As in all other Cubes of this series, “Blue Cube” incorporates the idea of water running through the walls of the nine connected rooms. For this scenery, it was clear that the final image had to be captured within a restricted amount of time before the whole diorama would look wet – instead of frozen. I love working with the elements, but ice is certainly a challenge of its own since it reduces your possibilities of experimenting without cleaning and rearranging everything again and again.

Faking ice was no option due to its very specific visual aesthetics, so I had to create all ice elements of the scene out of real water. For the “ice lady”, I first 3D-printed a figurine which served as the model for a silicone rubber mold – which could then be filled with water and put into the freezer. The ice blocks were created simply by using large ice cube trays which you can buy at online bar supplies.

The other elements of this walk-in-freezer-diorama are mainly a couple of Euro-pallets and a cooling unit. These were made out of MDF and, after designing the separate parts in Adobe Illustrator, cut by a laser cutter. For the very accurate engravings on the Euro-pallets, a laser cutter is an incredibly precise tool.

The scenery was finally completed with miniature ice and snow effects and then visually cooled down by a hazer.

Once the first ice cube entered the set, there was a time span of about 15 minutes before everything started to melt away. This was definitely the quickest shooting of the series. 😉

Here you can see the final image. For more behind-the-scenes material from the creation of the miniature set, make sure to check my “Making Of”-section.