DIY dollhouse or diorama miniature kits

November 14, 2022 7:14 AM

I love these Rolife miniature kits but I don't really want to keep them around after they're finished as I am not crazy about the aesthetic. Are there other model kits out there like this but less twee?

Complex and fiddly is what I am after- I just want to get lost for hours with a craft knife and some glue. I don't necessarily want to get too creative, though, so kits that are for undecorated dollhouse rooms or scenes or whatever where you need to add your own painting and customisation skills aren't what I'm looking for. I would also like kits that have most everything you need included (I have a craft knife set and a cutting mat and tweezers some other basic stuff but I'm not about to go buy, like, a dremel tool and a mini table saw). The medium doesn't necessarily need to be papercraft, but I don't want, like, click together plastic- the complex cutting and assembly is the fun part for me.

I'm open to things that aren't dollhouse rooms or scenes, I would love to hear about pretty much any kind of model kit or diorama/scene kit other than, like, military vehicles or cars (what I would call "boy stuff" if I were not of course far too enlightened for that sort of gender essentialism). I'm also not interested in fantasy swords-and-sorcery stuff or anything from a popular IP like Disney, Marvel, HP, etc.


I did find kits to build the Falling Water house and Farnsworth house here : https://www.arckit.co.uk/. £200 for Falling Water is way too much, £60 for the Farnsworth is definitely more do-able but it's probably a bit more simple than what I am really after.

posted by cilantro to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (14 answers total)

If your main thing is just the building part and you don't care about the results, these UGears kits are pretty fun. It's all laser cut wood. Very complex and fiddly. Most of them have some sort of windup mechanism so in addition to building the model you also have wooden gears and other clockwork-type things to build. They use no glue, though I've found having a tube of Superglue on hand helps in case you break any of the parts.

Micromark has a lot of different types of non-standard model kits. Things like ships, aircraft frames, or covered wagons.

You can look into buildings and other kits designed to go on model train layouts. Those are a lot of fun to build and some of them are laser cut paper and wood that don't require much in the way of painting.
posted by bondcliff at 7:30 AM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Ah model train scenes can be amazing, that never occurred to me- I'll definitely have a look.

I have seen those UGears kits and they do look fun but are so ugly, LOL. Is it possible to disassemble them and pass on to the charity shop or to someone else to have a go building them, or are they permanently assembled once they are assembled? I am mainly looking for things where I would be happy to display the finished product on a shelf (hence my search for "less twee than Rolife models" and "please god no Harry Potter crap") but if I could pass the fun on to someone else that would be a great option, too.
posted by cilantro at 7:41 AM on November 14, 2022

I suppose it's technically possible to disassemble them but it would be a chore and you'd probably also break a few parts in the process. Also the pieces are numbered based on the sheet they're on so I think the next person to build it would have a difficult time. Really I guess the short answer is "no."

I agree they're ugly but they're also a lot of fun and really cool when you're finished and you get to see it work. Amusing for five minutes or so.
posted by bondcliff at 7:49 AM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

The CuteBee kits are somewhat less cute. I know there's a diagon alley one out there.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 8:35 AM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

These 1:100 scale paper scenes designed by Naoki Terada can be a little fiddly, don’t take up too much space, and aren’t too expensive. I’m not entirely sure about shipping but I’ve also found them at other places stateside depending on the set you’re looking at.
posted by sincerely yours at 8:35 AM on November 14, 2022 [5 favorites]

Could paper quilling scratch the itch? It can work for a lot of different aesthetics (feather, Starry Night, frog anatomy, flowers, shadowbox designs, etc)
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:05 AM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've seen a few "book nook" kits that have Japanese and Chinese nostalgic town scenes, which might be a welcome shift away from European nostalgic town scenes — like this scene or this one, and the seller also has miniatures like a calligraphy shop.
posted by dreamyshade at 9:26 AM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Would you consider a VIRTUAL Diorama set on your PC? It's also very cheap at $2.99
posted by kschang at 1:01 PM on November 14, 2022

Rokr makes a bunch of these things. My daughter made their orrery music box and we gave a friend's kid a robot one but it wasn't pink like the linked one. My daughter's working on a train right now not sure if it's from Rolife, Rokr, or some other company.

Also, I don't know how you would search for this but I was in Japan in August and in addition to the laser cut wood stuff there were lots of other sets I saw for miniatures of things like shops, streetscapes, and historical buildings, that were going for more of an accurate representation than anything twee.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:29 PM on November 14, 2022

Both my sister and I got the CuteBee 'Eternal Bookstore' kit mentioned by Sweetchrysanthemum and it's brilliant. We both spent hours on it. My sister did hers by the book and it looked fabulous, and I put in some extra customisation (extra books, some sculpy objects, a crystal ball etc). Much fun was had and I highly recommend it.
My sister also got a Japanese street style book nook also from CuteBee, but it doesn't have the same level of detail as the bookstore.
posted by eloeth-starr at 9:34 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's a whole world of Japanese model house kits. This site has lots of historically accurate buildings, as well as sailing ships.

A company called Billy makes cuter Japanese models, of little shops and street scenes.

There are a number of model and dollhouse building channels on YouTube, where you could get ideas on other options available out there.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:19 AM on November 18, 2022

I wondered about some of these, though they may not be complex enough:

* Lunar house
* Mill
* Tailor's shop
* Apartment
* 'Bus stop
* Reading nook
* Rolife ship
* Camera
posted by paduasoy at 2:36 AM on November 22, 2022

It looks like the other miniatures I saw were by Billy that See you tomorrow, saguaro linked to.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:22 PM on November 24, 2022

If you enjoy the assembly aspect and want something that doubles as an interactive work of art, you can check out these 3D wooden puzzles by Intrism. They specialize in marble mazes, so after assembly, you're left with a mind-bending maze to conquer! You don't need any tools or glue to assemble them - everything is included in the kit and is made in the USA.

They have three puzzles to pick from with varying price points. Their latest marble maze toy puzzle is $29.95.
posted by farhan28 at 8:06 PM on January 26, 2023