Wednesday, June 2, 2021

New miniature - corner shop milk bar in Melbourne

Here's my latest miniature art work: a small corner shop of the type that used to be everywhere in Australia. There were tens of thousands of these small grocery / milkbar / newsagent type shops in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, in all Australian cities and towns. I would estimate that 80-90% of them are gone now, replaced by supermarkets and convenience stores.





This particular shop was in Footscray, Melbourne, near the corner of Barkly Street and Summerhill Road. I only had a single black and white photo to work from. The photo is from the mid-1960s, and the store was demolished in the 1970s. 




I set myself a challenge to see if I could make a miniature from a single photo. First I ran the photo through some online software to colorize it - here's the result. It's far from perfect, but it gave me a good solid base to work from and a way to interpret what colours I should be heading to.

Colorized.



Then I had to do some research to try and locate the old logos and brands, so that I could replicate these all accurately.

Finally I had to make a representation of the interior, full of 1960s-era groceries: Persil, Cornflakes, bags of sugar and lots of point of sale for brands like Peters icecream, Marlboro cigarettes, Nestle chocolate, Coca Cola and Vita Brits.





This one was a fun one to build.







Comparison of the original photo (left) and my miniature (right).



Cheers,

Dave



6 comments:

  1. No video of this one? Pitty, would love to see how the concrete is dealt with and the brickwork.

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    1. Hi Petrik, sorry, no, I didn't video this one :(

      I'll see what I can do for the next. Cheers, Dave

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  2. These are absolutely incredible. Love them all. Well done 👏👏👏

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  3. Hi Dave, can these be purchased ? Do you customise pieces to order ? Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I definitely do sell commissions. You can always get in touch with me via the Contact Me section on my website.

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