Stained Glass effects are useful for many types of miniatures. These techniques can be used to color miniature glass and plastic containers, lampshades, plates, and serving trays as well as to create the effects of stained glass windows in miniature for dolls houses or other scale buildings.
Clear acetate sheets or thin glass work best as a surface. Test your colors on a surface sample first. Some plastics will cause coloring pens or felt pens to bead up. Other colors may destroy the plastic surface you want to use. Check first!
Stained glass is most realistic if the colors match real samples and the lead lines between the colors follow paths properly. Glass pieces with an inner curve are difficult to cut, lead lines often divide pieces into simpler shapes. Some lead lines are used to emphasize the shapes in the overall picture, others balance the overall picture. Look at photographs of leaded glass similar to the design you want to reproduce to make sure you can copy not only the colors, but the distinctive leading lines.
