- Category: Props
I love the why these turned out. They were a little bit of work, but i think they look amazing. The actual process was fairly simple, it was just time consuming.
First, i got a 4ft x 8ft sheet of 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch styrofoam.
Then i took some store bought tombstones
and traced them out on the styrofoam sheet.
In order to get a richer 3-dimensional look, i cut out side and tops and bottoms also. Looking back, it mightve just been easier to cut the same shape and layer it instead.
Everything was glued together using styrofoam glue and then glued to a flat base to stand up.
Next it was time to add some character. So i took various tools, mostly a thin file, and made cracks and symbols in various places on them..
Once that was complete, i took brush cleaning (mostly a very strong acetone cleaner) and lighting dabbed, dropped and gouged various bits and pieces. Then i ran it along all the cracks and symbols made by the file earlier. Next i ran it along every single edge and corner to smooth it out and wear it down. finally i "washed" the whole thing in a very VERY light coat of brush cleaning, EVERYWHERE. This got rid of the styrofoam look and gave it more of a stone like texture.
After all that, i took a mixture of joint compound, grey acrylic paint and a LOT of sand and and diluted that with a fair bit of water. Then i brushed a light coat of this mixture all over every surface, paying attention to hide all the seams.
after that dried, i took the grey acrylic paint and dry brush it over everything. The i took some black and dried brushed that in select areas to add depth and shadow. Lastly i took some white and dry brushed that along edges to highlight them.
- Category: Props
The idea here was to make some lighting fixtures from scratch that reminded me of something you might see in 1950s science fiction.
i started out with a light socket
which i painted with rust-oleum galaxy. Galaxy is a pretty thick black spray paint that has a texture to it, and a little glitter.
I also did the same to some brass water pipes and fittings.
Then i screwed the fittings together and threaded the cord through it
Finally, i added an "edison-style" light LED light bulb to it
- Category: Props
These were made in order hide my speakers.
i started out with concrete forms again, cut in half. i didnt want the final prop to have the forms in them, and i wanted to be able to re-use the forms.
A quick test fit showed that the 16 inch forms would be fine.
First, i cut out 4 bases from luan to hold eveything, this would protect the speaker from anything on the ground that was wet.
Then the forms were covered in plastic wrap (forgot to take a picture, so here is a later picture showing the plastic wrapped form):
foam was sprayed to just the base
A spot about 6 inches from the bhttom was choosen, and the bottom was cut and sanded to that height. In addition, 4 holes were made with a dowel. The dowels were placed in different places on each set. This was to "key" the tops and bottoms together.
Then plastic wrap was placed over the dried foam,
Next the entire bottom was covered in plastic wrap, and the form (still in plastic wrap) was placed back in the bottom. The dowels were then placed back in their holes with some plactic wrap and petroleum jelly added to make sure the bottom was sealed against adding more foam. Dont put jelly on the dowel, as much as possible. The part sticking up will get covered in foam, and you want it to stick to that to become to become unremovable keys.
With all this ready, more foam was added to build it up, i tried to get to near the top of the form. During the spraying process, i sprayed a lot of water all over the the form's plastic wrap and the outside of the new foam as it was coming out. Water helps the foam to dry quicker, which was needed to help it to stay to high up on the form
During the spraying process, water was sprayed all over. Water causes the spray foam to dry faster, and was necessary to get it to stay on the higher sections without falling over.
After all this dried, the forms were removed from the centre by sheer brute force. We found that we would cut a hole near the top and use a stick as leverage to force the form out.
Next the top and bottom piece was carved and sanded together as "one" piece. A few things here, the foam was craved to give it a "flatter" appearance and a more uniform thickness. this exposed parts that were not as thick and gave it a more weather bark appearance. A file was taken a used to gouge vertical lines all around the stump. The unevenness of the top was left alone.
A whole was cut out of the bottoms in back to allow access to the speakers back panel.
Another whole was cut on front on the top for the speaker to play through without being muffled.
Then "monster mud" was added to the entire outside. The mud consists of "roughly" 1 part acrylic paint and 5 parts joint compound, and a lot of sand "to taste". i can remember, nor did measure, how much sand i added, but it was a fair amount. Since the paint is so diluted, it does lighten it up significantly. The colour you choose is not super important, as you usually paint over it.
in this case, i had enough of the brown paint i was going to use, to use on the mud also.
It is important to do the top and the bottom separately and let them dry separately, or else they will become one piece when the mud dries.
After everything was dried, i painted the whole thing in a shade of brown, purposefully leaving unpainted spots.
Then i added black paint to random spots
These looks fantastic in the dark lighting and the audio sounded great, and not muffled at all.
- Category: Props
For this build, I wanted something that reminded me of an old science fiction mad scientist laboratory wall. I started with a rough sketch on paper
I wouldnt be able to fit an entire 4ftx8ft sheet of plywood in my car to transport this, so i opted to cut it into quarters and went from there.
I used various pieces from the hardware store, such as copper ties and valves. i also spray painted PVC pipes a nice metallic colour, and the PVC connectors got a rose gold paint.
I added some steampunked lights i made out of brass fittings and then sprayed painted the whole thing with chrome
Unfortunately, i forgot to take pictures of the finished prop.