Curved Roof Inspirations
This year, the awesome peeps at miniatures.com want to do a bit of an outreach program to connect with the miniatures’ blogosphere. They are giving this year’s Creatin’ Contest limited edition kit to some bloggers and we take pictures and blog about our process of doing the kit. Pretty simple. I was asked to participate in this little blogging adventure, and I jumped at the opportunity. One of the fun perks with this is they gave us each a Pinterest board to post to as well. Check out mine!
I had previously taken one look at this kit and decided I wasn’t doing it. Not my style. I had trouble envisioning it as anything but the rural road side shop it was presented as. I could not get past that curved roof! What else could it be?
A quick google search proved that there are other options! If you google ‘curved roof’ the first 10 or so pages are ONLY modern buildings, and any rustic buildings are pretty uncommon.
Modern Architecture, that I can work with! These are all pretty sweet, but what if I wanted to go a bit crazier? There are no restrictions on what you can do with your kit in the contest, so bash it up all you like. I found some inspirational images for what to do with multiple curved roofs, perhaps I should cut mine to do something like these? That sideways one looks pretty interesting. I had thought about turning the kit sideways and making the curved roof into a curved wall. Now seeing it done here IRL is making me think about that idea again.
Now, these curved roof structures are all WAY bigger than this little kit (well, yes, it’s a dollhouse kit for starters, but I meant in scale). Maybe an interesting thing to do with this kit would be to shrink the scale of it. Instead of doing a 1:12 dollhouse, what would happen if I filled it with 1:24 or 1:48 furniture instead? I’d have to redo the windows and the doors, but a bunch of these have huge full wall windows anyways, so it wouldn’t be that hard. That could be a seriously cool idea too, but what if I wanted to stay within the 1:12 scale? What could the inside look like?
Personally I think that middle one with a bathtub in the middle of a completely windowed room is a bit impractical, but that bedroom lofted space looks AMAZING. I extra love that one because this limited edition kit comes with ‘exposed beams’ so I could easily get that look. I could also glaze the ceiling instead and that would make a nice airy space for a patio or what not.
This little structure is actually far more versatile than I originally thought! The curved roof lends itself to some really amazing structures. This takes me back to my architecture school days. I’m guilty of being a Frank Gehry fan. This little curved roof isn’t nearly as extreme as what he designs, but it’s still more than I’m used to handling, particularly in the dollhouse genre.
I’m glad I’m getting the opportunity to do one, and you can too! The contest’s deadline is way way off in December, on the 16th, so you’ve got plenty of time if you want to join the fun. Additionally, (cuz this *is* a contest) there are prizes! Grand prize is a $1,000 gift certificate from HBS/miniatures.com, three runner-up gift certificates are awarded ($500, $300, $200) and all entrants receive a “thank you” prize. There is usually a ‘newbies’ category that they pick a winner from as well, so if you are just starting out, you still have a great shot at winning something because you won’t be up against all the seasoned vets.
I’m excited to get going on mine, stay tuned!
