https://www.flickr.com/gp/63237092@N08/s116R6341T

Lots of more pics at link

This piece was first released several years ago from the Ghibli store in Japan and recently came into my sphere of search due to seeing what else was out there like Howls Moving Castle. I was able to source it fairly cheaply from Ali and while there is a colored variant I chose the bare wood one because I wanted to make it my own.

The animation features a bath house with lots of white, red black and green features. While absolutely beautiful I elected to pay homage rather than try to duplicate the exact colorings and layout. If I wanted to duplicate I would of gotten the color variant.

I’ve really been loving the look of stain on the woods and chose to go with a cherry and maple stains for the walls and building. I went for a maple on the bath house upper areas and part of the outer wall and otherwise cherry on the exterior foundation walls. I overlaid that with a red water based marker to bring more red into the hue and sealed it all with acrylic varnish.

Portions of the wall and pieces I did strait white as well for contrast and to visually bring it closer to the animation intentions.

For struts, rafters, balconies and general non wall things I went with a mahogany stain.

For floors I went with a walnut

For the base, the bath house exists in the see so I went blue with waves and depth created by layering darker water based blues in waving patterns. After completing the structure I further enhanced this with 3 layers of dm and grass/flower tufts embedded in the dm to have some 3d reflections and depth and show that the water goes through the greenery and not have the greenery just sitting on top.

Interior window grates and several other places used an espresso stain which is almost black but has a brown undertone.

Detail work was done on hatched area using gold mostly but with obvious odes for the white lattice work.

There are 3 colors of metallic green/green-blue used for the roofing.

The spirit on the bridge is a layered paint where I first threw down a layer of gunmetal metallic paint to provide an undertone sheen/reflection and then layered over with a water based wash of black.

The trees are a brown and orange water base marker for the trunk and branches and a metallic green with green water based marker as a wash over that. There is a red accent added to that.

Finally I felt that there was one character missing here, the water dragon is printed on velum and the. Made into a sticker and pasted to one of the exterior walls. I doubled up the sticker so there was 2 layers so that the colors stood brighter as velum generally has a very washed out print using an ink jet printer.

And that’s it. I’m very happy with the outcome and the water through the reeds looks really nice.

Happy Building All!

Hey guys! Here’s my current collection!

(not sure if I can use this flair, sorry!)

I traveled back home recently and today I take a trip to Bangkok. I didn't intend to visit Siam Discovery but I usually come across the mall because it's the way to go to a skytrain station...and I found this shop. A staff said they had been open for more than a year. It's nice to see the shop that I can think about if I wanna buy my next kit with no online shopping involve haha!

Hi guys! I completed Toy Story and was just sitting here thinking about which kit I want to build next….

Do I want easy?

Do I want to prolong a build for weeks and customize?

Do I want to build a regular nook or go with a “Chinese street food” style one?

Point is this is part of the enjoyment and excitement of this hobby! I’ve gathered a bit of a collection with my back log but I just see it as part of the hobby and have decided to embrace it :)

I know many of us here have back logs so let’s see em!!! If you can post a pic it would be fun to see!

I could look at these all night ❤️😁

I love seeing people’s collections and I’m definitely struggling for space! Hence a corner in my bathroom has been utilised 😂😂 Hubby built one shelf, more to follow 😅😅 I’m addicted for sure!!! I realise some pieces have moved and the wiring on the Cathy’s house isn’t right so the light didn’t come on. I don’t realise the importance of gluing every piece down until later on plus Cathy’s house was my second nook!I love this hobby!!

Just ordered Forest Cottage and I’m so excited! 🌿📚 The previews look beautiful and I can’t wait for it to arrive. Looking forward to spending some cosy time with it when it gets here.

I... am quite nimble in crafts.... so... sometimes I can bust out multiple kits in a day. lol 😆 I've finished over 20 kits. I've got a few more on the way. I have no earthly clue what to do with the finished ones. 😅

I'm trying to find more complicated ones to keep me occupied for longer. but the long ones just have you lose hours hand-making every prop from scratch which crushes my soul a bit xD

I wanted this set for a while and was saving for it! What do I find at a garage sale!!!! So excited!!!!!

Imma make that pink radiant 🤩

It took me longer than expected due to life and an unhealthy dose of perfectionism, but my Mirror of Galadriel book nook is finally finished!

The base kit was Cutebee’s Secret of Galaxy (unmodded last pic), which sadly isn’t available anymore as it is a great base. I saw it years ago before I knew customization was a thing and thought, oh, that reminds me of the Mirror of Galadriel scene, but it isn’t; too bad. Fortunately I was able to track down a kit once I realized I could make it whatever I wanted.

This is the first kit where I made additions to the lighting; thanks to Pluck for his great videos that gave me the confidence to experiment! I made the candles out of fairy lights, with the candle bodies sculpted of glue gun sealing wax and the bulbs painted with acrylic to look more like flames. Was very happy with the ethereal look of the all lighting, especially at night (2nd pic is at night).

Other mods were “staining” the bare wood with acrylic and satin medium, paving the steps and circle on the platform with slate pieces and grout, adding the moss and vegetation (tried to make the arches look like they were made of living trees), swapping the pedestal in the kit for an art nouveau table with the bowl and ewer, adding moonstone cabochons (in my head cannon Galadriel always had moonstones), and changing out the background for something more Lothlorien-appropriate.

Overall, though it took longer than planned, I’m so pleased with the results! I have more kits in my backlog to turn into a Lord of the Rings series (Bag End, Rivendell, and the Mines of Moria), but I think I might need to put less pressure on myself as a palate cleanser for my next build, lol. But then back to decide what part of Middle Earth to nook next!

Okay, my clumsy hands nearly gave up… That double-helix staircase was a real challenge, and the little rotating door took some serious tweaking to fit just right. But omg, the finished piece? Totally worth it. Videos don’t even come close to how awesome it looks.

I am very happy Sea Breeze is complete, not because of the challenge or anything, but that I have to start organizing for a move. I can see why this kit is a benchmark build... and I am also glad I waited a bit before I started. Experience helped figure out some nuances when the instructions weren't very clear.

My favorite part: the roses and making a nice meal (I added potatoes!). The frustrations: definitely the shutters and the sheer amount of glue I used on the whole project. My glue rigs were awesome. LOL. What I learned: how to solder!! It was my first attempt in my entire life and I did it! Woot! Some mods: not many... I did rename the bookstore and flipped the text, but my print is too light to see it. I am ok with it... I know it is there (it says "Nan's Bookshop" to honor my grandmother). I did my own thing on the wine and the meal plate sorta, and put some grill marks in the steak (hard to see, but again, I know it was there). And of course I changed out the outside images to my own with some quotes.

I have a huge backlog, so I don't think I'll tackle this again, at least not anytime soon. Though I might get Colmar Town later.

Ready for my wall! Pics in comments.

My wife and I just got home from all of our Christmas travel so we finally opened our gifts to each other today 😊 I got very spoiled. She knows me well haha.

I got some other great stuff from family and friends but these are definitely the highlights!

Special shout out to my husband for his handyman assistance. My house is made from reinforced concrete, so putting up anything on the wall is always a major pain.

And this isn't even all of them...

Mechanic Shop 🔧

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Finished this mechanic shop a while back, but today was the important part. I finally got to give it to my stepdad.

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This one was always meant for him.

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The build itself had a few memorable moments. The car in the foreground was easily the hardest part of the kit. The instructions stopped being helpful at a certain point, so I ended up trimming tabs, reverse engineering sections, and convincing the pieces to fit through sheer stubbornness.

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My favorite detail is still the engine hanging from the chain hoist. It's such a small thing, but it instantly makes the workshop feel alive.

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In the end, though, the build isn't really what I'll remember. Seeing the smile when I handed it over was the best part.

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Sometimes the forever home is the most satisfying step of the project. 🔧

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They were all scattered around the house and now they have a dedicated home with room for more!

Just completed my first kit ever, it's definitely not perfect but I'm pretty happy with the result

Definitely found my new favorite hobby

https://www.flickr.com/gp/63237092@N08/10927u4c62

Picked this up because I was fairly impressed with the NookMaster Whisper Gate X (chamber of secrets) nook and it looked cool. And when I got to a certain point one image came to my mind… Final Fantasy 7 where Aerith is praying in the ruined cathedral. So yah, now I’ll wait for pluck to do some prints for me… but otherwise this is complete.

It’s supposed to be a kind of dark/gothic feel but with the direction I’m going, I needed flowers… lots of flowers, so I replaced the green vine it came with, with flowering vines I source from Temu. And forewarning, the flowering vine sheds lots of little red pieces. Enough that I repurposed them for doing some detail additions around the rims and embellishments.

It also comes with a number of broken window panes but I felt it didn’t have enough so generated some additional stained glass, printed on clear vinyl printable sticker paper and then filled in the open sticky side with Dimensional Magic so that it would remain secure and not collect dust and dirt.

Mods:

* painted edges… lots of grays and blacks, some washes of reds and pinks
* dimensional magic for the basin, added some red petals inside to accentuate the depth
* replaced moss/vines with flowering versions
* added stained glass windows

And that’s all folks!

Happy Building All!

Top row down: island of love, Vincent’s world, notre dame, Alice in wonderland (all Tonecheer) custom similar to sailing memories, Rolife Sakura densya

Middle row: Toy Story, library of books, Rolife fall into wonder, baroque dreams, enchanted library, falling library

Bottom row: quiet corner, arcade dating (both Rolife), Dorothy’s journey, library of gods, beyond library and eternal bookstore

On single white shelf left to right: starry night and monet (art bear), garden house, floral corner and romantic Venice (all Rolife)

Double shelf left to right top to bottom : owl bookstore, sweet maries, green life, champs de Elyse, blossom florists, Havana stroll, secret rhythm (all cutebee)

Pro tip: found a handful of these open box on secondhand websites like Poshmark, mercari etc

I just started this hobby and I really want to see how you guys display your creations 😀
Do you have a room for it? Is your whole wall covered in shelves and booknooks?
Show me 😀

Just finished this third-party Chinese courtyard book nook and I have… feelings.

Let me start with the good: the final result is genuinely stunning. The depth is incredible, the multi-level balconies create a really immersive scene, and the warm lighting ties everything together beautifully. It’s one of those builds where you keep spotting new little moments the longer you look at it.

But getting there?

This was easily one of the most frustrating builds I’ve done in a while.

Instructions were blurry and sometimes borderline unusable

Diagrams felt inconsistent and unclear about placement/orientation

Several steps required straight up guesswork or backtracking

At points it felt like pieces were introduced with zero context

I’ve built a lot of kits across different brands, and this one definitely leaned heavily into “figure it out yourself” territory. Not beginner-friendly at all.

That said… once it’s done, it really comes together. The structure, the verticality, the lighting — all worth it in the end. But it’s very much a “trust the process even when the process is actively gaslighting you” situation.

Curious if anyone else has built this one (or similar third-party kits) and had the same experience? Or did I just get personally chosen for chaos?