I finished the Sam & Max Freelance Police roombox back in September, but I’ve been holding off on building furniture for it until the action figures from Boss Fight Studio ship — since I’m making most of the furniture from scratch, I want to have them handy as a size reference. Unfortunately the release date has been delayed on these and they’re not expected to ship until the spring.
The most complicated piece I have to build is Mr. Spatula’s water cooler. I’ve been thinking for months about how to do this, and decided to bite the bullet on the aquarium part. I can build the base later when I have the figures.
I’ve never made a dollhouse aquarium before, but they’re usually made with clear resin as water. Normally you pour the resin in through the open top of the aquarium, and can position the fish in the resin as it dries. But since a water cooler is enclosed at the top, I had to figure out another method. I’m going to try two different versions: one with resin water, and one with real water (like a snow globe). This post shows the first steps of the resin version.
I’m using a glass dome with a cork base from Alpha Stamps for the bottle. I would have preferred something with a flat top, and almost used a corked glass bottle instead, but decided against it because the skinny neck would have prevented me from fitting a castle and gravel inside. The big cork on the dome will make a good base.
The castle charm is also from Alpha Stamps. I snipped off the ring and sanded the nubs off with a file. I washed the charm with soap and water, and then painted it with gesso.
I didn’t want to use water-based paint, especially for the snow globe version, so I dug out these model paints leftover from the one and only time I tried to build a model car. (It didn’t go well.) They’re about nineteen years old, so I’m impressed the paint is still good!
Here it is after the first coat. Later I touched up where the black went outside of the lines.
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
