hey everyone it's norm from tested and for today's show and tell we are diving back
into the wonderful world of book nook dioramas this is one of our favorite style of dioramas
they've really exploded in popularity over the past two years we can't get enough of them
but if you're not familiar they're essentially a diorama that's made to
look like the form factor of a thick book that lives on your bookshelf kind of squeeze between
you know these big coffee table books that you may have on like an ikea bookshelf and
because of the form factor because they basically almost look like the width of a spine of a book
it makes it look like you're peering into another world uh even though uh it's right there
on that bookshelf a book nook uh and back in 2019 one of the very first popular ones that popped up
on reddit uh was made by a maker named kaivan he did this japanese alleyway that was really
beautifully done and made great use of this mirror this angled mirror in the back to extend
the scene beyond the dimensions of the book nook and since then kai launched a kickstarter campaign
he's done a couple different versions of that design one based on a wizarding world one based
on an italian alleyway and now this new one based on a medieval alleyway and he sent me one
of his prototypes because he's launching this as a crowdfunding campaign that you can check out today
so this is his medieval alleyway book nook and it really is based on that same template design that
he worked with way back with the japanese alleyway you have the form factor here which is basically
about three and a half inches wide on the side it's a nine and a half inches tall by eight inches
so it's not that much of a build volume on the inside uh for him to build this scene out but he
has done it to really really nice effect the two wall facades on the inside wall have really good
different relief so you have these window sills with some mixed media some greenery shrubbery
on top even a plant box here and actually let me turn this light on because it is lit up there are
two led lights and i'm going to add my own light here so you can get a better look on the inside
but basically like i mentioned the two inside walls aren't flat there's nice dimensional relief
on both the engraving on the wood as well as some of this exterior facade beams the
window sills windows themselves and doorways and signage that gives it a nice feel and consistent
with the theme of this looking further back you see that angled mirror and at the top here it is
lowered in because that's where the battery pack is so the two lights
uh run off of four double a batteries there's this switch here i can switch off and on and then in
terms of the leds there is a an led right under the battery pack that provides a little bit of
an ambient light and then there's also this street light as well and the street light's really neat
because it's placed in this placement where the mirror is right behind it and then when you look
at the street light and then you look beyond into the mirror you see another street light which is
that same one but then extended and then also you might notice in the mirror there's the doorway
that reads dragon tavern and it reads correct and that's because it makes sense he's laser
cut it and cut it out reverse mirrored in a place uh where you normally wouldn't see it and so some
clever tricks of the eye where if you look at it from one direction you know this street sign this
door inside the duck inn reads correctly and then if you look deeper into the scene it really is a
convincing illusion that the scene extends beyond this eight inches of the uh the book nook uh
diorama the scene here is also littered with a couple accessories so you can place things
like barrels crates you know assortment of medieval weapons or creatures and they're offered
you know things like this little wooden cart that you can place in or 3d printed dragons and every
little bit kind of adds a little bit more life so it doesn't look as much like an empty street um
and one of the things that i wish you could do though is open up this book nook uh jen from our
team in designing her book designed it in a way where the sides actually kind of magnetically
attach and the whole thing can slide apart so you can do some more interior set dressing
or paint or wetting or customization and while there is a little bit of customization you can
do here on the inside in terms of placing things this is basically a a prefab unit it comes shipped
like this and the construction is sturdy you know it's not just glued together uh there are also
you know nuts and screws here that interlock everything the top panel revealing really nicely
laid out wiring but i do wish this was a model kit that you ship flat packed with instructions
so i could customize it and put it together myself and because i love that interior lighting
if i'm going to have this on my bookshelf i'm going to want that light on all the time and so i
do wish also there was an option have this powered uh from a wall outlet not just from the double a
batteries now it wouldn't be difficult to just drill a hole in the back here and do a little bit
of rewiring to get it working with an ac outlet uh but you know right now the only option that he
does sell is the battery powered version another thing is that you know looking at the exterior
here it's it's a little plain and one of the things i do like about book nooks isn't just the
ability to display them on a shelf squeeze between books but also that as a freestanding diorama they
are also pretty striking and jen from our team her book design had this really lovely exterior
layering uh with walnut and so inspired by her idea i went ahead and loaded up adobe illustrator
and did a little bit of design of my own cut on the glow forge and came up with this frame idea
to make it look a little more like a book and so i'm gonna glue these into place and then also
have a little bit of just kind of generic medieval detail just to give it a little more of external
personality in case i don't want to squeeze these between a couple books adding this one sheet of
laser cut ply isn't gonna ruin that ability either so this medieval alleyway is part of
a new kickstarter campaign going on right now uh the kai's launch and i'll include links to that as
well as the mini alley website in the description and comments below in case you're interested
and you know it's really well built well thought out well constructed design but also
based on a very tried and true design that he's iterated on over four designs now and
since he designed his first book nook back in 2019 the world of book nooks has really expanded there
are so many different ones that you can find on places like reddit and etsy and there are a lot
more options out there and and i just i want him to go take it one step further and hopefully his
next design uh will mix things up just a little bit maybe in terms of material uh theme uh or just
uh the assembly of it all uh it does work well as a part of the collection of designs that he's put
out there and maybe some of the tricks that he's used like the mirror effect and mirroring the
text here are things that you out there can take as inspiration for designing your own book nooks
we love putting these together we love checking out the ones that people have designed
out there and if you've made your own please share with us in the comments below i'd love to take a
look but thank you so much for watching happy book nook building at home and i'll see you next time