Huddersfield modeller Lee Robinson recreates real homes

  • Published
Model houseImage source, Lee Robinson
Image caption,
Lee Robinson made a model of this croft in Scotland

A man in lockdown has "found a niche" making detailed scale models of real houses.

Lee Robinson, of Kirkburton, near Huddersfield, started making the models in March after being furloughed.

The 1:76 replica of life-size houses can take him up to 50 hours of painstaking modelling to build.

He first construction was just a personal challenge but when he put it on Twitter "people really liked it" and he has now started taking commissions.

"I love bringing something to life in miniature, it's the detail," Mr Robinson said.

The graphic designer is employed by an exhibitions company and is an experienced railway modeller.

Now scale-modelling real houses has taken over, he said.

He uses foam-based material and brick-textured plastic to reproduce real life dwellings.

Image source, Lee Robinson
Image caption,
Mr Robinson said stone houses were his favourite to model at one inch to six foot

"I love putting on the detail, I like to put on everything I can see. My favourite houses to model are those built in stone," he said.

"I drive around see a house and think ' that would be difficult to model'."

Image source, Leeds Robinson
Image caption,
His first thatched model had "come out lovely", Mr Robinson said

Mr Robinson said in all the weeks of lockdown "not a day has passed that I have been bored".

However, helping out with home schooling has meant his rate of house building has had to slow down.

"I seem to have found a niche, it's not just making a model it means something to somebody.

"I don't just put on a roof and paint it grey, I like it to look weathered with rain marks and all."

Image source, Lee Robinson
Image caption,
Mr Robinson has made "keepsakes" of family homes, he said

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.