(Updated 8/30/2026) My old friend Paul B. recently turned me on to the amazing modeling of Michael Paul Smith, who passed away in 2018. He spent years creating scenes from the imaginary town of Elgin, PA. As you’ll see in a couple of shots below, many of these dioramas are set up outdoors to create a very realistic background, with a seamless melding of the two worlds, real and miniature. The results are phenomenal.
Enjoy these, and follow the link above or at the end for many more.
Michael Paul Smith’s Flickr pages
These are amazing and not just the buildings and cars but also the texture of the ground and the moisture from the spray bottle along with the lighting. Exceptional work, thanks for bringing it to us!
These are amazing!
Incredible. Looks like he used the great Danbury Mint models in his shots. Really life-like!
An extremely talented artist. And genuinely very down-to-earth in his interviews. Wish him much success!
Wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL!!
I usually hang out at CC during the business day as a guilty desktop pleasure to break up the monotony, but I’m going to have to come back after hours to take a deeper dive into Elgin, PA.
I could get lost in some of those images for hours.
Very impressive work.
Superb work and staging. I am pleased to see he broke one of the so-called ‘rules’ of modelling by having a shiny finish where appropriate. He could do that because the quality of the surfaces is right; the finish is actually to scale so they reflect correctly. That’s in depth realism.
I’ve seen an image that contains a 1950’s era UFO/spaceship landing, complete with alien.
Very cool stuff.
Right up my alley! As a former HO model RR hobbyist who scratch-built a lot of stuff, I can really appreciate his talent and vision.
Question is, will people in the future want to model OUR time? You know, with little model Toyota SUVs in front of a Domino’s Pizza, with a condo development and a cell phone tower in the background? We’re living in the authentic 2020 NOW!
My 1980s attempt at what Smith was doing:
Thank you so much for the introduction to Michael Paul Smith and his work. He sounds like he was a truly unique character…and obviously an incredibly talented artist.
I found his obit on the NYT…for those who want more background on the man.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/obituaries/michael-paul-smith-dead.html
He died?!!? I’ve followed him on Flickr for some time and wondered why he wasn’t posting there anymore. 🙁
These shots of Elgin, PA look more real than Elgin, IL, and I’ve actually been there.
Thanks for posting this, this is really amazing stuff.
Just amazing. Being able to place a model ‘just so’ in front of a real building and photograph it in such a way that the viewer can’t tell – until you see the photo of how he did it. That’s a skill in itself. And the skill in building those structures – I’ve tried building in 1/24 and it sure isn’t easy to do it well enough that the viewer has no visual clue that it’s a model he/she’s looking at.
Minor correction: He didn’t model Elgin, PA; it was the imaginary town of “Elgin Park” with no state named.
From his Facebook page:
“Michael Paul Smith has Moved to Elgin Park
“We are sad to report that Michael Paul Smith moved permanently to Elgin Park (his words) this past Monday, November 19, 2018.”
Anyone know the maker of that yellow Helms delivery van? I love the rounded edges and beefy tires front and back.
Funnily enough Jason torchinsky has just posted a story about the 1934 twin coach delivery truck. https://jalopnik.com/if-youre-against-sitting-while-driving-boy-do-i-have-a-1844873353
I discovered Mr Smith several years ago, before he passed.
Brilliant artist. RIP – you’re missed…
This young man has picked up the torch from Mr. Smith: https://anthonyryanschmidt.com/gallery
Thanks for posting that link – his photography is outstanding.
I either didn’t know or didn’t recall that he died. :·( His craftwork was just grand, and his persistent meticulous attention to detail inspiring.
What a fun hobby – or did he do this professionally?
What a great talent, we lost him too soon .
-Nate
Do we know where the pics actually were set up/taken? Pretty cool when ya think it was likely “back, a bit a time”.
Wow!! Amazing. Thank you for sharing
I cannot get enough of this. Like many guys (and some gals), I have been infatuated and nearly obsessed with scale modeling since a boy. Whether building my own from plastic model kits back in the day when we had actual dedicated hobby shops in every town big and small to creating basement model HO scale train setups. My sister was into large scale doll houses so I was into the scale furniture and details of those houses as well.
The work this guy did was movie industry quality on detail. What a loss of talent and I’m afraid to say I do not see any younger generations taking over getting into scale model building. The closest I’ve seen is from Lego kits like out of Star Wars and car Techniques collections. That’s just not the same.
I know these CCC refreshes are old, but I’m grateful to now discover them!
Great work. This is how many, many James Bond setups were done before the advent of CGI.