From the Desk of Tony Laidig
RE: Building Miniature Sets...
Nearly 4 years ago, I made two discoveries that forever changed my ideas about the possibility of ME being able to illustrate Children’s books.
The first discovery I made was a photo series called Stormtroopers 365 where the photographer posed Stormtrooper toys in everyday scenes and photographed them…one per day for an entire year. The photos were amazing...and funny. That series combined with
my second discovery, a cute wooden Viking character found at a local gift store, led me to begin experimenting with photographing miniatures. And through those early photos, I realized that
I was onto something huge…that I could use miniatures to create and photograph “sets” to
illustrate Children’s books.
This approach of creating “visual magic” actually is nothing new or secret. Hollywood has used miniature sets for decades in some of the biggest blockbuster movies of all time, like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lord of the Rings and many others. But THAT’S Hollywood and they have deep pockets and access to experienced model builders.