One concern I have is whether the bottle cap dishes look enough like bottle caps, and if I should scruff them up a bit.

Also ... I'm not certain about the raisin.  There will be more than one, but the one I have right now looks more like a turd than a raisin.

The lighting is still very basic, and I'll likely make changes to that as I go along, but I wanted to see if you all had some suggestions.

I'm thinking thimbles for the drinking glasses ....

Maybe... the watch could be huge since it belongs to humans.....  I take it the mice borrowed it kind of...

The Borrowers!  Yup, the watch should be bigger but the rest works for me!

I agree .... make watch bigger.  Check.

Thank you .... additional comments anyone???

Greetings!  I like the WIP. The watch, yeah, should be larger. The bottle caps look like bottle caps and I didn't need to read your text about them. So they are recognizable, at least to me. However, about them, two things: the edge of the cap should be taller. I just took a guess at the ICB Root Beer bottle cap I'm drinking and looks taller. There's also inside stuff.. rubber ring, etc.

Sides of caps taller .. check.

No rubber rings inside .... like I said, these are more circa 1950, so the caps would not have had anything like that at the time.  Back then, they were just metal inside and out.

Just my 2p..

The cotton-reel seats. Turn on smoothing for them (It'll get rid of those obvious edges).

Thimbles for drinking glasses?  Not convincing. They'd be out of scale. (Consider a real thimble against a cotton reel - both mousie hands would be needed to support it, let alone lift it) And the could never stand upright - rounded bottoms.) I'm trying to think of an alternative... but so far failing.

You might try substituting small "cardboard boxes" for the tables - like small toys would come in. Would avoid the need for the mice to know how to do intricate joinery (with all the tiny chisels, hammers, saws etc that that would involve)...

Cheers,
Diolma

yea.. caps are a bit shallow....    maybe a sewing needle stuck in one of the wooden spindles...

Will smooth the spools.  Check.

No needles in them .... Mousie mom would have removed those before using them as chairs.

Oops, Ricky, you were too fast for me. Recheck my previous post - I was editing it as you replied...

Cheers,
Diolma

Ah, but keep in mind ... these mice can READ.  So, building simple wood furniture from found bits would not be beyond them.  (It's a sort of fairy story ... so some things they can build themselves and some things they borrow or salvage.)  They are mice that wear clothing, and have jobs.

Some of their furniture and furnishings will come from the playthings of the children who live in the house

My smaller thimbles are only 1/2 and inch high .... maybe I'll use cups and such from a child's doll house.  Not all thimbles are rounded at the tip ... there are thousands of types of thimbles, so I'm not worried about the tipping over idea, but the size might be a problem.  I will think on that some more.

I suppose you could use the needles for fireplace pokers..;) make the raisin purple and shiney, as they can be in real life. Just a coupla thoughts..;)

Once all of the items and Mice are in place, you may want to create a bit of a darker lighting enviroment. The items and the Mice will hold their own in the scene, yet the floor walls pipe etc, can be more suggestive than stark bright.

Loved the borrowers, first movie I took my son to see.

Hangon! Why don't you just make the mice bigger?

ICM, yes, I plan to make it darker.  It is the inside of a wall, after all.  I figured I'll leave the evocative lighting to the very end.

And Cardinal, the mice will be large enough to sit comfortably on their spool stools.

Getting the details just right for this one is taking a LOT of time.  But, I'll post a re render after I get a little more done.

About the caps on the inside, before rubber was attached to the insides, it was cork. But I don't know if every bottle cap had cork, or even if the cork was glued on. I'm tempting to stop over at the Dr. Pepper museum here in Waco to ask around. I do remember, back in the early 80's when I first visited Guatemala, the local soda drinks, especially Fanta and Crush, bottles back then used either a solid grey (or other color) rubber piece instead of a raised rubber piece, or a rubber bit that reminded me of a small rubber band. But I remember reading in one of my history books the insides of the cap was lined with cork even back in the 1890's. Around 1960's the cork gets replaced with a rubber lining, though.

Asking around the coffee shop here, some older-than-I folks are telling me they remember the corks being glued to the caps.

Well, anyway, interesting about corks and caps. I like finding out stuff like this. :-)

Yup .... they had cork in them when I was a kid, but you could get the cork out without too much trouble.  It had some glue on the back.

So, I'm redoing the bottle caps so that they look like the metal had something pulled off of it, and putting some wear on the caps generally.

I keep forgetting that you are up in Waco.  What is that ... about 2 hours north of me??

hi,
Great work so far...

I would suggest having the bottle caps bent, as if taken off with a bottle opener and stained with the prior contents of the bottle, will try get you a pic of my hubbys' next one if you like,  i am sure I can get him to have an ale in the name of art for you. ;^)

what about a medicine glass/thimble type of thing that you get at the hospital for single doses to use as a drinking glass??

I would rough everything up and have a bit of cotton on the reels, if you like the sizing of the watch, maybe make it obviously a dolls' toy watch or something.

have you thought of natural things like nut/egg shells for drinking glasses, leaves as tea towles, twigs as table legs etc.

maybe leave a little 'carpentry' or 'D.I.Y' book and a saw made out of an old comb or something to suggest their building abilities without having to spell it out...or tie things with scraps of wool etc instead of nailing for a more natural look

jenny

I resized the watch to make it more human sized.

I think the medicine glass would be even bigger than a thimble.  So, probably too big.

These are city - house mice .... so I don't want to put too much "natural" stuff in the scene.  However, if I do one of Dad's workshop, I will consider making some little tools for him.  Not in the kitchen.  I don't see how it would add to the scene.

I will see about roughing up the labels on the spools, not certain I want to put thread on them, though.  

These are all good comments.  Giving me idea for other scenes.

I like the idea you are working on. I think I'll skim through a Terry Prachett book 'The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents' to see if there's some good ideas for the mice. This is turning into a lot of fun.

Btw, I'm not completely sure where in TX you're in.. so I'm not sure how many hours it'll take... but it seems everywhere is 2 to 2.5 hours from here.

Nice work with this scene! I would like to see this much more darker and shadowy with some warm and yellow light source there in the middle.. maybe a candle or so:) But good work!

I'd go for a much higher resolution wall texture - the one you've got at the moment looks too "undetailed" when compared to the level of detail (and the scale oif detail) in the textures of the other items in your scene. Liking it so far though.

hmm...Waco is between the Branch Davidian Compound and the Crawford ranch, don't mess with them...;) It happens when you're in the Central Texas area..;) 

y'know, you could use the thimble as a pot, and put a spoon in it on the stove..just an idee..

In no particular order .....

Waco is almost exactly 2 1/2 hours from my house .... south on 35, then west on 29 at Georgetown, then south on 281 at Burnet to Marble Falls, then west on 71.  My house is about 2 miles off 71 on Lake LBJ.

Then, absolutely ... the lighting will change.  I always do my lighting dead last after everything is in the scene.

The wall texture is a procedural at the moment.  I may have to go with something mapped to get the type of detail you are talking about.  Or maybe something mixed.  However .... if I change the lighting, the lack of detail problem may go away .... so I'll save that for last as well.

Nice idea, pakled.  No stove in this scene, but might work for another.  I may just go for using them as glasses and hope that there aren't a lot of people out there who see problems with that.  OR .... I may have Daddy Mouse do something to fix the problems.  He's a whiz with building things ....

Keep the comments coming .... even if I don't use them for this image, they will help me with another.  I've got an entire book to illustrate, so any and all input is welcome.

Tops of toothpaste tubes for drinking vessels? or something else that comes in old fashioned, squeezy tubes.

Oh, chohole!!!  Thank you!!  That is the perfect suggestion!!  Thanks!

I haven't had much time to work on this piece lately, but felt the need to try and model a cookie in Hex today, and I was rather pleased with how it came out .... although I suppose I could have made it as a symmetrical lattice.

They need a coffee bean! The daddy mouse needs his coffee in the morning? Coffee beans stacked up in the cornor ;-)

With the pipe on the upper left, is it dripping? Is that a water drop dripping into the dish area?  If so, then I think that's a clever idea.

I'm really liking how the scene is coming together. Maybe a large chocolate chip for dessert. Dessert ideas... could use something from the bubblegum machines... those .25 cent clear plastic container things that usually have some cheap plastic toy, could use them as dessert covers. There's also a smaller version in the 5 cent machines.

Are these mice going to be using electricity? 9 volt battery, some electronics (a resistor maybe) connected to a 1950's style Christmas light?

I'm trying to think what can mice use bits of rough sackcloth for. A carpet? Tacked onto walls or a curtain?

Just tossing some ideas. I really like the scene lots.

But, but but ... they're having a whole chocolate chip cookie!!  Woudn't a chocoate chip for desert be redundant??

The battery and light .... I like that idea a lot.  Maybe even better than candles - which someone else suggested.  I wouldn't want the mousies to burn the house down.

Oh, and yes .... the pipe leaks which gives the mice the "running" water for their sink ... which used to be an Altoids tin.

:-)

Could try a vacuum tube... since those tend to have a nice warm glow. But I don't know any of the details to suggest how one would hook/wire it up so that it's believable. Maybe such a thing would be best for a room like a den... a mouse den ;-)   Hrmmm.... 

Any plans for pics on the walls? Mirror?

Yeah, it's a kitchen after all, so I'm thinking something like an orange crate sticker.  If I can find it, something mouse oriented.