Nativity Ornaments

Nativity Ornament

Back in the summer, I purchased 6 kits to make for family members. The cost was low and I thought it would be a fun project. Volker Arnold of Germany made these kits. He is in my opinion a master with the laser for smaller scale kits as small as 1:1000 scale. I got these via gibsongirlminis on Esty. I should have purchased a larger size. These are the size of US quarter coin. The kit included a plastic ball to hold them.

I set a goal to get them done in October, which I did. But boy, did it take longer than I expected.

It was me, that made them longer to finish. I have seen these done before (or some like them) and those were painted very simply. To my perfection preferences, I had to have details. Details that my old eyes required lots of magnification, fine paint brushes and good lighting. I really enjoyed the painting, but it was tedious at times.

Here is how I did the painting:

First I decided on my color scheme – I did this by taking a picture with my phone and then drawing on the photo with different colors. That’s a much faster way than painting and repainting.

my color scheme planning

Next I figured out what colors I would use to fit the scheme. There were lots of colors for all those details.

I wrote down which paint colors would be for what part
painting multiples together saves time

Lastly, I removed the pieces from each kit so I could paint the same ones together. I worked on the larger pieces first, then the smaller people and animals.

First a base coat to one side for all the same pieces. Then flipped and did base coat to that other side. From both sides I tried to catch the edges so there wasn’t a lot of excess paint, but also covering it.

angel with horn side

Here you can see the details I added to the trees and people.

angel with heart side

This kit was simple to put together, once I figured out which side I wanted to have the figures. I do think that it was important to have thin layers of paint (or none) where the pieces fit together.

The one I kept

I made a small hanger for the one I kept. The hanger was very lightweight so for family gifts, I just added a ribbon hanger.


Happy miniaturing!

Preble