Kitchen Sink Alchemy

One of the sets I've made for the film is a 70s kitchen. Part of the fun in building miniature sets is trying to think of objects in terms of their shapes rather than their names or functions. It helps the construction process along if you can link shapes you'll need for your set to shapes in the real world. Because their scales are so different, this requires a little shift in thinking, or some creative brainstorming. If the shape already exists as something else, then there's no point making it from scratch. Especially fun is rescuing things that were going to be thrown out.

There's a certain thrill in the alchemy of turning garbage into something pretty. For example: this kitchen sink above. The sink is actually a single-serving yoghurt container. OK, I bought the yoghurt just for this purpose, but it was still pretty cool to find JUST the right shape already sitting there on a shelf in the grocery store. I had to chop it in half to make it more shallow, but it worked out pretty well.

The drain of the sink is made from a random plastic thing that I noticed on the sidewalk. I wasn't sure what to use, and I guess that sink drain was in the back of my mind while going for a walk in the neighbourhood... because I just happened to see it, this tiny piece of black plastic by my feet, and think Wow, that would make the perfect drain! (Isn't my life exciting!)

The faucet and handles were taken from toys: I had a kid's firetruck from a junk store that I tore apart for its plastic parts, some of which I used for these handles. I used some armature wire for the neck of the faucet, and a decapitated toy pylon for the base. All plastic parts were assembled with 5-minute epoxy, then spraypainted silver.Oh, and the countertop is made of someone's discarded linoleum tiles...