You Bring the Lore, We Bring the Resin: Our never-ending journey into the world of Fandom’s
Our Star Wars tables kind of became our thing completely by accident.
We’re not even Star Wars fans… Oops! But don’t worry! We know people who are! We’ve also got experts (or self-proclaimed experts anyway) in Pokémon, D&D, Warhammer, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Disney, Sonic, Mario, to mention but a few.
It’s funny how there’s always that one person in every fandom who knows everything and is 100% right about it… Every time
Star Wars Tables, The Never Ending Scroll
Sourcing ships the right size for these tables has been a journey! Like everything else to do with resin work, actually.
We've tried so many different models I don’t think I could list them all if I tried! But eventually we landed on the perfect combination and sixes of ships! The Millennium Falcons? They’re actually diecast Hot Wheels toys. Between Cassie, her husband, me and six kids combined, we’ve never owned so many Hot Wheels in our lives! At least with them being used in tables there’s no risk of anyone standing on them barefoot and half crippling themselves.
The TIE Fighters we finally managed to find ended up coming all the way from Australia, because apparently no one in the UK makes them small enough. And if someone requests different ships (which they do and rightly so! The sourcing journey starts all over again.
Now I think about it, we once had a customer ask for an entire Death Star in their table… we had to say no. No amount of engineering magic could make a full spherical ship sit in a river table without it looking like we’d tried (and failed) to cast an entire bowling ball right in the middle of a table.
We don’t say no very often, but when a request defies the rules of physics the choice is taken out of our hands.
Our now vast collection of ships are hand-painted by us when they arrive, because most toys just don’t have the detail they deserve. Honestly, when we opened the first pack of ships, I nearly started a petition for kids to have better finished toys. Shocking behaviour, Hot Wheels… Shocking! But don’t worry, we get to fix every single one.
The years of watching my younger brothers paint War Hammer figures when we were younger did eventually pay off!
The space backgrounds are also hand-painted, which was a learning curve all of its own. Some of the things we use for painting and effects definitely weren’t designed for painting at all, but if it works, it works! It’s not always about how you get to the end result, sometimes it’s about what the end result looks like!
Just maybe don’t eat cheese and pineapple off a cocktail stick in our workshop… ever.
Pokémon Wall Art and Pesky Tails
“Can you make me a wall art piece with a Pokémon scene in it if I send you a list of Pokémon I want in it?”
“Of course we can, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Let us source everything and we will get to work.”
Famous. Last. Words….
Because of course it wasn’t straight forward, and of course it actually turned out to be quite difficult! But where there’s a will, there’s a way as the saying goes.
There’s nothing quite like watching Cassie painstakingly model tiny 3D landscapes for these little creatures, only to realise Pikachu’s tail is making him to deep for the river and his feet and snout will eventually stick straight out the top of what will be the resin surface. Cue the engineering brains activating again, trying to make the little yellow nuisance fit next to Charmander without having his face and toes sanded off in the finishing process!
After a couple of days of thinking, many discussions about the best way to deal with the current snout problem, we did eventually come up with a plan to neatly and gently nestle him into his surroundings without any violent belt sander surgery happening to his cute little face.
You’re very welcome, Pikachu! 😊
Mario Tables, Clocks & Rolling Goombas
Ah, Mario… The little plumber who’s caused us more headaches than Bowser ever could. You’d think finding figures small enough for our tables and clocks would be simple, right? Nope. Turns out the perfect Mario-sized miniatures either don’t exist, or cost the same as an actual Nintendo console… We have been defeated! Or so we thought.
After far too many hours of searching (and a few “I give up” cups of tea), we discovered the best-sized ones completely by accident, or I think you can consider it an accident anyway.
Officially licensed Mario fridge magnets. Yep, you read that right. Our tables are powered by magnets and sheer determination. The magnets in question were actually a set Cassie bought for my youngest the Christmas before. They had been on his bedroom radiator so long that I had gone completely blind to them until one day I knocked one off when I was opening his curtain. I picked up the tiny Mario, ran out of the room and rang Cassie!
“I’VE FOUND THE PERFECT MARIO FIGURES!” followed by a rushed rant about the magnets she’d bought for Rowan last Christmas. Once she’d found them in her purchase history (which took some scrolling!) we were once again undefeated by a table design!
Was it completely smooth sailing from there you ask? Obviously not… Those little brown mushroom demons… Goombas, to be specific. Seem to have made it their life’s mission to roll onto their sides every time we try to place them. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard Cassie’s muttered dark threats about launching one out the workshop window.
It hasn’t happened yet though. Yet being the operative word.
But despite all the chaos, it’s impossible not to love how they turn out. The bright colours, the nostalgia, the tiny worlds frozen in resin, they just make people happy. Every Mario piece we finish has that weird ability to make us smile, no matter how many times a Goomba tried to escape mid-pour.
Got a Fandom We Haven’t Met Yet?
If you’ve got a fandom we haven’t ventured into before, we’re all ears, resin, brushes, and sandpaper. We’ll happily become your students while we bring your vision to life, no matter how deep the lore goes or how many reference photos you throw our way.
We love learning the details that make each world special, even if it means a few late-night Google spirals and muttering “wait, who’s that character again?” under our breath.
What we can promise, though, is that all the chaos, caffeine, and colourful language required to make it happen will stay firmly within the walls of the workshop. You’ll only see the finished masterpiece, not the creative carnage that got it there.
Last But Not Least
Right, I’m going back to my episode of One Piece, where the chaos is theirs and the lore is something I already know.
Thanks For Reading! :)