There we go... Season 2 of "Klein Maar Fijn" will start as of the 5th December 2021 searching for the best model maker in the Netherlands and I'm super excited to be part of the team!!! (I'm the one all in black on the right) You can start watching on the 5th December at 21:30 on SBS6. Foto by @williamrutten    You can find almost all other candidates on Instagram as follows: Peter - peterde.nijs Marco - fantastycbuilder MarieLin - marielinsimons.art Tessa - teeny_tiny_factory Britt - britt.179 Rick - dutchscalewarrior030   Wish me luck! I'll need it ..read more

 Hi there, HAPPY EASTER! Having found some time to work on miniatures this Easter Monday, I thought I'd post a short update on my progress on the Tattoo Studio. Less writing, more pictures for this update, but let me know in comments if you have any questions. I also did not have the time to visit any blogs lately, I'd be really happy if you would like to share any links to your projects...   Installing led lights to the ceiling of the upper floor. Choosing the hole size for the led lights. Marking the placement of the holes. Drilling holes for the ..read more

Does the 28th of January still count as the start of the year? No? Who cares - Happy new year! I really hope you're all safe and healthy... Tired of how the World functions at this moment, I made a 2021 deal with myself: I'm concentrating on 'positives' and on what I can change, instead of being depressed about things I can't control. This has been working quite well I must say - I highly recommend it! By the way, how lucky are we to have a passion that requires us to stay home to practice it? Here is a little update on what I have been working on in the past half year. It's not much unfortuna ..read more

Have I been lazy about working on the Tattoo Shop? Yes. Have I changed my mind 1000 times since my last post? Yes. Did I have to start from scratch because I forgot to open the hole for the staircase and was not able to make a clean cut on the MDF, just because I glued the MDF panels together before making the cut, so that the cutting tool won't fit anymore, causing me to mess it up? Yes. So after all that drama, here comes my way overdue update for the Tattoo Shop... As already mentioned, I made some adjustments to the basic cuts and decided to move the stairs from the left side t ..read more

Since my last post I've been working on another small project for the tattoo parlor: spiral stairs! These are my first spiral stairs ever, so there has been a lot of learning by doing for this one. First I looked up standard spiral stair dimensions on the web and decided how wide and high every step should approximately be. I chose the radius of the stairs to be 7 cm, and using a pair of compasses drew a curve on the wooden pieces. I used the end of the curve on the longer side of the triangle as a guide when sanding, to give each stair a round edge. Next, I used a piece of the center c ..read more

Step by step I started to work on the tattoo parlor in these past weeks - thank you for all your comments on my last post, they gave me a great boost of motivation!  I finally managed to Inkscape-draw the outlines of the tattoo parlor and to send it for laser cutting to snijlab.nl. This time I decided not to try adapting to a kit, but instead to create exactly what I wanted. The end result is better than I expected: I made a lot of juts and openings in the walls and base of the building, so that there is an extra support when I glue them together. I added some pasteboard to the bottom ..read more

The best way out is always through. – Robert Frost So, there we go! After 10 months of re-fighting illness, moving to a new house and changing my job, I finally find the time and motivation for miniatures again. Since my last post in February, I did not touch any miniatures, but "the best way out" of this vicious circle was "always through" and what needed to be done is finally done. I missed blogging so much and I missed you my friends! First of all, I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year! I hope you had a great time this Christmas. Having moved to a bigger p ..read more

Each time I start a new project, one of the first things I do is to draw what I have in mind for the final project. This allows me to better focus on what needs to be done and I can decide from the start on what materials I will need. The easiest way to do this for me is to take the initial picture of the kit I'm going to work on and then to draw the basic outline in Inkscape on top of the picture. Once I'm done, I delete the original picture so that the outline remains. If I'm not going to use a kit, then I directly draw the project according to the measurements I chose. At this point I ..read more

I think I might have found a way around to turn the new kit into a tattoo studio. I just can't shake this tattoo parlor idea out of my head and keep coming back to it. Given that I work full time, spending the rest of my remaining free time on two separate projects (tattoo shop + contest kit) will be almost impossible, I think I will have to combine these two and make at least this one project work... On the other hand, I decided to share my progress on the contest kit with all of you this year, so I hope that this blog will finally see some more entries on a more regular basis and that I can ..read more

After a big fight against minuscule miniature pieces flying around in my living room, I finally managed to put all together and create the tattoo ink bottles for my ongoing tattoo shop project. This took longer than expected but I think the result is not too bad. Here are the step by step images and the final product: I started off with some paper lollipop sticks. These are pretty easy to work with, but you need to be careful to have clean cuts because the paper is actually rolled. Another guess is, that these might not be very resistant to liquids, so be careful when coloring them. I did n ..read more