What Is a Nanodream?
It's a silly name for a diorama in a tiny glass jar that's about the diameter of a quarter. The finished effect is sort of like a model of a model—very familiar territory for me.
True story. I was inspired to make them due to an accident: I spilled a small container of model vegetation left over from my last layout project on the floor. As I was cleaning up the little mess, it occurred to me that even these tiny bits of detritus could be useful, and almost instantly I knew what to make: tiny slices of scenery with railroad tracks passing through—places one can envision exploring on a lazy summer afternoon—all tucked inside a miniature glass jar. So, after cleaning up the mess, I headed over to Amazon for some really small glass dome jars with cork stoppers, and soon found a set of 24, eight each of three sizes, for $15. With one day delivery, I was up and running quickly.
I foresaw making the track as potentially the biggest challenge, but it turned out to be surprisingly simple as well as surprisingly realistic. The track is made from wire ties, the smallest I had on hand. First, I sliced the sides off of a tie to make narrow strips of the ribbed part. I then attached these strips to the sides of an unmodified wire tie with packing tape. Doing the cutting was the hardest part, partly because the ties are made from tough, slippery plastic, and partly because I've lost a lot of manual dexterity to age and disease. So, it sometimes takes a few tries to get useable pieces. Fortunately wire ties are dirt cheap.
I think much of the realism relies on painting. First I spray the assembled track with light grey primer. After applying a thinned black wash, I hit the rails with rusty-colored gauche. At this point I have the option to make the track abandoned or active, and while I love abandoned things, I find giving these tiny rails a metallic gleam makes them more eye-catching. This is very easily done by running a pencil along the rail heads.
Many of the dioramas feature roads, which I make from strips of styrene. After cutting the styrene to shape, I spray it with dark grey primer. When that is dry, I make stripes by holding an X-Acto blade backwards and gently dragging it along a straightedge. If the stripe needs to be yellow, I run a yellow Sharpie over the white line.
Scale? Unimportant and totally arbitrary. The wire ties actually established the scale: the "rails" of the finished track are 2 mm apart. Thus the dioramas are around 1:700, or a little less than one quarter N Scale. So, what do we call it then, QN?
Typically it takes between a few hours and a day to make one Nanodream, which is ideal: it keeps me active and engaged for about as long as I can manage these days, and I get to see finished scenes before my interest wanes. That said, I took things to the "next level" with the fourth one of the bunch by making it illuminated. It took several days to finish—I almost quit the project a couple of times, as it was testing my patience.
Inventory
Note: All sold.
- Milepost Zero (A)
- That Stream Just North of Town (B)
- Intersection at the Underpass (B)
- Route 541 Along the River (C)
- Any Bats In There? (A)
- Far End of the Station (C)
- That's a Long Way Down (B)
Sizes: A: 0.75" dia x 1.5" tall; B: 1" dia x 1.75" tall; C: 1" dia x 3" long
The collection continues to grow in spurts as inspiration hits—and/or as sales demand; at the present time, I'll consider making them on commission* (submit inquiries). Stop back again sometime to see if I've added any more.
*Owing to multiple constraints, I can accommodate only certain very limited requests for specific custom design elements on commissioned projects. Basically, you're pretty much stuck with a variation on what's already been done (illuminated versions I consider "special cases" that I may or may not be able to accommodate—consider yourself extremely lucky to score one of these).
About those constraints... if you're new to this neck of the virtual woods, allow me to explain. I'm suffering from congestive heart failure (EF ~15%), and presently I'm on hospice care. So I have limits on just about everything: how much time I can remain focused on a task before coming apart at the seams; how much grief my arthritis and other chronic issues are dishing out; how far south my eyesight and eye-hand coordination have headed for the day; and so forth and so on. Basically I am building Nanodreams (or attempting to) as a means to distract myself from the process of dying. You can learn more about me and what I've done in the hobby during better times in my life.
With Thanks
... to those friends and asshats who have stood by me and believed in me through thick and thin. You've helped me find a reason to keep that X-Acto knife busy! All the while I know full well that it's just been killing you to watch me slowly die. The disease is so much harder on all of you than it is on me, and for that I am so very, very sorry.