Dancing Dragon Inn - Week 18

 It was one of those weeks were there were lots of bit jobs done, but nothing really seems to have gotten done.  I started the week finishing the furniture for the top floor.  In the left hand room I added feet in the form of wooden beads to a chunky wooden shelf unit, stained it and filled it with linens and other bits.  This fills in the end wall between the two beds.  I rennovated an old desk to create the washstand by the doorway by removing the upper shelf and staining it to match the shelves.

Because people in Inns often have luggage, I made four simple sack like drawstring bags to scatter about the place.  As I had fabric out to do this, I figured I might as well start dressing some of the people for the Inn.  So far there is a barman, sorcerous parton, lady, kidnapped princess and a pauper in the process of being dressed, but none of them are finished yet.  Most only need their wigs and head gear seeing to and a bit of trim on their clothes.  There are a lot more people yet to do for the Inn.  I had thought I might set the goal of having the Inn finished by the end of January so I would be free to play with Cumberland Castle, the Retreat and Stratford B. kits, but having started on the people and remembered how slow it can be to dress them, I really doubt this will happen.

I made the fire for the tavern fireplace from some pre-bought andirons, a couple of twigs, some beads and pva glue diluted in water.  The andirons and twigs were covered in dabs of black paint (for soot/charcoal) and the twigs were glued in place on the andirons.  Some black and red seed beads were mixed in diluted pva glue and tipped over and pushed under the andirons and logs to make embers/coals.  Once the glue is totally dry, which will take several days, the whole lot can be peeled off the plastic sheet it is stilling on and installed in the fireplace.

At long last the doors have hinges.  They were made from faux leadlighting outliner.  I drew a hinge shape on some paper and slipped it into a palastic pocket.  I then traced the design with the outliner and filled it in, moved the paper and repeated the process until I had enough hinges.  Once dry these were simply peeled of and stuck onto the doors.

Finally, while I'm discussing faux leadlighting, here are some photos I don't think I've shown you of a couple of faux leadlighting projects I worked on over the Christmas break.  These aren't in miniature and both designs came from the book "Fairies and Fantasy - Learn to paint watercolour" by Meredith Dillman.  The finished pieces are both mounted on mirror, which is hard to take a good photo of, so please ignore the reflections you can see.