Alchemy

Vell I ask you, if you were to come into possession of an ancient grimoire vhich contained (along wiz ze normal recipes for creating ze philosophers’ stone und cures for varts) a spell entitled ‘How to Traverse Time’, vouldn’t you be a little intrigued?  Vouldn’t you give up a successful career to explore ze secrets it offers?

Of course you vould.  Just as I did.

I had a huge laboratory, back in zose days.  Mechanical construction vas my bread-und-butter.  Alvays zer ver young men vanting automatons, adjustments to zer contraptions and votnots.  Fraulein Vorzington, my young assistant, vas quite excellent at such sings.  I left her to it.  For me, reading ancient texts vas far more important.  I had zis strong feeling zat vun day, I vould discover zat for vich I searched.  Und here it is – ein dusty old volume, standing on my small table in my tiny, dark garret.  Viz zis book, I vill conquer time itself!

Doctor Oskar Kopp and his alchemist’s study is one of my favourite 1/12 scale creations.  It started as a simple cardboard case, less than the length of a 12 inch/ 30 cm ruler, but now contains his glass and copper still (much distillation goes on in alchemy), arcane diagrams and jottings, a shelf filled with dusty jars of dubious substances and a table which holds his microscope, apparatus and more bottles.  Then, of course, there is the doctor himself, with his plasma- and aether-sensitive binocular eyepiece, not to mention the infamous grimoire.  Yes, it does contain that spell, although you might have difficulty reading it, since the pages are less than 2 x 3 cm.  I’d also advise caution, should you manage to read it.  The ancient book uses Roman numerals, you see, so if you were to attempt to consume one hundred and eleven of the mushrooms, for example, rather than the specified three, the results could be catastrophic.  In fact, even three is pushing things rather…

The Case of the Alchemist’s Study will be on display on my stall at the Glastonbury Craft and Vintage Fair on Saturday 29th April, 2017.  Other Steampunk – Shrunk figures, rooms and accessories are available at Rune Smith of Glastonbury, at 1 Monarch Way, off Glastonbury High Street and online at the Steampunk Dolls’ House (where you can find Dr Kopp’s erstwhile assistant, Lucy Worthington and one of her automatons).  The jar labels, posters and cover for the spell book are courtesy of the wonderful Betsy at Chocolate Rabbit Graphics.