I'm thinking ahead to the time I work on the study / library / workspace in the WAHM. I really wanted the scientific gentleman of the house to have a nice terrestrial globe (among his other instruments) and decided to refinish a store-bought one to look more 17th century. STARTING POINT Here's the 3 inch (7.5 cm) globe and stand I bought -- it's by Euro Minis and it's dirt cheap :) Typical faux-mahogany stand, and a pretty garish globe, but the basics are usable. INSPIRATION! Here's my inspiration -- two 17th century globes and a Mercator projection circa 1665. One thing I love about miniatures (particularly working with a specific historical period) is how much I learn as I go along. At the time of this Mercator map they knew where western Australia was, something I didn't know. So recreating the inspirational globes led me to this process: 1. Take the globe apart (this was surprisingly easy, besides it's fun sort of wrecking stuff :)). 2. Paint the wood of the base a combination of burnt and raw umber to mimic walnut. Paint the legs black to mimic ebony. Give it two coats of satin varnish. 3. Paint the globe's support brass/bronze. 4. Repaint the globe itself, which took a while :) I painted the whole globe a dirty parchment colour, then roughed in the continents using the Mercator projection as a guide with a darker colour. Then I did a more detailed outline of the continents with a black pen, and finally cleaned up the sea/land meeting points and sketched in some "lettering". 5. Reassemble the globe, with axis straight up and down (as in reference images of globes). Since I had to break the original wooden stick that held the globe in place in its support, I used a length of brass wire as a replacement and I added a little flat brass spacer and bead just for detail. And here's the finished piece!