My background

I have been a keen and enthusiastic model maker since early childhood. Though I have tried most areas of model making my preference is for small scale sculpting or architectural work. However, as a member of the 'S' Scale Model Railway Society, I also dabble occasionally in scratch building precission made model railway locomtives and rolling stock. After being offered commissions by friends and colleagues, I finally decided to start this small business in Spring 2003 at the age of 27. Although now working to try establish myself as a craftsman and miniaturist, my education, professional training and qualifications are not as a model maker. I studied quantum mechanics at university and I am a fully qualified science teacher. I was a Chemistry Master for a short while at one of this countries larger independent boarding schools, as well as having worked as a Learning Support Assistant at my local university. My love of traditional art and craft showed itself when I spent two very intensive years training and qualifying as a professional archaeological conservator and restorer, obtaining a Masters degree for this in the process. I have worked for English Heritage and The Jorvik centre, along with other smaller provincial museums, making replicas, and working in the museum stores and archives. I gave lectures and presentations on these (and other) subjects to various groups ranging from a one week fair for young and handicapped children, through to visiting university staff. I still receive the occasional invite to give such presentations from local Groups or museums, and along with my wife, an archaeologist and history teacher we are able to tie these talks about archaeology and period craft work in with our involvement with Living History re- enactment.

My first venture as a paid model maker began at the age of about thirteen when I began painting war-gaming miniatures for school classmates. At the age of seventeen I spent a while doing this for a company selling figures to specialist collectors. My parents built my first model railway for me whilst I was still very young, and I had built my own by the age of about fifteen, at which point I began assembling kits for locomotives and rolling stock. I enjoy researching and scratch-building models of all types, but particularly historic industrial buildings and on the basis of this work was offered, at the age of 21, the contract to build a large publicity model for an architect planning a major redevelopment of a local heritage site. Many of my family are enthusiastic dolls house collectors, and I first began making pieces for them whilst still very young. At the age of about seven or eight I got involved in painting back- cloths and in making stage sets and props for school, and latterly, amateur dramatic productions. Furthermore whilst at university my involvement with a Tolkien inspired Live Role-Play Gaming Group lead me into making latex weaponry, costume and leather armour for myself and others. Though I struggle to make time for it now, I enjoy traditional painting and sketching, and whilst still at school was acknowledged with prizes in both local and national competition. Consequently I feel I can say with some justification that, although still young, I have many years of craft based experience to draw upon.

The archaeological work I've undertaken has been very varied; I have spent time on excavations working on Bronze Age and Iron Age sites, Anglo-Saxon burials and have excavated and conserved a Roman cremation casket. My conservation work has also included work with waterlogged Viking long boats, Roman and Viking footwear, as well as work on medieval iron work and window glass, 18th century Islamic and 19th century North African weaponry, animal skins and early textiles, to masonry from the Houses of Parliament and Victorian Bronze Statuary from Osborne House. This conservation work frequently entailed producing illustrated or photographic records of work undertaken and I have produced art work for an author writing local history books. From time to time I was also required to make replicas for the museums I was employed by. My passion for this kind of work lead me to Living History Re-enactment, where I could share my enthusiasm for traditional craftsmanship with like-minded individuals and both learn about and educate others in once common place skills that are now sadly dying out.

Craft Skills

Through my model making, employment as a conservator and involvement in historical re-enactment, I have taken the opportunity to learn much about modern and traditional working techniques in as many different materials as I possibly can, but with limited hours in the day it is inevitable that there is still much I have yet to try.

My involvement with historical re-enactment, as well as with sculpting figures from various periods of history, has taught me much about period clothing and textiles. I have hand made all my own re-enactment costumes using authentic wools and linens, many are lined and stiffened with canvas interlinings, and the vast majority have been patiently hand sewn. I have also tried leather working, both in thin skins for making doublets and jerkins and thicker hides for knife sheaths, belts and similar items. Further more I have been experimenting with Cuir-bouilli techniques; moulding wet leather and baking waxed leather to make water tight, hand stitched leather drinking vessels. With a good theoretical knowledge of historical shoe construction techniques I am anxious to find time to try put this into practice and try to make my own replica footwear so as to finally replace the one piece of my costume I have had to buy from others.

My wood working skills, though basic, have enabled me to produce decorative carvings and wood turnings, re-hilt knives and make simple pieces of furniture as well as smaller copies for dolls houses. In a professional capacity I also restored a beautiful 19th century ship's figure head which had become very badly damaged after many years on a river bed, followed by a further fifty years drying out and splitting into pieces whilst forgotten inside an old shed. A long held ambition which I have yet to realise is to hand craft a yew longbow and learn to fletch arrows, but like many things this is waiting patiently on a great list of things to be tried in the future.

Though I do use wood, card and paper where appropriate, much of my model making has been undertaken in a variety of plastics, resins and epoxy putties which I find invaluable for sculpting. I make extensive use of silicone rubber and latex for mould making, as well as plaster. I am slowly developing an increasing familiarity with metals such as copper, brass, tin and nickel silver; Materials I now use more frequently in my model making as I begin to fully appreciate the possibilities of owning precision turning and milling equipment. However, the metals I am most familiar with are white-metal alloys, particularly casting in pewter. Initially this was just producing small castings in rubber moulds but through my Living History work I am becoming increasingly interested in producing larger items and in producing the bronze moulds necessary to cast these. At some point in the future I would also like to follow in the footsteps of my grandfather and try my hand at jewellery making in precious metals.

I have experimented in brief ways with glass blowing, working with bone and horn along with small scale projects working with stone. In a similar manner without any particular goal other than learning skills, I have tried a few basics of black-smithing; working in iron and steel. Though it was a long while ago now, I did as a child attend pottery classes so can claim to have worked and fired clay, a material which I now use frequently in my sculpting and casting, though these pieces are never fired and the clay recycled after I have taken moulds.

As mentioned earlier I enjoy, though struggle to find time for, painting and sketching. I would describe my style as more illustrative than artistic since I struggle to repress the scientist in me every time I pick up a pencil or paintbrush. When young I most enjoyed pencil sketching and concentrated on illustrations of birds and wildfowl. Of late I have tried to dedicate what little time I have available to learning the skills of the portrait artist and to mastering water colours, a medium I find far more difficult than my more familiar acrylics. This in turn has lead to a growing interst in photography, a far more immediate medium for those with little spare time. I like to feel these modest artistic abilities are of benefit to me in my small scale model making, particularly when painting the many sizes and types of white metal figure I work with.

Though the vast majority of work I undertake is of a creative or artistic nature I have also been known to dabble with various aspects of small scale model engineering along with various simple electrical projects used for powering, lighting or animating my model work. The ultimate aim of all this work being to gradually develop the artistic, mechanical and electrical skills necessary to one day be able to build an animatronic dragon of the variety used by major film studios before the advent of three dimensional computer animation.

I have a broad range of practical craft based experience, along with theoretical understanding gained through extensive reading around diverse craft topics, and continue to seek out new materials, skills or techniques to practice. I like to feel this enables me to take on new topics, working with unfamiliar materials or techniques, all with a fair chance of success. Using past experience to intuitively teach myself the basics as I progress.