Making Of the Shoebox Diorama Part 1: Research
In this part I’ll talk about the preparatory research that was the first step of making the shoebox diorama for seasonal_spuffy (see my previous post).
Before I could physically make the diorama - the crafty stuff follows in the next part - I needed to figure out what to make exactly. Given the theme I’d chosen for the shoebox diorama (Buffy and Spike watching TV in bed together), I knew from the start that I wanted to use this image as the centre piece:
Image 1: Buffy and Spike in Buffy’s bed (Rebekah Isaacs)
NB: this is my edited version and not the original image.
The next step was to find out what the rest of the bedroom looked like, so, I went through the comics to collect all bedroom images I could find. Something I hadn’t thought of at first, but that became clear soon enough, was that Buffy and Spike each had their own bedroom and so I had to find out which was which. For some images, the comics mentioned the location as either Buffy’s or Spike’s bedroom, but in most cases I had to figure it out myself.
As it turned out, my chosen central image was of Buffy’s bedroom, not Spike’s. The bed in Buffy’s bedroom has a wrought iron headboard, while Spike’s bed has a wooden headboard (at least some of the time, compare images 2 and 3 …) and two bedside tables with a lamp on them:
Image 2: Buffy and Spike in Spike’s bed (Megan Levens)
Image 3: Buffy and Spike in Spike’s bed (Megan Levens). This is from a later comic than Image 2 - maybe they broke the headboard at some point in between?
After selecting all the images of Buffy’s bedroom, I studied them to figure out the floor plan. Soon enough I found out that the bedroom’s interior was far from consistent, in particular between the two S10 artists, Rebekah Isaacs and Megan Levens. For examples: the carpet was sometimes square (Isaacs, image 4) and sometimes round (Levens, image 5) and the floor boards were sometimes perpendicular to the length of the bed (Isaacs, images 4) and sometimes in parallel with it (Levens, image 5).
Image 4: square carpet, perpendicular floor boards (Rebekah Isaacs)
Image 5: round carpet, parallel floor boards (Megan Levens)
And how many windows did Buffy’s bedroom have? Levens’ version has more windows than Isaacs; compare images 6 and 7. Also, in some of Levens’ bedroom images there’s a sidetable with a lamp on it next to the bed; compare images 7 and 8.
Image 6: one modest window, no side table (Rebekah Isaacs)
Image 7: two windows, no side table (Megan Levens)
Image 8: one (?) huge window, side table with lamp (Megan Levens)
In the end I decided to make the bedroom as interior as compatible as possible with image 1, the central image of Buffy and Spike on the bed, so I went with Rebekah Isaac’s version of the bedroom for the most part. This still left some puzzles to solve because Isaacs’ bedroom images were also not consistent. For example, image 9 has a wardrobe in the corner where the dresser is in image 1. Also, the same image has a vanity on the same wall left of the bed (where in Levens’ images there is a door) but image 6 suggests that the vanity is on the opposite side of the bed.
Image 9: wardrobe and vanity next to the bed (Rebekah Isaacs)
In the end I went with the dresser on the left of the bed (because it’s there in image 1) and for the rest of the wall I went with Megan Levens’ version of it, as seen in image 5. The meant I had to put the vanity on the wall right of the bed. But because there also had to be a door in that wall, as shown in image 10, I had to put the wardrobe at the wall opposite the bed next to the TV. This is not compatible with any of the images, but it’s the only place it could fit.
Image 10: door on the wall right of the bed (Rebekah isaacs)
Based on all the images I sketched a floor plan of the bedroom, see image 11. This is not the final version I went with, because in the end I switched the position of the vanity and the TV, which obviously should be at the foot of the bed.
Image 11, sketch of bedroom floor plan
Coming up: Making Of the Shoebox Diorama Part 2: glue, paper, scissors