I'd been working on DiminutiveDJ for a while; the big delay was constructing his Event Horizon (hang on, just had to go check in the Chicago Manual of Style to see if the names of spacecraft are, in fact, italicized.  Phew.  Okay.) So anyway, I'm not much of a mechanic, and elected to go the Community Theatre low-budget set construction route--if it's cheap, and conveys the impression, it's perfect.

  I started with an intention to work with cylinders, and I'd been saving some big coffee cans, but they weren't quite big enough (unless the movie had starred Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson, which it didn't).  Rummaged around and found a nice cardboard box for a foundation.  The most impressive interior component I came up with was the molded plastic liner from a tin of Cadbury's cookies--black, shiny, and mysterious.  At first I had high hopes for the fact that it's semicircular, but I couldn't figure out how to accommodate that curve for the ceiling, so it ended up being a side wall.  Then I headed over to Home Despot to troll the aisles for small/cheap.

  The ceiling is a range hood vent filter.  I wanted to light the scene from above the ceiling, but ended up duct-taping it to the box, so not an option. (While I'm impressed with my camera's results, it really does best using the flash anyway.)  The console is an elbow-joint for ductwork, topped by the frame for an electrical outlet, I think.  I Googled for some pictures of dials and printed those out on photo paper, then cut 'em out and attached them to the front with double-sided tape.  There's a groovy plastic globe inside the electrical box, something I found on the ground while walking my dog.  The chair is a Barbie piece from Target which I covered with an aluminum package liner and some shiny duct tape.

  I had seen custom-printed fabric patches sold on eBay, and then stumbled upon some computer-printable fabric sheets intended for use by quilters who wanted to incorporate photos of grandbabies etc.  More Google image-thievery and some Photoshoppage produced DJ's patches.  The absurd IV bottle is from a vintage GI Joe set which I bought for the accompanying stethoscope.

  The plastic pockets holding his tubes of ointment (??) came from the 'screen protector' on my new sewing machine.  I wanted those tiny things on there, but I also wanted them seen, so I couldn't just stick them in the same retaining band as his other tools.