Designing, Making & Printing 3D Miniatures For Dioramas & Book Nooks
Designing My Own Models To Make On My 3D Printer!
One of my Christmas presents is this interesting little book by Frank Fisher & Angie Scar entitled 'Making Miniatures With 3D Printers'. It's a tutorial workbook which goes through the process of making small scale furnishings and architecture for 'doll's house scale' dioramas, including book nooks.
Now, I have already dabbled with a little model along these lines already when a few years ago (2021) I tried making a little Christmas Shoppe ornament using my first 3D printer...
I never did get around to completing the project - which was intended to be a little row of Victorian shops for display on our mantlepiece - as I was at that time still learning how to make 3D models for printing. So the project kinda fizzled out...
However, I think I've had enough experience using TINKERCAD to make simple 3D models now and with my new 3D printer I am a lot more confident that I can make small scale buildings. And with the book that Sharon gave me I now have the incentive to give this sort of project a second go!
Starting Small (Forgive The Obvious Pun)...
The ‘3D Miniatures’ book starts you off with some very simple Tinkercad objects, just to ease those new to 3D modelling into the hobby. Although I’ve been using Tinkercad for a good while now I’m following along with the tutorials as the subject - miniature household artefacts - is a bit different from my usual 3D model making.
 |
| Above: The first exercise in the '3D Miniatures' book is making a plant pot in Tinkercad. |
Now, this is a good time to discuss scale - I keep seeing this general scale as being described as ‘doll house’ scale. OK, but the problem here is that this isn’t just one scale but rather seems to refer to various scales that work with doll’s houses!!! 😶
The two most popular ‘doll’s house’ scales are 1/6th (‘Barbie’/‘Action Man’ size) scale and the 1/12th which is often referred to as ‘one inch scale’ and is the one more often used by doll’s house collectors.
 |
| Above: Exporting the plant pot as a STL file from Tinkercase into my slicing software - Flashprint - ready to send to my Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro printer. |
For book nooks - which is what I am interested in - the usual scales are generally 1/12th or 1/24th (‘half inch scale’), but model makers often just seem to scale their book nook diorama to fit a particular space! For example, the Christmas Shoppe model I made was roughly 28mm or 1/56 scale as it had to fit on our mantelpiece.
In the case of the ‘3D Miniatures’ book I can't seem to find a specific reference to a set scale, however going by the dimensions that they specify for the model of a door for the shop build I *think* we can say that they are aiming at the 1/12 scale. The measurement they prescribe is a door of 73mm x 161mm, and if you convert the 161mm to inches that gives you 6.3 inches, and this correlates to the 'one inch scale' - i.e. one inch equals one foot. (Though if I was being pedantic a standard door in the UK is 6'6", but what's 3 inches between friends! 😂)
Interesting note: 1:12 Scale (6-inch) is the current industry standard for lines like Marvel Legends and Star Wars Black Series.
Initially, the book starts you out creating small items in this scale, like plant pots and vases before you work your way up to furniture and architectural structures in this scale...
 |
| Above: Ta-Dah! A 3D printed 1/12 scale plant pot! |
Bigger Things To Come...
Once you work through the simple warm up exercises - making pots, vases and boxes, you then start to assemble larger furniture, like a table. Again, starting simple, you eventually move on to more complex 3D models building up all the components you need to make the book's 1/12 scale shop diorama.
 |
| Above: The goal of this workbook is for you to eventually produce a 1/12 scale 'book nook' based on a quaint little old fashioned shop. |
What I am hoping to do is modify the example that the book gives you - a draper's shop - into something more to my liking... At the moment I am mulling over whether this might be something in the style of 'Harry Potter' (a wand shop maybe) or I quite like the idea of doing something a bit Tolkien-ish, like a 'pipe weed emporium'! 😁
The examples in the book are easily modified to your liking so we shall see!
Post a Comment