lucky they didn't fuse together in 120-130F heat.

But finally! I had hot glue. I trimmed corners and folded the piece that would cover the sofa back so it would fit the arm rests and tuck under the ledge that forms the seat. Then I glued a strip along the top edge of the linen where it would adhere to the ledge inside the seat.


It glued in fine, so next I had to deal with the curved back of the sofa. It would have been best to cut and sew a seam there, but I wanted to glue it and be done, so I tucked and folded it.


Have I mentioned that I don't know what I'm doing? I can make clothes from patterns just fine, but the finer points of upholstery elude me. I didn't like the way that corner came out, so I cut the next one into strips so I could glue each strip individually, thinking I would get a tighter corner before I folded and glued the other side.


It mostly worked. It'll be fine in photos, I'm sure. I glued the linen to the batting for the armrests next, trying not to use too much or it would be really stiff and obvious.


I glued the armrest covers under the ledge the same way I did the back of the sofa. This picture shows how I ran a second strip of glue on top of the ledge to keep the linen close to it. I didn't want any loose fabric to interfere with how the seat cushion sat in there.


The seat cushion has FIVE layers of batting, maybe six. Linen is stiff, and I wanted it to loft like a real cushion, not look like thinly padded cardboard. I cut several layers of that batting to fit around the front of the cardboard to disguise its shape but didn't leave them long enough to tuck underneath lest the whole cushion tilt back. I didn't put any extra batting around the sides or back because you wouldn't see it, and it would only interfere with removing the cushion to get at the storage.




Phew. It's a little embarrassing to let the rough "guts" of this thing show, but that's what project journals are for, isn't it?

 

I was going to stop for today, but there are handymen in the house. I can't work on books like that, so here's another post.

I worked on the ottoman on breaks from the sofa. I trimmed the "woodgrain" to fit the bottom of the ottoman and just folded it around the corners, patching it on the side where it was too short before gluing.


I ironed a fold into the linen, glued that fold most of the way around above the woodgrain, lay the batting against the box/ottoman, and folded the linen up around it so it looked like a cushion sitting atop a wood base. I left enough spare linen to tuck one side into the other and glued it.


Then I just folded the linen into the box and glued.


Two storage boxes, complete.


Add cushions and figure out a way to attach the ottoman cushion so it doesn't fly off when opened. It doesn't have to be pretty. I stupidly cut the top of the ottoman square when it should have had rounded corners, so I ended up bending the corners and gluing them under. Hot glue is magic.


Three hours of raï music later, I had mostly-free storage, a sofa, and an ottoman. Next up, testing the sofa... after work. The handymen are gone.

 

Thanks, all. My gamer friends have said the same thing about scaling it down. I'm going to wait for this ultra fine pen to come before I try that. I'm determined... or just stubborn.

The dice I'm looking at are 3mm, if I recall correctly. 10mm would be more like the huge "melee dice" my friends and I fling at each other during game sessions. I may use that handwriting website if I go the rescaling route!

 

Today I tested my finished furniture for scale and for its ability not to collapse under strain.

Enter Snorri.


He's pissed that this couch isn't for him when I've had him for four years. Poor guy, but if this sofa can hold him, it'll do just fine for anyone else... except maybe my EID Superhero Lawrence, but he's not nearly flexible enough to manage this position.

Here's someone more appropriate for scale: my Raffine, who's my Dungeon Master unless she gets bumped out of that position by FID Rex or a Raccoon Doll. There's not nearly enough female DMs out there. I've tried, and I'm terrible at it.


One doll looks good, but will four of them... Leonard, what are you doing?

Leonard: Making sure he doesn't fall?


It works! First doll furniture made out of trash, success! It didn't collapse, and it mostly holds everyone. I should have made it longer, but I only have so much space, and this confined space forces them to... er... interact.

I think I'm going to start snacks now that my gamers have somewhere to sit. Or make pillows if I need a confidence-building sort of day.

 

It's a shame all my storage is pretty much full. Now I'll just have to make another sofa with the linen I have left... and get more purty boys for it.

Miniature miniatures?! The scale on them would be absurdly tiny. I just looked it up: proper scale would be 1:60th. Maybe I should make them all play Gargantuan creatures. Otherwise, they'll just be markers.

 

Yesterday I made the Doritos for my gaming crew. I would have finished them today, but the humidity is at 57% and temperature is over 100F, so it's less than ideal for spraying them with anything.

Here's a man's hand with actual Doritos. If nothing else, I'm a stickler about scale. I haven't bought these in years, but they are a traditional gaming food, therefore research was necessary. And delicious.


We found orange paper at our craft store. I drew on the specks of corn and spice and whatever toxic waste went into making those chips. I checked the scale against my boy's hand.


Success!

Real tortillas are warped, so I crumpled the paper and folded it over like real imperfect chips. I could have cut them into wedges and stopped here...


... but here's the fun part: proper Doritos are also nearly fuzzy with "spice" or "cheez dust" or whatever, so I shaved down three different colors of pastel to make powder. I don't have sandpaper, so I used an emery board.


I dabbed Mod Podge in the crevices and in places along the edges, loaded up a brush with different pastel colors, and flicked the dust at the Dorito to make it fall unevenly. You can see that technique on the top one in the photo below. Unfortunately, the matte Mod Podge is still too shiny to look realistic, so I'm going to go over it with Tester's DullCote when the weather improves to try to get a real matte finish.

I just dabbed pastel roughly on some of the other chips below to get the color if not the texture right. If the DullCote works, I'll repeat my Mod Podge and dusting, then cut them into wedges and figure out how to display them.


That was really fun. I wish I'd made props this size years ago! It's so satisfying.

 

Ugh, I'm so far behind with this project. I moved to a night schedule weeks ago, and apparently that has torpedoed my creative drive and my ability to work on things. Staying awake all night SUCKS and only makes crafts and writing and photography especially a million times harder when I only have sunlight to work with.

I've made a bunch of pillows and a blanket, but I want to knit or crochet another and make some floor pillows before I photograph it all. I'm also lusting after a wide angle lens to make more interesting photos, and a job that surprisingly pays just enough for this lens fell into my lap. How fortuitous!

Thanks! I'm glad they look like the real thing to eyes other than my own.

I agree! Murdering creatures is fun; murdering your fellow party members when you crit fail AND you're the party's damage dealer is not so fun. Awkward... The couch was the smartest part of this project - now I have things for my dolls to sit on: invaluable!

I think it's my favorite part of the project so far: obsessive detail and food. I need to come up with more foods for them to have!

 

I have so many ideas for more! YouTube is packed with awesome (to me!) videos of people making tiny snacks. I just need the temperature to drop below 100F and the humidity to be less than suffocating in order to proceed. I need a friend with a garage.

I plan to create (suitable) characters for all my gamers! I should be doing that now while the weather is wretched.

 

Long-delayed project update: I've started making the unsexy/gamer/nerd clothes during this horrible night shift. I'm planning to make them three different ways considering my difficulty making doll-size clothes that fit.

First up: commercial patterns! My creative energies may be completely trashed, but I can still follow directions. Someone else with FIDs had success with this Designs by Jude pattern for dolls of a similar size. It's for a sweatshirt, tee, and pants, which is definitely something I could see my gamers wearing. I made it first out of scraps, but it looks to me like he's wearing his powerlifting champion brother's clothes.

Project Journal - Unsexy clothes test by Saphariel, on Flickr

The goal was to make my dolls NOT look like runway models, but this is a little too baggy. My next challenge is to make this pattern fit.

Next up: fitting clothes directly to the doll using a DoA tutorial... and all that other stuff I left half-finished. I also need my broken printer fixed (another monumental task) so I can start making t-shirt transfers and other food-related goodies.

 

I realized after watching a few of My Froggy Stuff's videos today that I have been far too unambitious when it came to this project... so I'm going to add a few more items to my first post. Gaming room walls, flooring, rugs or carpet, bookcases... yeah, that looks better. So long as I can break it all down flat, I should be good with our limited storage space.

FID Rex is on order, so the crew is getting bigger. I think I need to add a chair or beanbags too. The goal is to use the supplies I have and not add a bunch of things to my already strained craft room/library/office. Phew. Back to work.

DMing was not for me. I'm not creative enough on the fly to make it enjoyable for me or my friends. :/ All of my DMs have been guys, and I've been gaming for... 22 years?!

Seriously, the couch was the best prop I ever made, especially when those dolls like to collapse if they aren't sueded! It makes photos easy. I hadn't bought a bag of Doritos for years before this prop. Fortunately they aren't addictive!

And they're made of paper! I have seriously underestimated how versatile paper is.

 

I had to look up her "room in a box" videos after you mentioned them. So creative! I wish these dolls could fit in cereal boxes, plus they're too heavy for some of her ideas. That's okay. I will improvise!

 

I have ten things in progress already, but why not add another? I needed another chair anyway.

I don't usually buy Pringles, but somehow they sneaked into our house the other day. I was about to throw the can away, when...
Project Journal: Silly Chair 1 by Saphariel, on Flickr

She doesn't look comfortable at all given that her bum barely fits on the can, so I'm going to have to cut it shorter. Then I'll make a seat cushion or make the whole thing thicker somehow. The leftover can will make an interesting curved back and arm rests, I think.

I saw My Froggy Stuff wrapping some doll furniture in twine and liked the idea, so I dug through a box of old junk (literally) that someone mailed to me. I thought I'd seen macrame supplies in there, and sure enough, I found some twine!



But it smells horrid, like it's been in someone's musty attic for years, and it's got bits of nastiness in it. I threw it in the sink with detergent. I don't care if it ruins it. It's going in the trash if I can't save it, and I'll find some clean twine elsewhere.

Then I thought: why not wrap this "chair" in this super-bulky fur yarn that's too big to make scarves for my dolls?



I've got gray, fuschia, and brown yarn. The gray would match my sofa, but the fuchsia would make it really whimsical. Or just ridiculous.

If the rope can be saved, I'll have a slightly classier chair that suits my slightly classy sofa. If I use the yarn, I get a silly chair to make my room look more like a gaming den and less like a furniture showroom.

What to do?

 

I'm thinking foofy yarn too. The rope still smells weird, and it's not like Pringle cans are expensive if I really want to try it in the future.

 

It's about time I could check something off my list rather than adding more items.

I got these 1:4 scale skulls as a gift. I didn't know why until I was reminded that I had considered making my dolls into a doom metal band (because of all the black in their Iplehouse wardrobe) before I settled on the gamers idea. Apparently doom metal bands should have skull decor. I made one into a candle holder after watching too many MyFroggyStuff videos, but I don't like the yellowish, translucent cast of the glue. I have vague plans to make them black and red later.


On to the silly chair!

I cut the Pringles can down to size and added a temporary cushion made out of an old sock to keep up the "trash" theme since the seat needed to be wider to hold her.


However, now the remaining can was too short to make the curved back and arms. I also couldn't decide how I was going to make the chair back and lid separate so I could still lift the top off to get at the storage.


I got rid of the seat cushion because she's not going to be wearing those feet for gaming and doesn't need the height. Then I flipped the can upside down so I could access storage from the bottom. I tested it by half-filling it with coins in case I needed to compensate for the chair's topheaviness, and it held well enough to be moved.


I tried my hand at building the chair back and arms out of wire which I'd originally bought to wire dolls. That didn't get far before... Hey! I need that yarn!


Arvid: "Why does Raffine get all this? Just leave it in a pile so we can sit in it."
Me: "I'll make you a beanbag or a fuzzy blanket later. Deal?"
Arvid (sulkily): "Deal."

 

Back to work.

I meant to use wire to make the frame open, like a bar stool, but I switched to paper dug from the recycling bin. I wanted the seat to lean so it gave her more room to sit down without having to make a wider base for the seat. I used the wire as an extra layer of security for those tabs that I hot-glued down. I don't need a $500 doll to come crashing down because the back was too weak. Then I realized the back looked too short, especially when I tested it on one of the boys.


No worries. I built another back out of paper and cut "darts" into it before gluing so it would stand up straight rather than leaning back even further. I reshaped the arms and back before covering it in batting, which covers over a multitude of design sins. I colored a piece of paper to cover the Pringles can so it wouldn't be obvious if a gap showed in my yarn.


I made the seat out of fabric for contrast rather than having a wholly furry chair. I found a crushed velvet skirt that I hadn't worn since my LARP days in one craft drawer. I ran hot glue along the rim of the seat and used the can lid to avoid melting my flesh while I held the fabric down. I wrapped the velvet around the seat and glued it down. I sewed the yarn onto the seat edge so I could fluff it more easily than if it was glued down all over the place. I cheated a seat cushion out of more batting and velvet glued over paperboard.


I glued the rest of the yarn in places around the can, and it was done!


It looks like a papasan sitting on a chunky bar stool. It is pretty ridiculous-looking, but it should keep my gaming den looking like one and not like a fancy living room. The chair isn't weighted at all right now, so I'm pleased that it turned out quite stable.

I'm waiting for a break in the cursed humidity, and a friend is reminding me how to knit so I can make a shag rug for the floor. It should look really, really terrible with this chair.

 

Thanks! A lot of it is guesswork, but I really like how it came out! I could even see how to make a totally different chair out of a can. Hmm...


I had a stroke of genius today... or maybe just a stroke. It seemed smart. MyFroggyStuff makes delightful rooms-in-a-box out of cereal boxes for her small dolls, but my dolls are too big for that at 1:4 scale.

Then I really looked around and found a printer box. I can leave the top intact to make the walls tall enough to photograph standing dolls (which they are) and leave the tabs on the bottom to slide under that piece of an interlocking exercise mat so that it's stable but still able to be folded flat. A friend gave the mat to me, so it's free! The angled corner wall can either hold a bar, a window seat, or the current "bookcase" prop.

Now I have a sort-of backdrop for my gaming den to show what "progress" I've made.


I made the beanbag last night for Arvid. It's stuffed with fleece scraps, not polyfill, so it doesn't lose its shape. The pillows are made of the same fleece scraps from a charity blanket-making marathon I did a few years ago. The "blanket" is also a floor rug, made out of fabric remnants gifted to me. The odds and ends on the floor are food bowls and my (currently failed) attempt to produce fizzy-looking Mountain Dew in a glass.

 

Baby books! The one on the left is a hot mess thanks to a printing goof and my $#!&@% glue, so I need to order something different before I glue the bindings. I'm doing sewn bindings on all of them (there are more off-screen) so they'll lie open and flat. It's not like you read gaming manuals like you do novels.

Thanks! Maybe one of my gamers needs to be more video-game oriented to justify it.

 

I've made more progress on the room, but it still has a ways to go. The room that was so big suddenly feels small with all the dolls so far in it. I wanted to put three more dolls in the space!

The coffee table is from Daiso Japan. I've got to make a shelf for the bottom, but it doesn't need any other tweaking to hold the gaming mat and figures once I make them. The ottoman is only in the window temporarily because I'm building a window seat later. The area rug isn't done, hence the needles still being attached while I test it for size. I only relearned how to knit last week and I'm not quick with The Devil's Yarn and big needles that I'm not used to. The walls need gessoing as they soak up too much acrylic. The floor is cut to the right size and needs to have woodgrain either painted on or have painted canvas laid atop it. I've got big sheets of pretreated canvas lying around for that. I'll also use that canvas plus grip tape to make the brick walls.

I did NOT make the tiny margarita (in a martini glass) or tequila bottle; those were birthday gifts.

I wonder how the dynamic would change with an all-girl group! Junk food is such a gaming staple, but our groups have always had a good mix of junk food and stuff that you could actually live off.

If I've inspired anybody to try their hand at crafting despite a perceived lack of skill, then this project journal did its job. Good luck with your own crafting endeavors!

Thanks! I'm so excited to finish the tiny books once my glue gets here. They're so colorful and fun.

I need to look for something like those bucket chairs. They'd fit right in, and I do need more seating.