u/A-ZMiniatures

My latest commission is finished!

My client ordered this for her sister and brother-in-law, who were married a year ago. So this will be their first anniversary gift , and the scene is the moment they met, having coffee from the coffee shop outside Mellon Institute, at Carnegie Mellon University.

There is a picture here of the page of pictures she sent me to work from. She said she understood that I probably wouldn't be able to make the dolls look exactly like the couple, but if I even got close , she would happy. I sent her pictures of various tables and chairs until we found one that was what she wanted and I proceeded to construct them. I felt the scene needed a little color and balance. So I asked her what time of year they met , and she said in the early fall , so I added the small oak trees and foliage on either side. The trunks for the oak trees that I had purchased, which were plastic over wire, were a little too small. So I added wide plastic straws to them and covered them with air dry clay , which I carved like bark and painted. The leaves were each glued on individually. The plantings below are planted into styrofoam , which is painted brown and has some mulch added around the edges. I used to really nice plastic flowers that I had and foliage like that from model railroads.

None of the pictures I had of the building really did it justice. So I added flat back, three dimensional columns and steps to the picture, as well as constructing the upper parts of the building in layers with the sky above. I used my graphics program to make the words "Mellon Institute" look three dimensional as if they had been carved into the granite.

I'll be adding a piece of parchment to the back of the back wall that says the client's name, the names of the recipients, the date and who this was constructed by so there will always be a provenance if it becomes a family heirloom.

I spoke to her after she saw the pictures and she was absolutely thrilled and said it looked exactly like what she had imagined!

The next part of my custom project. Two little garden areas. The trees were made from some plastic branches, but weren't tall enough. I added some extra wide plastic drinking straws to the trunk, covered the whole trunk with air dry clay scored to look like bark, then painted brown with washes of black and Grey.

I added autumn oak leaves pulled off a garland of wired leaves. Placed them individually with The Ultimate Glue.

Some autumn colored plastic flowers, and leaves were "planted" in Styrofoam base painted brown and some ground cover material glued around the edges.

These will get glued on the grassy base.

On to the next phase, the background, which I suspect will be a fun challenge!