Badger & Watson Dean Street Flat Diorama

It was a Covid project. I kept seeing ads for these this bookshelf dioramas, and while still on Facebook in those days (don’t look for me on Fascistbook anymore! And why are YOU still on it?), I ordered one called “The Eternal Bookstore” but decided to modify it by making it into my An Irregular Detective Mystery characters’ flat on Dean Street in Soho, London.

As you can see, all the parts were there. One needed only to punch them out and follow the very detailed instructions (easy to follow), put them together–tab A into slot B, sort of thing–and then glue it for extra security.

As a bookstore, it had about a hundred or so books (seemed like a million!) you had to put together. An accordian of interior pages to glue into covers. Um…nope. I opted not to do them all or I’d still be doing them today! After all, it was no longer a bookstore, but a little scene of two blokes in their flat.

The kit includes lights and a battery box so that the disappearing stairwell will be lit. I LOVE these things, little miniatures, little scenes like this. It sparks the imagination…while sitting comfortably in your bookshelf amongst your books.

One of the many bastard books to put together. Though this one was just a cover to glue onto a piece of wood.

It’s already wallpapered, with pictures in frames to glue to specific spots.

An upstairs gallery, with books on a bookshelf and ladder for reaching those high shelf books. You can already begin to feel it’s space, its light and shadows.

I printed out a Badger & Watson sign to cover up where it said “Eternal Bookstore.”

Pieces were coming together. It came with the rug and the chair and table to put together, but I wanted more 3D elements like candlesticks and that wonderful coal grate which is my favorite thing.

But of course I needed the figurines of Badger and Watson. I made the mistake of using air-drying polymer clay. I don’t recommend it. It dries quicker than you can sculpt it and it made for pretty rough-looking figures. Someday I might redo them. (You can check out the better, more detailed sculpting I did for my Sherlockian Badger I created for giveaways.)

This is meant to be Tim Badger, resting in front of the coal grate.

And painted…in front of a rather sinister-looking Ben Watson. He wasn’t meant to look like that. I must confess, I am unused to working on things that small.

And there it is. I added an additional light to the top and hid it in the birdcage. Coal grate and sleepy Badger taking a kip. A tea cake has fallen from the table and a mouse is after it. Then, upstairs in the gallery, Watson stands, with oversized deerstalker and pipe on shelves (it was difficult finding miniature pieces in complementary scales). There are candlesticks on the mantel along with a magnifying glass. Across the way are candles in sconces, and if you look upstairs in the foreground on the railing, there is another mouse, ready to gnaw on the books.

I recommend these products. A bit pricey but if you, like me, love putting things together, you will enjoy the project. I worked on it all day and got it done. The 3D pieces took additional days.