LOOK AT THEM ALL!

Final edit

Assemble the troops part.2

and similar in idea to the previous post this is how we set up what will eventually be what i consider to be the exterior  set , and again this isn't its final composition as a few more things need to be added , adjusted and so on and so forth , but its cool to get an idea about how its is all coming together. 

ITS ALL WHITE

Assemble the Troops part.1

its coming very close to the end and we have achieved some brilliant things with the set building , and have thus started to arrange all of our different elements to see how they look together , although obviously this wont be the final arrangement as we will need to to be on a rig and the lighting will be a tad more atmospheric ect , but i think its looking pretty good at the moment , my favourite set of the two is definitely this one , altho this one is quite a bit further on then the other set 

BACK IT UP

The cut outs from the laser cutter that i sorted out last week have now been given backing ,  meaning for the first time they are able to stand on their own stands... IM SO DAMN PROUD! , this is again a very simple method of cutting out a number of small triangles out of thin misc wood and gluing them to the backs of the cut outs , that and the fact that they where cut out from a 3mm MDF that had a white coating layer on one side means we don't have to give them a base coat ...woooopeeee

Board walk , Base paint and a fallen empire

Below are some of the pieces of the board walk that will be used in the exterior no mans land set , around where the horse is going to drown in a crater I think , these are very simply to make , simply cut out of a very soft wood ( balsa wood) which is good to use when making such small objects as its light and you can hot gun glue it together easily , which is what we did , and then a basic white base coat has been added

along with the board walk a number of other things have also been given a base coat , and also the metal girder has multiplied , although the plan was to use a gel flex mould to create more instead we have just gone with multiple copies made from simple MDF and then the white base coat added , and along with that the large scale tree has been given a base coat , and like the smaller scale trees it was first given a layered coat of PVA glue to help the paint cling to it , rather then straight on to the newplast that doesn't work particularly well

Corpses and Barb wire

More corpes have been moulded out of NewPlast , which is good as i don't think we could survive on my model alone , its always good to have a bit of diversity., along with that we have been making some barbwire for the set which is a annoying , yet slightly therapeutic process , of wrapping wire around something then stretching it out then kind of wrapping it around again ,  which seems to give some quite good results for this miscellaneous bit of old school warfare  backdrop. and i might say an awful lot safer then us just getting real barbwire as being a tad clumsy feel i might have cut my self a few times

More props and that

below are some more props and that , that have been made for our jabberwocky set , the first two images are a bit odd looking , then again so are most things we produce , but to explain the first two images  these seemingly simple blocks  will become props for inside the craters / in the trench set and will be canteens and miscellaneous world war 1 type containers , simply add a layer of newplast over the top and add a bit of detail , which begs the question why they have been texture painted... 

 This image is quite obvious once you know whats going on , this is possibly going to be used as a master for a mould for corrugated metal sheets that would be running down the side of the trenches , similar to what we did with the straws on the side of the trench set ( which actually worked rather well) just scaled down a bit as it will be used in the background not the foreground.

The tree is nearly finished! , and its looking bloody awesome , this pieces of lovely wood and newplast craft will be used during a close up shot where the young soldier leans against the tree to have himself a cigarette.

This rather odd looking image is the start of what will one day hopefully be the start of our silhouette scene , in which dead soldiers bodies are turned into lunch for some hungry little animals ...RATS and Carrion birds

below is another beautiful bit of spray painting done by yours truly , its really fun to do  , but the plan to coat the tree in a layer of PVA glue and then spray paint it worked like a charm , and now we have another tree similar to this and then the close up/ enlarged version to get done as well , but its good to see that this one worked so we will have no issues with doing the others ...except maybe that we have run out of white spray paint.

just a picture of the soon to be wires pipes , kinda like guts to be below the one day multiple metal ribs , have been dry painted just to add a little something to them , it really does work

macgyver of wood work part 2 .....the failure

in the previous entry i reminisced on how i had  macgyvered my self an encasing for the master of what  would later be a well used mould , alas counting on my implied mediocre effort to complete this task when i went back to the plastics and resin area to actually make the mould , i was informed by the magnificent and ever helpful keith the technician that the box around the master for the mould was sub-standard ( my words not his) and wouldn't survive the liquified gel flex.... so back to the drawing board to create another box , his time with a thicker and sturdier wood so that i can get some screws in to it , as if you try that with 6mm MDF usually it just breaks...that and its edges need to be at least 12mm from whats being moulded , which wasn't the case in the box's first incarnation.

macgyver of wood work

In the image below is the piece of the set that i was talking about where we would make multiple copies and they would look like mechanical ribs ( kind of) but to manufacture  a number of these with the same process of the first would be a hell of a lot of effort , so we are sorting out to make a gel flex mould... this is pretty cool as we don't have to pay for any materials as when we are done we can just give the mould back and they melt it back don and use it again.

but obviously to make the mould we needed a box to surround the thing we are making the mould of ..In steps Kane (me..) the over willing to play with wood and high powered saws and hammers . So i went to work making a some what shoddy macgyver style encasing for this soon to be mould and the images below are the 10 minutes of mediocre craftsmanship.

  

it was like a freaking mini james bond moment!!

You may not be able to tell from the images below that i have taken but the laser cutter is bloody awesome , its like that laser they tried to kill old school james bond with , except my 3mm MDF didn't manage to escape and defeat the bad guy an bone some babe , instead it just sat there getting the crap cut out of it , luckily for me i took those 4 pieces instead of 3 , as there was a slight difficulty with the first cut as these pieces of MDF have a kinda of plastic coating and the technician didn't compensate for this the first time round so on some of the cuts the laser didn't make it all the way through , but was sorted by the time we did the second cut so its all good they all came out quite well , using a laser cutter with a illustrator files is far easier then trying to cut this stuff out by hand and looks far better....so its a BIG 10 out of 10 for the laser cutter , all i have to do now is sort them out so they are ready to be used in the background of our sets. 

The time is nearly upon us

excuse the fact that the images below are only a couple pictures of a few pieces of wood but its quite exciting as on friday the 6th i will be using the laser cutter for the first time , well its not like i'm operating the laser or anything crazy like that more i will get the designs that i have arranged cut out of these 4 pieces of 3mm MDF , even though there are only 3 files i have got ready , the fourth is incase anything goes wrong wooo! ...also i got the wood today