Book Nook—The Mandalorian

No real catastrophes on this one. One of the biggest challenges was the amount of lighting in the book nook. This is about twice the size of my normal nook case and the amount of lighting required meant more LEDs. I also needed to figure out how to build a few miniature light boxes to provide the bright red wall panels.

Painting was interesting. I’m usually painting natural textures… stone… wood… grungy stuff. This is my first dip into science fiction and I wasn’t sure how to really tackle things like weathering. If you look at Star Wars generally, there is a real difference between the good guys and the bad guys. The Empire tends to be glossy and new while everyone else looks a little rough around the edges. By the time we get to the Mandalorian, the Empire is now in a state of disrepair. With that in mind, it seemed to make the most sense to lean into the idea of “poorly maintained” but not dilapidated. Yes… I tell myself stories when thinking about these things.

The last hurdle on this book nook was the electrical. Since there were more LEDs, that meant the wiring was more complex and made my brain hurt. The amount of soldering was also bit daunting. For simplicity sake, every LED has it’s own resistor so each required three solder connections. I kinda lost track but I think there are around 40 LEDs which means around 120 solder joints not including the soldering for the the copper tape and connectors. I try to make the copper tape as elegant as possible and that creates a mental maze as well on something with lights on four out of five walls as well as the interior. Seriously… doll house builders are brilliant. All of it was well worth it since lighting is what makes this book nook really shine… literally and figuratively.