Guns and Lokis

(Apologies in advance to all the model horse people who subscribe to this blog - with college and stuff I haven't had time to do anything modelly in a while but hopefully that'll change in the next few months! :() Anyway, I'm in my third and final block of this year at college and out of the two projects we've got to do, the one I have the most control over (read, panic) is the prop one. In Block 2 we had to make a scale model of one of the workshops and design and create a set around it. The second years voted on them and the winning design would be scaled up and recreated in 1:1 in the workshop for the end of year show. My one didn't win (David's London Underground was insanely good!) but I was rather pleased with it nonetheless.

(apologies for the crappy phone photos - I've misplaced the really nice ones I had. :( ) Anyway, the upshot of it all was that for the prop project we had to make a handheld model with one or more moving parts that was related to either our own designs or the one we were making fullsize. I had originally wanted to make something from Assassin's Creed but settled for making a sci fi themed pistol instead as it was something I'd never done before so would provide an interesting challenge. (only to find out about a week after I'd started it that you could choose whatever you liked. >.<) The downside of this however is that what I know about guns could be written on the back of a stamp. XD I wanted something small, lightweight and quirky. I didn't want it to be based on anything in particular and I wanted it to light up in several places to imply that it was some kind of energy weapon. Once I had the concept worked out it was time to get technical...drawing. :P

Here's where it is as of this afternoon. I had the drawing photocopied so I could cut it out, mount it on some MDF and cut it out using the bandsaw. The cone was made from several layers of MDF and sanded half to death. It needs the end cut off as it's far too pointy but I'm happy with how it's looking thus far. The grip feels just right in my hand and although I've a long way to go, I'm feeling confident...ish. :P The cone part is going to be vac-formed with mesh added in the 'windows' and I'll eventually have some LEDs on a rotor inside so they'll spin and light up when the trigger's pulled...hopefully. XD The block on the side is going to pull back to reveal the 'power cells' (also LEDs)but I haven't worked out quite how I'm going to do that yet...

When we aren't making props we're working on turning the mini set design into a full size tunnel...which is a lot more complicated than you'd think. My group is in charge of the cladding (paint finishes, surfaces and tiles etc) which unfortunately requires that we manufacture 2,500 styrene tiles...by hand. O_O Last week the four of us managed to make about 800-odd in one go...as in the entire day.

It took ages and we were all thoroughly sick of the sight of styrene after a couple of hours. This was my pile at the end of the day. This week however there wasn't a tile to be seen as we'd used up all the styrene the previous week and the new stuff wouldn't be in for a while so instead Simon entrusted us with power tools... O_O I'd never used a jigsaw before then and I was really nervous that I'd make a terrible mess of it all but once I'd got used to the weight of the thing I found it strangely comfortable and hurrah, I still possess all of my fingers!

There's a story behind those gigantic arrows. When it was my turn to cut I doublechecked with Simon which line I was to follow as there was one that had to be spot on and I didn't want to screw it up. He pointed it out and then said 'Do you want me to draw an arrow?' and I said no, it was ok, but he put one in anyway and it soon became this recurring joke that each time it was my turn he'd draw on an even bigger arrow 'just in case you missed it'. XD Such a troll. In the end all was well and we managed to cut out all these pieces of MDF whch will go on provide support for the tunnel walls.

Outside college I've been busy too, this time in a much more arty capacity. I'm going to see 'Avengers Assemble' tomorrow and I'm ridiculously excited; I've been eagerly anticipating this film for years, due much in part to a certain character played by the lovely Tom Hiddleston, who goes by the name of Loki... I did this a few weeks back and then suddenly completed two more in quick succession. -Loki - Pencil- and -The Second Son- Here's a rather rubbish GIF of the most recent and arguably best, in varying stages of progress...

So yeah, a long and probably not very interesting post but hey, I'm nothing if not consistant. :P