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Classic cars, old movies and the magic of Houdini all brought to life



  • After 25 years of ‘braces’, this TV cameraman has regained his creative urge: ‘I make models because I like to keep playing and dreaming’

  • His photorealistic models represent animated scenes and short stories shortened in “3D frames”.

  • Inner inspiration, light and framing are the keys that bring his creations to life

Luc Delveco or Joyful Magnolia, as everyone in the world knows him, makes models. more concretely, diorama, a type of model that displays framed figures and objects in an environment to represent a scene. Luke’s dioramas are truly amazing, little parts of a frozen story a movement stationary. But in fact, it does something more important than that: Keep playing and dreaming.

Juan Luis Toro, the real name behind the artists, was born in 1960 in Madrid. Now, 63 years later, he spends much of his free time at the He unleashed that artistic vein that he had developed in his childhood. You remember that it was a happy time surrounded by an environment that favored play and creativity. His father was a self-taught musician, his mother painted, and his grandfather ran an auto body shop, back in “a time when everything was done by hand”. He was his grandfather’s favorite grandson. This will He usually brings it to his workshopHe was allowed to play while watching him paint and repair cars. It was all “stay inside” and Turbulent and creative character modeling which was reflected first in the demos and later in the music.

However, due to life’s circumstances, you sometimes “lose yourself” as you surround yourself with people. And that’s what happened to him. At the age of 16, he made the last model of his childhoodA military model of a tank. “It was very nice, but I didn’t like war, so I decided to stop doing it,” he explains. There he decided to try music for a while and learned to sing and play the guitar as his father had done. But then came a time, with the responsibilities of adulthood and marriage and the passage of time, “You kind of forget who you are.”

“I’m so clear we’re all still the kids we once were, but we forget about it. We forgot about playing and started taking life seriously.He reflects. During that time, nearly 25 years old, he put his passion for gaming and creativity on hold, in what he describes as “an arc in my life.” The arc ended when he was over 50, when he divorced his wife And he rediscovered his “way of expression.”

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Create something that brings you out

After gradually regaining the space, time and freedom that daily life takes from you, Luke He returned to what pleased him in his childhood. to those models that allow him to continue to have fun, because “it’s a world that allows me to dream and do what I want, it’s so free”; and that at the same time they remind him of “those people who looked after me and encouraged me” when he was young.

In this sense, he notes, “It’s amazing how plastic the brain is. You throw yourself away for 25 years doing nothing, and when you come back, the old and interesting stuff pops up again.” naturally, It takes practice and effort. But in the first place An interest in creating something that “gets out of you.” And it is that all models of Locke are invented by him, and not copied from reality. In gratitude for his grandfather and his workshop, he decided Start by making models with classic cars. The starting premise is simple: take car cloneanyone “from the invention of the automobile until the ’80s”, puts it on a plane, and from there, Start by trying to create an environment.

“I love the American aesthetic, rock rollJazz, the 40s, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, urban aesthetics, old cars … “, Locke says about the reasons that inspire him. Except for the car, which can take a long time, Everything else he doesUsing all kinds of materials – metals, cardboard, methacrylates… – and tools, as well as special paints for models. “Even when you see shelves with bottles, I do them all by hand, one by one,” he says.

The final scale of these creations is usually quite large, since “I start and I can’t stop.” One of them, and it’s one of the most detailed and was at the Classic Car Show last year, It weighs about 100 kilograms and is 1.5 meters wide, 1 meter long and 60 cm high.. Currently, this model is for sale, although it must first undergo a restoration due to the problem of overheating of the LEDs.

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Light, movement and framing

And these are the lights A staple of Locke’s compositions. “My models can be seen day and night, however They are particularly nocturnal“, he confirms. Thanks to his work as a television cameraman, He controls the backstage lighting. A rarity in the world of dioramas, where “there are extraordinary people, but they don’t light up their scenes”, gives Locke’s work a unique quality.

For him it is necessary to highlight the forms, since It allows you to “go ahead”, experience “the mystery that the lights give you”. This lighting can be electric or natural, such as sunrise and sunset. And it is that Locke likes to finish his works, and then “blend them into real landscapes” by playing with perspective. For this, he himself is responsible for photographing his models.

“I take pictures Only with my mobile phonewithout any kind of post-production,” he explains, and these are current cell phone cameras Provides great depth of field Automatically, it is necessary to give the images realism and that it “does not show that the object in the foreground is a toy”. When they’re done, Locke puts them out on the street, steps into the mannequins, “as if he were another character,” and, Alternating with different approaches and framingHe photographs it in harmony with the environment, with its streets, trees, mountains or whatever each place has to offer. Its goal is not to take a good photo, technically speaking, but to “take a good shot”, to capture the moment that turned into a “3D frame”.

literary workshops, Galleries and sales

This is Luke’s big obsession Their models convey a scene, telling their own story. Among the various galleries and places where he shows them, is one of his favorite activities Take them to writing workshops And she suggests that participants, based on some data, do so Imagine and tell what happens in itWhat happened before and what will be the result.

naturally, He sells it too. Price round Between 1,600 and 4,000 eurosDepending on the size and processing time – some require only 15 days of work, while others may take several months or even a year. “Aside from the fact that it’s very beneficial financially for me, I couldn’t keep them all (there are about 50),” he explains. Its main clients are individuals, but they have also been present for some time in Chano garage. It is a space for the display and sale of classic cars, located near Ciudad de la Imagen (Pozuelo), where it has begun to display its models to attract potential buyers.

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also, It also works on demand. As an example, the work he did for Houdini’s Magic Roomwho asked him to make a model of the legendary wizard. “It occurred to me to do a theatre, where Houdini hangs upside down trying to free himself from the chains while the audience watches from the booths,” Locke says. The room owner also bought a model to shoot a scene, which is another subject Luc works with, in this case from The Godfather.

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Looking to the future, Locke wants Continue to expand the causes of their creations. In addition to classic cars and filming movies listed under “The silence is rollingthinking of starting to develop Series about emblematic bars in MadridInterface design and vintage car placement in the foreground. He also wants to expand his online presence so that people can see his work. “The problem is how people see what you do, because you can’t leave it in a gallery forever, and they won’t come to see it in your house,” he says. There is also a disadvantage to it Parts must be securedbecause those who expose them are not willing to pay a possible deterioration.

Factual issues aside, the main thing is that Juan Luis, Luc Delveco, or Magnolia Joyful have done it. He regained his expression. “We give it up because of the kind of life we ​​lead, but we never should. To my daughter, who is now 20, I say it constantly: Never give up your way of expressing yourself, whoever you are or whatever you do, because it is what You on it,” says Locke, who, After 25 years, he expresses himself again by doing what he loves to do.

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