Prolific model-maker Karen Bones has this week completed a miniature version of King Tut's Wah Wah Hut to add to her ever-growing collection of scaled-down Glasgow landmarks.
The talented visual artist, whose real name is Karen Bonella and who sells her creations on her Bricks & Bones website, recently unveiled her take on the Barrowlands Ballroom and has previously created models of other well-known buildings and places of entertainment around the city and further afield.
Made from mostly cardboard and foam, Karen's King Tut's model features the entire townhouse above the basement venue and comes complete with steps, railings, realistic lighting and the 300-capacity venue's iconic signage.
READ MORE: Talented Glasgow artist creates stunning miniature of city's iconic Barrowlands
Look a little closer and you can even spot items of furniture from someone's front room through the bay windows of the townhouse above King Tut's.
The St Vincent Street venue holds a special place in Karen's heart. The Larbert and Glasgow-based designer spent much of her youth attending gigs at King Tut's and met her now husband - a stage crew member at the venue - there. The pair even held their wedding reception at the live music spot.
Speaking to Glasgow Live, Karen revealed that she doesn't use any precise measurements to create her impressive models and simply works out the proportions using her intuition.
She said: "This one took about a couple of weeks all in, but was obviously not quite as detailed as some of my previous efforts.
"The Barras one was difficult due to the individual lights that make up the stars - that really took a lot of time, whereas King Tut's was literally a single lighting source stuck under the eaves.
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"This is the third one I've done that's had a basement level with a building on top of the actual venue, so it was quite straightforward. Tut's doesn't really have that much of a frontage, it's essentially a big, famous sign, which I knew I'd need to light up.
"My process is always to take a photo of the venue I'm going to do, then simply reduce it down and kinda work out the width compared to the height to keep it in proportion. There is a bit of geometry involved, but it is pretty much done by eye."
King Tut's has been a mainstay throughout Karen's life and it's still a venue that she loves to visit it to this day.
She joked that her husband - who continues to work part-time at the venue - was starting to get a wee bit fed up of seeing his workplace at home after finishing a shift.
"My husband was tutting a huffing a lot," laughed Karen. "It's essentially his work that I've been creating and he was having to look at it constantly.
"What's really nice though is that he was working on Sunday night and everybody there was talking about the model and saying how much they loved it.
"I've been around the music scene my whole life, and King Tut's has always been an important place for me.
"It's unique in that the bands are right there in front of you, it's really accessible and intimate. The artists are not superstars away up in the gods; they're in arms reach.
"When I met my husband he was stage crew there and we wanted to do something different when we got married. I thought 'no way we can have a wedding reception in King Tut's', but there were no gigs there that night.
"We had four bands playing and couldn't have asked for a better place to have the reception. It's a place that holds a lot of special memories."
Karen's King Tut's model has proved popular with her followers on Facebook and has even earned platitudes from DF Concerts CEO and venue promoter Geoff Ellis, who gave it his thumbs up on Instagram.
Established in 1990, King Tut's has hosted countless live acts over the past few decades, including Radiohead, The Killers, Juliette Lewis, Pulp, My Chemical Romance, Florence & The Machine, Biffy Clyro, Manic Street Preachers, Snow Patrol, Frightened Rabbit and Paolo Nutini.
The venue was famously the place where music mogul Alan McGee discovered future stadium rock giants Oasis and signed them on the spot. May 30, 2023, marks the 30th anniversary of that legendary night.
You can view more of Karen's brilliant creations here.
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