10 days ago, Rat and Cosette were well on their way to a waffle. Rat had read the recipe,

Rat and Cosette prepare the ingredients for a breakfast waffle

and Cosette was breaking an egg.

Cosette prepares the egg for her breakfast waffle

And then . . . everything just stopped, when the picture in my mind utterly failed to materialize in the real world.

First idea – I’ll have them cooking a waffle on my waffle maker. If you thought that might make a cute picture, it doesn’t. It was so obviously not cute that, after setting them up by the waffle maker, I didn’t even take a shot. I mean, maybe, if they were standing in it, but, obviously that’s far too dangerous a thing to have them do. So, anyway, ix-nay on the waffle aker-may.

Without the waffle maker, no waffles, but Rat had been looking at a waffle/pancake mix, so maybe they’d make pancakes in a skillet. Turns out, there is also nothing photogenic about small dolls and skillets. Again, after setting them up, I didn’t even bother to take a shot.

The actual not-taking-the-shot didn’t take a lot of time, but I had long periods between not taking a shot when I tried to figure out another plan. So, now, about a week has elapsed.

Next idea: Photoshop. Which seems absolutely ridiculous, since this is the one set of dolls who actually exist in a human scale world. But, well, I figured I’d try it anyway. The picture of the rat with the waffle on his head isn’t awful, I guess, but it just looks so obviously photo-shopped – the lighting is weirdly different on each element, the waffle seems far too perfect. Anyway, here’s a shot I actually took and spent a fair amount of time fiddling with before I threw it away.

I also fiddled around with having Cosette carrying a cup of coffee, but I didn’t do much with it. Here’s one of those shots:

If I were doing something with the shot, I would have straightened it up and put it on some kind of background but, really, I just couldn’t be bothered.

I tried balancing actual food substances on Rat’s head, but they were all too heavy and he just collapsed under the weight.

Finally, I got an idea. Not a brilliant idea, but one that turned out working. I have lots of tiny food in 1/4 scale size, include plates with pancakes and bacon. I can’t have a finished shot with the food in that scale, because I want them in the real world, but it turns out I can *photograph* the food in that scale, with it actually resting on Rat’s head, and then use photoshop to make it bigger.

So, that’s what I did. Here’s the way the actual setup looked:

Untouched original shot, basis for finished photo

Since the food is so light, they can both carry their pieces without falling over. Then, I enlarge the plate of food (for some reason, the tiny cup seemed fine as is – don’t ask me why), put a pattern on the flooring, tint Rat up a little bit, and play with the lighting. And, finally, I have what I’m looking for – Rat and Cosette and carrying food back to the two sleepyheads under the bed.

Elapsed time from deciding I wanted a waffle picture to actually having a pancake picture: 10 days. Actual time taking pictures: 1.5 hours.

Looking at the pictures now, I do actually prefer the way Rat looks in the obviously photoshopped picture, but I’m going to stop fiddling and move on to the next shot. [Update: Well, I guess I’m *not* going to stop fiddling. This morning I tried swapping out Rat – but once he was in the new picture, I didn’t actually think it *was* better. Here is the replacement shot I didn’t go with:

So *now* – all done, and ready to start photographing with the whole gang.