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1 day ago
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“It’s almost like you’re a giant looking down on something,” says the artist Keith Crawley, describing the tiny tributes he has made to some of Edinburgh’s best-loved pubs.
Crawley, 55, has recreated 12 pubs in miniature – including Barony Bar, the Cask & Barrel and the Conan Doyle, with each creation, depending on the complexity, taking up to a month to finish.
It started as a “bit of fun” last summer, when Crawley made a fun-size version of his own house, having graduated, over time, from Lego to model kits.
But when he turned his hand to the pubs of his home town, replicating buildings in miniature became something of an obsession.
“I decided to make pubs because pubs for me are local landmarks,” Crawley said. “The first one I made was the Auld Hundred and I got sucked in, it’s like Pokémon – you feel like you then have to make mini versions of all the pubs.”
Crawley uses Google Street View or Google Earth for reference, before visiting to check for features not captured online.
“I went to the Greyfriars Bobby’s Bar to see what was at the back of the place,” he said.
“I realised it was on a hill, so sometimes you have to go into the nooks and crannies to find out what is hiding in there.”
After his research Crawley uses a mix of “old-school model-making methods” – like mounting card to replicate hills – as well as hi-tech techniques to faithfully render the beauty of Edinburgh’s historic watering holes.
“I use polylactic acid (PLA) filament on the 3D printer to build the main structure of the model,” he added.
“I’ll then use a computer-aided design (CAD) software called Blender to build the faces of the pub and, once I’ve got that done, I’ll print them out and put the shape together.
“I use Photoshop to create the windows and doors for the pubs and print those out, cut them out and stick them into the spaces I’ve allotted for them.”
Crawley, who adds everything from railings to street signs to ensure the models are as true to life as possible, says making Greyfriars Bobby’s Bar has been one of the project’s highlights, because of the fun he had making the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, the loyal terrier who, according to 19th-century legend, spent 14 years guarding his owner’s grave.
The reaction to Crawley’s work has given him the “buzz” to keep going.
“When I did the Auld Hundred, my sister put up an Instagram post and the pub replied saying it was amazing,” he said.
“I’m not one to walk into pubs with my work usually but I met a friend at the Cask & Barrel and I happened to have my pub, and a number of the bar staff saw it and they thought it was a bit surreal to be looking at a model of a place they work in.”
Crawley, who posts his work on Instagram under the handle @kiwikaboodle, added: “It’s quite special when you get people who have been to these places commenting and hearing a wee bit of history about the place.”
“I think people have a fascination with miniatures … you feel amazed by the detail and it just captures your imagination.”
