Felix. Card collector.

I like the bits around the train

I am Felix Arden, a miniature maker with a particular fondness for platforms, stairways, and the backs of small buildings. I live in Chicago, where a short walk can provide enough window shapes and pavement seams for a month of modelmaking. I rarely reproduce a real place. I collect a few details and let them become an imaginary block.

The hobby began with a paper kiosk I made for a friend’s board game. I enjoyed making the roof slightly too much and spent the following weekend building a street for it. Since then I have learned to keep my projects physically small. A scene that fits on a bookshelf has a much better chance of being finished than an ambitious layout that takes over the room.

The materials drawer

I save clean card with a good surface, clear packaging for windows, and envelopes with unusually nice grey interiors. Everything gets flattened before it goes into the drawer. My least glamorous tool is a small square of scrap wood that I use to press folds. My favourite is a soft brush with almost no bristles left, which makes exactly the untidy marks I want.

Felix is a fictional maker, and this is his imagined workshop notebook. The interest at its centre is delightfully ordinary: looking closely, making a small object, and trying again when it looks wrong. The Canal Street build is a good place to see that process, while the workshop page keeps the current scene in view.