Above: “The Shire” in progress.

This box is in the collection of Darryl Audette

SHEP’S NOTES ON THE DIORAMA

“The Shady side of the Shire” is one of those whimsical ideas that tend to strike me in my giddier moments. Most of them are really just three-dimensional cartoons that are not worth the effort required to do them: cartoons after all are subject for quick sketches, not full-blown oils on canvas.

This idea, however, was a bit different in that the scenery was simple and the few figures required could be easily modified from commercial castings. In short, it could retain its whimsical flavor without involving a major production.

The figures are by Superior, with minor pose modifications. My own favorite figure in the scene is the young hobbit dubiously eyeing the coins in his hand while the others ogle the dubious charms of the snaggle-toothed lady in the doorway, Following the standard shadowbox rule of modeling only what can be seen, the soiled dove beckoning from the doorway actually consists only of the head and one hand positioned in such a way as to suggest the rest of the body out of sight: they are the only scratchbuilt parts in the scene. The trees are roots, and the hobbit houses are made of Celluclay applied over a masking tape and plywood frame, with sheet styrene doors and modified model railroad lamps. The lighting is straightforward, with an overall illumination lamp with a blue night-time filter.

The biggest problem in the scene proved to be one of comic timing. For a humorous scene of this sort to work, it is important that the viewer should not catch the joke right away, but should not lose interest and walk away before seeing it, either. Delayed reactions of this sort are difficult to orchestrate with any precision, so I gave it be several “out-of-town tryouts” by testing on a few friends before displaying at a show. I’m glad I did. My first few guinea pigs, for all their good intentions, never managed to get the idea all — the red lights alone were simply too subtle. Even one red light with all the others yellow was not enough to carry the idea across. Finally, by adding fresh clues like the signs and the lady in the doorway with each successive test, I was finally able to get the reaction and timing that I wanted. I doubt that Tolkien ever considered the possibility of a red light district in the Shire (or any other part of Middle Earth for that matter) but then that is what makes this small bit of undiscovered Tolkieniana so unusual!

From Sheperd Paine: The Life and Work of a Master Military Modeler and Historian by Jim DeRogatis (Schiffer Books, 2008)

J.D. Although it wasn’t your next box chronologically, let’s stay in the fantasy realm and jump ahead a bit to “The Shady Side of the Shire.”

S.P. By that time, a lot of people were doing fantasy models, and I wanted to poke a little fun at it. The problem with trying to do what are essentially cartoons in this medium is that it takes too much time and effort. Cartoons are quick sketches, not full-blown paintings on canvas, but I thought I could get away with this one because the figures were commercial castings. They were Superior hobbits, so I didn’t have to sculpt them, and the scenery was relatively simple.

The scene turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought—not from the technical standpoint, but from a narrative standpoint.

J.D. The idea is that the hobbits are outside a hobbit whorehouse?

S.P. Right, they’re visiting a red-light district—that’s why it’s called “The Shady Side of the Shire.” I wanted a delayed reaction: People should have to look at it for a moment or two before they realized what was really happening. I thought the story would be easy enough to tell: All that was needed was to have red lights over the doorways, receding into the distance. When I was done, I showed it to a friend, and he gushed over the figures and the scenery, but when I asked, “Can you tell what’s going on?,” it was clear he hadn’t a clue. I asked about the red lights, and he shrugged, “I thought all hobbit houses had red lights.” So I changed all of the lights to yellow, except for one red light over the main door. I tested it on somebody else, but the result was the same: He didn’t understand. So I kept adding clues to it until people were finally able to get the joke in the right amount of time. By the time I was done, not only did I need the red light over the door, I had a sign over the doorway that said “Garden of Delight”; a gap-toothed hobbit hooker in a beehive hairdo sticking her face around the doorway, and a sign hanging from a branch with a big set of red lips on it. It took all of these clues for people to finally understand what the scene was about.

I think that’s how I learned the importance of timing. People need clues to understand what the scene is about, and the way these clues are arranged determines how long it takes them to react. The viewer shouldn’t catch on right away: He needs to be surprised, and a couple of beats should go by before it hits him. If it’s too obvious, there’s no surprise, but if it’s too subtle, people just shrug and walk away. It’s the way that it hits you unexpectedly that makes it funny.

My great disappointment with fantasy models has been that they’re always based on something else; people are not creating their own fantasies. Everybody seems to lean on movies or books. It’s all well and good to use something like that as a starting point, but then take it to the next level. One of the fantasy modelers whose work I respected the most was Spencer Van Gulick, because they were all his own fantasies.

J.D. I would think that if you’re getting away from historical modeling, where you want to remain accurate, why not free yourself from all restraints?

S.P. That’s the way I see it.

J.D. Were your hobbit figures all modified?

S.P. A little bit, but not much. One has a bottle of hooch, and another is counting his money. The only one I sculpted was the hooker, but I only did her head and shoulders. Again, the trees are just roots.

J.D. Had you read J.R.R. Tolkien?

S.P. In my generation, everybody read Tolkien, but people took it so seriously that it was ripe for satire. The Harvard Lampoon published a wonderful parody called Bored of the Rings.

J.D. I remember that the modeling scene at the time was getting a little risqué, with Cliff Sanderson’s Atlantis, Roman orgy, and Pirates of Tortuga series. Were you reacting to that as well?

S.P. There was all of this very sexy fantasy stuff, and then there was Tolkien, who, being properly British, wasn’t sexy at all, to the point where you wondered where all those hobbits came from! So the idea of combining the two in this way was a lark.

J.D. Did you know that now, in the wake of the movies, there’s an underground literary scene specializing in sexual fantasies about Tolkien’s characters? A lot of it is gay porn involving Frodo and Sam.

S.P. That may be, but there’s nothing queer about my hobbits–they’re good ol’ Middle Earth boys!