A Yorkshire man has turned a lockdown pastime into a profitable sideline venture, earning thousands by creating miniature homes, sheds and castles.
Lee Robinson, 51, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, began constructing model houses in 2020 whilst on furlough from his graphic design day job. He started accepting commissions to create a variety of buildings, including terraced houses, thatched farmhouses and French chateaux.
Now his hobby has evolved into "a reasonably profitable side business", with a typical home model costing over £1,000 and taking up to 150 hours to craft, over six to eight weeks. The houses are constructed from laser-cut MDF and craft foam, with hand-crafted details made from plastic, metal and air-dry clay.
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Mr Robinson also creates natural scenes, including a model of Sycamore Gap and an upcoming golf course project, which will be his priciest commission at £8,000.
He said: "My ultimate goal is to deceive someone's eye into thinking it's real. A lot of people say they'd love me to make a model of their house but it's not very pretty. But it doesn't have to be pretty – I think anything reduced down to that size becomes fascinating."
As a child, Mr Robinson said he used to construct model aeroplanes, but his interest in the hobby faded when he went to university. However, 15 years ago, his then six-year-old daughter received a model train set for Christmas.
He began making pieces of scenery for it, and says he got hooked, adding: "I went from making something that would do, to trying to make things look as realistic as I could."
He began accepting commissions for miniature hand-crafted stations and signal boxes. Then, in 2020, whilst on furlough from his graphic design role, he felt "a little bit bored" and decided to construct a model house, challenging himself to see how detailed he could make it.
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The resulting model featured elaborate guttering and cabling, a television aerial, and weeds sprouting in cracks on the pavement.
He said: "Had Covid not come around, I probably wouldn't have ventured into this. It was a typical West Yorkshire stone house, based on the ones on a nearby street – but the house doesn't really exist."
He shared his creation on Twitter in 2020, garnering 85,000 views and numerous enquiries from people requesting him to create miniature versions of their houses as well. He said he initially charged £150 but his miniature houses now cost upwards of £1,000 to reflect how long they take to build alongside his full-time job as a graphic designer.
Mr Hutchinson said: "Depending on how big the model is, it can take anything between 80 and 150 hours over six to eight weeks. Some people want to have a keepsake – for instance of their grandparents' family home that they remember growing up in.
"Their grandparents pass away, and they're having to sell the house, so they want me to make a model of it because it has special memories. I use a lot of weathering techniques like adding rust to make something look like it's aged – like it belongs. There are model makers who spend an awful lot of time applying things like rust, whereas my techniques tend to be a little bit quicker.
"Adding a little brown paint to something to give the idea that it's rusted away can be just as effective. Concrete tiles that look corrugated are quite difficult. But I've recently developed a technique for making them, so I don't whinge as much when I see them.
"My favourite is stone buildings. If I see one, I want to just drop everything and start now. I literally haven't stopped for five years. Now, I can't go anywhere without studying buildings and wondering how I'd make them in miniature form. I've become a little bit obsessive."
The creations are now showcased on his TikTok account, under the username @lnr_models, where he has amassed 40,000 followers by demonstrating his technique and the final results.