From a bucolic rural grocery shop to fictional battlefields and robot warrior bases, artisans are meticulously handcrafting miniature worlds that fuse reality and fantasy.
When he is not designing interiors, 51-year-old Hank Cheng (鄭鴻展) can usually be found in his studio conjuring tiny but intricately detailed scenes.
“I like to try to make anything, whether it’s clean, old or dirty, to let my imagination run wild,” he said.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
His creations range from a replica of a 40-year-old grocery store in central Taiwan that caught his eye, to an imaginary “secret maintenance base” for a legion of Minions made from a discarded Minion-shaped cookie box he recycled.
“When people ask me is there anything I can’t make, I joke: ‘Only air and sunshine,’” Cheng said.
In his youth, Cheng studied illustrations in Japan, where miniatures and dioramas have long been popular.
He only started making miniatures himself five years ago after spotting a photograph of a Japanese artist’s work that was so realistic he thought it was real at first sight.
Recycling is a recurring theme for Cheng, who was raised to cherish finite resources in a thrifty family.
One of his most detailed pieces is a painstakingly accurate model of an old Japanese restaurant selling eel rice dishes — complete with smoke-stained kitchen and greased floor — which won awards at a Japanese competition.
Another favorite design is a run-down bar with rowdy patrons, graffitied walls and a back alley littered with garbage so realistic that Cheng hopes viewers can “smell the odor” just by looking at it.
“I hope each of my creations tells a story to get people interested, and it does not just look pretty or look realistic,” said Cheng, who has also published a book on making miniatures and held solo exhibitions.
“I hope it shows some ‘warmth’ and the traces of real things,” he said.
Hikari Yang, 39, started making miniatures at a time in her life when she was feeling low.
She recalled that by the time she completed her first work — a Japanese-styled town of her dreams — she felt “healed” by the process and had forgotten about her troubles.
She set up the FM Dioramas studio in Taoyuan in late 2016 with several partners, maintaining a day job until she was recently able to switch to making models full time.
The group’s portfolio is filled with detailed models featuring real-life or sci-fi scenes that on average take eight to nine months to complete.
Her studio has cultivated a following by giving miniature-making classes across Taiwan and it also creates miniature items that are shipped to fellow modelers around the world.
“People come to our classes to learn to make what we call ‘healing little items’ like a tree in a park. Making the miniature from scratch provides a release of the stress in their busy lives,” Yang said.
Her partner, Chen Shih-jen, 45, said that building dioramas helps take the edge off his full-time computer programming job.
Commissions are varied. One custom order Chen received from a government agency was to recreate a miniature traditional Sediq home.
Another came from a couple who wanted a model of the restaurant they had their first date in.
A more elaborate diorama he built for his own collection contains an environmental message. The futuristic gas station — servicing flying cars in a world where rising oceans have swallowed the land — won a prize in Hungary.
“The work depicts how people would live when the land disappears,” he said. “Climate change and global warming are happening right now and I hope people will cherish the present. What we see as normal resources are limited and could be gone one day.”
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
RSS