When you have a vision of a scene you want to create you can focus on tracking down any essential miniature pieces you are missing. Stick to a plan when you go looking for those final pieces, otherwise you can easily be drawn into adding more detail than the display can manage. When you go to a workshop, or shopping, go with a list, a group of possible swatches and colors, and a simple photo of anything you may have already. Divide your list into the following four sections and make sure they all work together.
- Main Focus: What pieces are the central display focus of your dolls house or miniature scene? List what you have and what you need to find. These are the main draw for your eye, so the quality of these should be as high as you can find, create or afford.
- Supporting Cast: To showcase the main pieces what supportive pieces do you need? What characteristics are important (color, size, material, texture?) For this step you need to work out that you want a farmhouse kitchen style pine table to place your collection of crockery and food items on, but it could be painted plastic as most of it will be covered with a white tablecloth.
- Background: Everything that isn’t the central focus or support for the central focus of the display is background. This might include rugs, furniture, even figures. It has to be chosen to continue the mood and add to the overall feel/color/design but it shouldn’t be the thing you notice first. Find color swatches and experiment with fabric and paper samples to make sure your background choices stay out of the limelight but add the right effect.
- Construction Materials: these are the pieces you need to build and light the actual box, finish the front edges and provide a base for the display.
