After two years of work, I have completed the final chapter of my CUBES series – “Cubes III”. This concludes my CUBES cycle – a journey that began in 2018 with a crazy idea and has become a major part of my artistic work.

I am delighted that the renowned online blog PetaPixel interviewed me about CUBES III. The full interview can be found here.

Thank you so much PetaPixel and Kate Garibaldi for this wonderful possibility!

By the time of writing this article, five of nine images have already been finished. You can find them here. And as always, if you want to learn more about the construction of each set, make sure to also watch my Making-Of-Videos.

It’s such a pleasure to announce a new interview by PetaPixel which is all about my latest series “Cubes II”. The article provides insight into the idea and concept behind the series, we talk about how the miniature sets come to life and finally I share some personal feelings and thoughts about working with dioramas.

Thank you so much PetaPixel and Sonya Harris for the lovely interview!

“Magenta Cube” can be considered the heart of the nine interconnected rooms of the series. With its position in the center of the arrangement (see The Idea and Concept behind “Cubes” for more conceptual background information) and the water slowly but surely filling the swimming-pool-like room, it directly affects all adjacent Cubes.

As all other Cubes, the magenta-coloured room posed its own individual challenges when planning and constructing the diorama set. The large amount of water quickly led to the decision of building the whole scenery into an (equally cubic-shaped) aquarium.

After designing the separate parts for the floor, ceiling and further interior, laser cutting was used for precise cuts. Then everything could be glued together and painted accordingly.

There is nothing more exciting – and frightening! – than filling a carefully and meticulously crafted miniature set with 50 litres of water. No pre-testing, no plan B, only one moment of truth. Luckily, everything behaved exactly as planned (well, at least more or less, but let’s not get into such details here now …), so moving on to lighting the set and finally shooting it was a real relief and joy.

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.

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.

“Yellow Cube” strives at creating the atmosphere of solitude and tension in a normally lively place. After considering different scenarios for what the protagonist might do in the set, I finally decided to just have my model sit on a diner bench, next to the wall which is slowly but surely breaking due to the high amount of water coming from “Magenta Cube” next door.

The set itself is certainly an homage to the beautiful diner from David Lynch’s series “Twin Peaks”. The combination of mystery and a hunch of warmth created by the use of wooden furniture and wall paneling was the starting point for this room.

Similar to the workflow of “Cyan Cube”, I first designed the individual parts of the furniture in Adobe Illustrator, then sent them to a laser cutter to get as accurate cuts as possible. Since some of the parts were designed to be assembled in a specific order, these elements were engraved with chronological numbers.

After gluing all parts together, they could be painted with yellow and black acrylics, using a brush to add to the organic feeling of the wooden furniture and panels. The sitting area of the diner bench is made of foam rubber. This material felt like a good alternative to traditional fabric – which often exposes miniature furniture.

Once all set elements were assembled and painted, the layout of the set was tested and the final composition and camera position was chosen. Next, the floor with its (printed) tiles was added as well as the two walls and the door of the room. Like in the other sets, a mix of water and glycerine was used to add tiny water droplets on the floor, furniture and walls. The look of the dirty glass window of the entrance door was achieved by simply messing around with a bit of superglue.

Last but not least, the ceiling light was created by using a high-power LED and connecting it to a 9V-battery. Now, the set could be lit with more (invisible) light sources, adding to the overall atmosphere of the scene. The images below show how my “stand-in model” helped to judge lighting, shadows and perspective for matching it with my real model.

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.

“Cyan Cube” was the second set to make use of laser cutting in order to ensure a maximum of precision. First, the furniture was designed in Adobe Illustrator, then this data was sent to the laser cutter which cut and engraved the individual elements using MDF boards. After gluing all the parts together, the furniture was painted with acrylics. Finally, finishing touches, like cracks in the paint, were added.

The floor tiles were cut by hand, also painted with acrylics, and then attached onto a layer of transparent film. Now, the basic layout of the scenery as well as the framing and composition of the motive could be tested and finalized.

In “Cyan Cube”, the main light source is the ceiling light in the middle of the room. In addition to this, there is another (invisible) light source coming from the front left side, as well as the light from the corridor.

All these light sources were finally duplicated in the studio for shooting the model. When matching perspective of the miniature and the studio set, it was essential to create a seamless transition between the (wet) miniature and life-size transparent foil. Furthermore, shadows and reflections from the model were shot separately in order to maximize realism when finally compositing the scenery in Adobe Photoshop.

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.

The second Cube of the series was supposed to be the cinema. As described in my blog entry about creating “Green Cube”, I was already looking for ways to optimize my crafts. I am totally happy with the viewer knowing that the set is actually a miniature, but I want him or her to realize this at second glance. Studying resources on building miniatures quickly led me to the conclusion that I needed a mixture of “traditional” and “modern” techniques if I wanted to create this illusion of reality in the long run.

For “Red Cube”, I started using more electrical tools for precision work, like a handheld drilling/milling/sanding unit and a small bench circular saw. Even though these tools are perfect for many applications, I was not satisfied with the result of many cutting jobs. They were still lacking “perfection”, and this was what I was looking for – otherwise my sceneries could not fully convince as large-format prints. So, after researching my options, I decided to turn to laser-cutting for precise cuts and engravings.

The basis of the set consists of red adhesive foil attached to foamboard. After calculating and measuring the auditorium, all necessary parts were designed in Adobe Illustrator and then sent to a laser-cutter, using 3 to 5 mm MDF boards.

When choosing the materials for the carpets, the screen, the curtain, the chair and the banister, I tested different options. This way, I made sure that their overall appearance was still convincing when photographed closely, but also that their reflective characteristics are similar to the “real” versions.

Creating the cubic chair, there was no need for perfection as far as its edges and seams were concerned – burning the chair would eventually add to the final and desired look. At the same time, burning would mean that the inner life of the chair needed to be visible. So, fine pored “filter foam” was used to cover the armature of the chair – which is completely made up of wood.

Faking the flames by using Photoshop was not an option. If you want to create convincing details, lighting and atmosphere, this can, in my opinion, only be achieved by using real physical elements.

The smoke in the final picture comes from little sticks which are normally used for testing smoke detectors. For the flames, I carefully covered the chair in rubber alcohol and finally set it on fire (a couple of times). As planned, the height of the flames reached the ceiling and thus the floor of “Cyan Cube” above – the connection between the two rooms was established.

Of course, I did not set a real chair on fire when photographing the model. Exactly duplicating the lighting from the miniature set was finally accomplished by using matching lighting filters.

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.

Miniature sets have always fascinated me. Especially the highly elaborate work of miniatures used for feature films as in “The Lord of the Rings”, “Blade Runner” or “Harry Potter” – but also the incredibly creative and visually stunning sets of stop motion films like “Corpse Bride”, “Fantastic Mr Fox” or “Coraline”. During my studies of “Audiovisual Media” I was part of some stop motion animation projects where I learned to appreciate the endless possibilities of designing and crafting complete worlds based on one’s imagination. In the following years, I never got rid of the idea that one day I would seize these possibilities and combine them with my conceptual photographic work.

In March 2018, I suddenly got the idea for “Cubes” (read my post “The Idea and Concept behind “Cubes”” for more background information). In order to create the nine cubic rooms which are all connected by water running through the walls, I first thought about building a life-size set on a sound stage which could be redesigned and thus reused after each shooting. Conceptual plans like broken concrete walls within a flooded classroom or a cold storage room with huge ice blocks finally led me to the conclusion that these challenges were not to be faced by using “real” sets. This was the moment when I decided to build my first diorama for my staged photography.

“Green Cube” became the first set to be crafted because of its rather uniform room design. I needed a stage to test different materials, to experiment with lighting and, of course, to develop compositing techniques which did not show that the model was shot separately. Blending a model with a scene for online presentation is one thing, but making sure that such a composite still looks absolutely convincing as a large-format fine-art-print is something completely different and requires a sophisticated execution.

After putting up the walls of “Green Cube” using foam board and green adhesive foil, I quickly realised that a perfect cubic room would lead to compositional problems when using a 3:2 aspect ratio. Hence, I kept the square floor area and shortened the height of the walls. Next, I defined the camera perspective and started testing with the position of the glass cabinets, acrylic glasses and possible lighting setups. Using a scale model extremely facilitates making all these decisions and evaluating the atmosphere created by different light sources.

Unfortunately, I did not foresee how hard it would be to cut acrylic glass (at least this high-quality version which is normally used for architectural models) by hand only using a utility knife. At this point, I already started thinking about alternative ways of creating “perfect” cuts and clean edges for the next sets to come.

The glass cabinets were all created using different kinds of white polystyrene which was cut and sanded for rounding the corners. High-power LEDs were used for lighting the top of the cabinets. A battery powers each LED and could thus be hidden within the cap. The water spots on the walls as well as the droplets on the glass cabinets are made of glycerin mixed with water in order to make them stick to the material.

The overall lighting mainly consists of the lights within the glass cabinets as well as the ceiling light. A slightly diffused spot from the front of the set brightens up the shadows so no detail is lost. Finally, the corridor behind the door was lit so that some light enters the room for atmospheric reasons.

When shooting the model, this light setup was recreated. Moreover, identical acrylic glass as well as a floor plate made of the same polystyrene was used in order to make the separate images blend seamlessly into one another.

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.

Here you can find short videos on the construction of each set. In the following weeks, I will present some more insights and behind-the-scenes-material about selected CUBES here on my blog.