If you’re an older nerd of a certain vintage, there’s a good chance you remember either Polly Pocket, a range of toy dollhouses built into cases that looked like makeup compacts, or Mighty Max, a structurally identical toy line with themes of monsters, fantasy, and sci-fi. The overlap between Polly Pocket / Mighty Max kids and Warhammer collectors must be huge. Some nerds have started to combine the two ranges to create uniquely tiny model dioramas – and we’ve found a great example by Travis of Maryland.
The base of this conversion is the 1989 Wild Zoo World Polly Pocket playset, a cheerful yellow and lavender animal home with jungle vines dangling from the huge tree built into the roof of the compact. Travis (no surname given) has turned it into a luridly-shaded Dankhold, one of the squalid underground caverns that the Gloomspite GitzAge of Sigmar army lurk in when they’re not pillaging the surface world.
The landscape remodelling is mostly achieved using modelling putty, but writing about it on Reddit, Travis says “I underestimated how much the putty would weigh down the upper half of the diorama – the plastic hinge can only take so much”. He “started experimenting with wall spackle as a lightweight alternative”, and “found it was pretty great for rock texture, but less effective for use as a super smooth gap filler”.
The models come from a variety of places. The squiggly beasts are largely taken from the elaborate Gobbapalooza kit, while the individual goblins are from Games Workshop’s long out of production Warmaster range of 10mm scale fantasy figures. The paunchy goblin reclining in the throne in the hut “received some surgery to move his hands and full sculpting for his lower half” – a very tricky operation on a figure less than 10mm tall!
The idea of Polly Pocket / Mighty Max / Warhammer crossovers was popularized by ex-Warhammer TV presenter Louise Sugden via her YouTube channel Rogue Hobbies. She released a video in December 2025 showing how she turned the Mighty Max set ‘Wolfship 7′ into a Space Wolves’ command bridge. Travis says “a massive shout out to Rogue Hobbies for coming up with the idea!”
“I learned a ton in the process of making this and can’t wait to apply those lessons into another diorama one day”, Travis says. Given the tiny size of this one, he should be able to fit a few on his shelf!
If you’ve got fond memories of Polly Pocket, Mighty Max, or other very small toys, or you want to show off a gorgeous diorama of any scale, come and say hi in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
