This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Ad
Making miniatures is no small task. Hannah Lemon and Abi Trotman, who star in The Marvellous Miniature Workshop (iPlayer) spent a combined 200 hours creating the Christmas snowscape for Radio Times' Christmas double issue (on sale now).
Trotman, from south Wales, specialises in 1/12th scale miniatures for doll’s houses and dioramas and started making miniatures with her gran for her doll’s house when she was 11. Lemon, who’s from Japan and now based in the UK, started making tiny houseplants in lockdown on a break from work. Both have now made it their full-time career.
Using toolkits containing tweezers, brushes, paints and glues – not to mention a steady hand – Lemon explains that RT’s snowy scene (all compiled and photographed by her in her living room) is Styrofoam, so it’s light and easy to stick items into and to carve with a blade. Then she used frost and snow effect spray and placed fake snow powder on top.
The tree is made out of tinsel wrapped together to create different-sized branches. The snowmen and their miniature carrot noses are made from clay, with black glass “caviar beads” for eyes – but what about their knitted hats? “I used my old socks, but I promise I washed them!” Lemon laughs.
Lemon’s biggest challenge was the reindeer – “I wanted to make something realistic, so I needed to study their anatomy.” She started with wire to create a skeleton, then wrapped masking tape around it to mimic tissue, and applied modelling paste to create the body shape.
Abi Trotman and Hannah Lemon at work. Richard Canavan
Once that was dry, she coated it with acrylic paint and applied fake fur. “Working on the face is always challenging in miniature. I wanted him to look straight at the camera, happy and proud, like he owns the place.”
Trotman’s gingerbread house, meanwhile, proved to be a real construction project. “Measurements and getting the angles of the roof right took a lot of time,” she says. “You want things to look in proportion, so it’s important to scale everything down properly.”
She was inspired by a gingerbread house in an old American cooking magazine from the 70s. “It was really kitsch and I fell in love with it. I used a laser cutter to cut precise, sharp lines from a material called PolyBak, then dry-fitted those pieces. I then coated the PolyBak I used for the walls with a stone clay to make it look like a gingerbread texture.”
Polyfilla mixed with acrylic paint made the “perfect” icing and all the polymer clay sweets and candy canes were handmade, baked and then glazed.
“There’s a lot of yourself that you put into it,” Trotman says. “Seeing someone’s heart and love in a piece will always resonate more with people.”
The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.
The Marvellous Miniature Workshop is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Laura Rutkowski is a Commissioning Editor at Radio Times magazine, where she looks after the View From My Sofa slot, and the "What it's like to…" column, which spotlights behind-the-scenes roles within the TV and film industry. She loves finding out how productions are made and enjoys covering a wide variety of genres. Laura is half-American and half-British and joined Radio Times in 2022. She has a degree in Psychology and a Master's in Magazine Journalism.
