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Let’s take a quick look at a personal project that I just recently finished. One morning, I woke up with an insatiable urge to design a miniature scene inside of a pocket watch. There’s nothing like being slapped upside the head by a Muse.

I scoured eBay for a cheap pocket watch, and suddenly, there it was! I was pretty simple, with zodiac symbols circling the face. It immediately reminded me of the zodiac that surrounds the Magic Mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Guess what scene I created.

The materials used were acrylic paint, Mod Podge, watercolor paper, plastic, and an epoxy glue.

First off, the pocket watch has to be gutted. Duh. Once opened, I had to constantly keep the interior clean of fingerprints, smudges, and lint. Constantly. A watch full of lint isn’t pretty.

Image outlines were produced with Adobe Illustrator, then transferred onto watercolor paper with acetone.

Using a pair of magnification glasses (I highly recommend them), I painted the mirror frame and glued a piece of plastic to the back as “glass.” Using some scrap paper as spacers, the mirror was glued to the backdrop. The spacers (unseen underneath the mirror’s frame) add a bit of depth. Wiping the watch’s interior clean, the mirror assembly was glued into place.

For the two layers of “smoke,” I painted onto clear plastic. I used a mixture of Mod Podge and white acrylic paint. The Mod Podge adheres to the plastic very well, and the white paint makes the Mod Podge (dries clear) cloudy. Layer after layer, using various opacity levels, the cloudy Mod Podge looks like swirling smoke.

Using various embossing styluses, the slave was rounded and shaped after soaking in water for a couple of minutes. It was painted, and glued onto a dark disc. The white tabs sticking out from underneath rest along and edge, keeping the whole piece from falling into the watch.

Lastly, the film’s title was painted and glued to the back of the watch’s rear cover. An artist’s signature and date are written, and the parts are all snapped together for the final product.