1/12th scale 'working' Fridge!

The partner to my previous make; this didn't evolve quite as smoothly as its predecessor!

While made nearly entirely from styrene, a few more interesting bits and pieces came into play as it went along.

I made the main structure from normal white styrene but the shelves were composed of clear styrene with some nicely textured plastic from some rather delicious Dutch Waffles I had bought earlier that da - oh, this is amazing, I've just realised I can activate italics as I type by hitting Ctrl I. Italics on, italics off! Shiny. :D

Anyway, I dichlo'd the plastic on and although it went a bit opaque I really liked the effect.

 

I really fancied making some little drawers to go at the bottom for keeping salady stuff in them but in the end I didn't need to as I already had some ready made with very little alteration needed.

Can you guess what they are yet?

No?

Pill boxes!

I got a couple of them from the pound shop a while ago and although you have to sacrifice a couple if you want individual boxes (they all share sides) they're the ideal size for keeping small things in and remarkably, fitted perfectly into the fridge first time!

I had already sanded one of them as I'd been intending to paint it and needed to give the paint something to adhere to so I gave the other a once over with sandpaper to match before cutting the lids off and giving them both cut-out 'handles' at the front. 

Alas, I became so engrossed in construction that I neglected to take any more photos of it in progress! Suffice to say, my attempt to make a glazed door failed in spectacular fashion to the point that I literally threw it across my desk in disgust and started again with a solid door. This one is a bit wonky and I know I should have really spent a little more time on it but it's only held on with double-sided tape so I can easily redo it if I feel like changing it.

I put in another LED which, although it doesn't light it up as much as the microwave's one did, it does give it a really nice cold glow which was exactly what I'd hoped. As before the 'switch' is activated by touching two wires together which doesn't look fantastic but I managed to hide most of it at the back and when the door's open you can't see any of it so it doesn't really matter.

Ignore the massive wad of double-sided tape on the door - it's the only way I can get the damn thing to stay closed at the moment! XD



Lisa's nice healthy salad contrasts somewhat with David's plate of leftover pizza...

The front is decorated with a few 'magnets' and photos along with a yearly calendar for putting all the show dates and holidays in so no one forgets.



The two finished appliances.



So yeah, I'm pretty chuffed with both of them!

Any other suggestions for stuff?

1/12th scale 'working' Microwave!

Yes, I know, just a bit random when you're more used to me making horsey stuff but, in my defence, I've been meaning to make this for a good long while now and I was hit with a sudden burst of inspiration this morning, lol.

I intend to make another roombox at some point with a big tv, comfy sofa and a mini fridge/sink/microwave/kitchen area so that people can come in from the cold and have their lunch or watch the eventing when it's on etc and being able to reheat last night's cold pizza would be a godsend in winter! While I'm still no further forward on actually getting the roombox itself, I see no reason why I can't make things for it in advance! :P

To begin with I made the obligatory google image search for a suitable microwave to construct. in hindsight I could have probably just photographed the one in the kitchen but meh, lazyness. :P I printed it onto some nice shiny photo paper, cut it out and took away the window part as I would be replacing it with tracing paper afterwards.

Double-sided tape ftw! :D

After a moment of epic facepalming when I remembered that the door and buttons were supposed to be separate I started on construction. My styrene handling skills were VERY rusty and it took several attempts to make a box that actually had reasonably straight edges.

It was after this that I decided to take a risk and make it awesome.

LEDSSSSSSS!

I bought a box of 'flameless candles' from the £1 shop before Christmas with the intention of using the LEDs for something and this seemed to be the perfect thing as the space in the box that in the real thing would be full of electronic components was now filled with...slightly smaller electronic components. I used the battery it came with but completed the circuit with a length of very fine wire. I taped everything together as I wasn't sure if it'd still work if I glued it but the connection seems strong for now and as the eventual lid was just glued card I can easily remove it and fix it if it dies. The 'switch' is just the two ends of wire sticking out the sides that can be pushed together. I probably should have moved them to the back so they aren't visible but I honestly didn't think of that at the time!

I made the hinge joint out of double-sided tape which works well but could very well break in the future. I didn't have any actual hinges small enough and my attempts at making my own ended up in the bin so this will have to do for now.

The lovely interior texture came from an unlikely source - a Christmas card!

The handle was something of an afterthought when I realised that the door shut flush with the frame and I'd need something to open it with other than fingernails which ruined the finish. It's a piece of copper wire with the ends flattened and glued onto it. It's a little fragile but as it's not a prop I'll be using often and can be easily re-glued if necessary I think it'll be ok.

So you see, you put in your food...

...punch in the time and cook away!

...and just for the lulz...

Here it is working - it's looking a bit out of place there but I thought it could live beside the kettle for now. :P

Unicorn Maquette Progress

I spent the entirety of today working on the maquette.

It started off ok but gradually, the more I worked on it, the less happy I became.

 

As was pointed out to me in my last post about it, the cheeks were off, as was most of the anatomy and especially the eyes so I made a point of adjusting them first.

(and yes, those are pistachio nut casings standing in for ears, lol)

I reshaped the mouth as it wasn't nearly goaty enough and refined the eyelids more, as well as making him some better ears.

Although I liked the way he looked now, he just wasn't quite right. He looked far more like a deer than a goat and that wasn't what I wanted. Certainly, I wanted a deer-like influence but not that much!
People in the class reckoned he looked like a Llama from the front too. XD

I got myself really quite frustrated as it seemed like no matter what I did, it just wasn't saying 'unicorn' to me.

I really liked the profile of the goat as it fitted in with the tapestry Unicorns but my sculpture didn't look much like either!

Then it hit me.

The nose was too roman!

It was like being hit by a ton of bricks, suddenly it worked!

I altered the positioning of the ears as well and then set to work on the horn. I may broaden it a little tomorrow and tweak the texturing a bit as it doesn't look like the horn of a goat or indeed, the antler of a deer - more akin to an antelope.

I ran out of time to finish his mane but this is how he looked as I left him this afternoon.

I'm really, really pleased and I'm going to see if I can possibly cast him if I have time as I'd really love to have him on the wall above my desk and as it's plasticine I can't bake it or cure it in any way.

Here's to further progress!

EG out!

OC Fanmixes!

I've been working on these for a few weeks now and these two at least are more or less finished. They're just a couple of playlists that I think reflect the personalities or histories of some of my RP characters but they're good to listen to if I need inspiring - especially Kes' as it's mostly instrumental.

The descriptions kind of work as a narrative to the mix...kind of. XD I'd be interested to see if anyone can guess which tracks represent what moments actually! (although the track names are probably fairly self explanatory, lol)
I went into a little more detail with Skai as I've gone on about Kes rather a lot so it's probably already old news, lol.

Oh and click on the images to see them full size on my DeviantArt gallery - I finished them the other day. :D

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Kes Varin's Mix

Kes, - or KE5VRN as he is officially known by the Syndicate - awoke to the world as an adult after only seven years of growth in a tank. He was developed, along with several hundred other Pilot drones, to fly ships more effectively than non specialised humans. He had no real knowledge of normal human behaviour, only the basics were ever explained to him as he had only one job and that didn't involve socialisation. The first year of his existence out of the tank was spent training and undergoing tests before he was finally allowed to take control of a ship. He took to flying instinctively, as he was intended to and discovered what it felt like to feel pure joy and exhilaration. However, he soon found himself questioning his identity and role in the world around him, but it worried him that none of the other drones seemed to realise what they were and that he was the only one who did. He kept these thoughts to himself as he was all too aware of what happened when you stepped out of line and stood up to authority. This changed when he met Lix, the AI of the [i]Elixir[/i], the ship he would go on to pilot in the years to come. She treated him as an individual, as he did her and the two of them grew close, eventually falling in love. They both hated the way they were being used by the Syndicate but knew there was nothing that could be done the way things were. The turning point came when the [i]Elixir[/i] was attacked out of the blue by an unknown enemy, releasing a virus into the system and rendering her inoperable. After a fierce battle, the captain issued a evacuation order which included everyone, including the Pilot. Kes defied a direct order - the first time he'd ever done it - and refused to leave his seat as he believed he could still save her. At that point Lix sent an energy pulse through him, knocking him unconscious and simultaneously uploading a copy of her own program into his brain, possibly as a way to save him as she knew they'd never kill him if he had such a valuable AI encoded into his port. (Kes doesn't know this however, he is still under the impression that the captain, who never liked him, did it for his own purposes.) He woke up a few hours later on a communal escape pod, just in time to see the ship finally destroyed via a video feed. He was devastated and, grief stricken and overwhelmed by the amount of data streaming through his head, he managed to escape the Syndicate when he landed and downloaded Lix into a data pod which he wore around his neck from then on. He spent the next few years trying to survive, still grieving...right up until he joined the crew of a little hybrid shuttle and started to feel the spark of hope once again. The first five tracks are of his 'birth' and awakening to the world as written -here-

• 1. Apple Chamber - Jesper Kyd
• 2. Welcome To The Real World - Don Davis
• 3. I Swallowed Hard Like I Understood
• 4. Help, I'm Alive - Metric
• 5. Facial Reconstruction - Jack Wall
• 6. Follow Me (Instrumental) - Muse
• 7. Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
• 8. Northern Lights - Cider Sky
• 9. Electric Feel - MGMT
• 10. Strict Machine - Goldfrapp
• 11. Untouched - The Veronicas
• 12. The Fleets Arrive - Clint Mansell
• 13. Scheduled For Deletion - Jesper Kyd & Lorne Balfe
• 14. An Unsubtle Approach - Jesper Kyd & Lorne Balfe
• 15. Love and Loss - Two Steps From Hell
• 16. Labored and Lost - - Jesper Kyd & Lorne Balfe
• 17. An End Once and For All - Clint Mansell
• 18. The Feeling of Losing Everything - Archive
• 19. I Was Lost Without You - Clint Mansell
• 20. Old Souls - Hans Zimmer
• 21. She Is The Sunlight - Trading Yesterday
• 22. Back Home - Nitin Sawhney
• 23. Nocturne - Daft Punk
• 24. Save me - Globus
• 25. Broken - Lifehouse
• 26. The Revelation - Jesper Kyd & Lorne Balfe
• 27. No Death in Love - Nitin Sawhney
• 28. Holding On & Letting Go - Ross Copperman

 ---------------------------------------------  

Skai Azzura's Mix

    

Skai grew up on the desert planet of Asidura and always dreamed of travelling offworld and seeing the stars. Her dad had never left the continent, let alone the planet but her mum, who had died when Skai was very young, was born offworld and passed her sense of adventure and stubbornness onto her daughter who spent her childhood hoping that something would one day allow her to leave. When her cousin gave her the opportunity to travel around with him for a year she leapt on it and started planning her future as a trader/part time smuggler. She got into a few skirmishes here and there including one particularly horrible incident with the Syndicate which left her with scars, both physical and mental. It didn't put her off however, far from it, it just strengthened her resolve to make her dream happen and gained her a reputation back home for being someone you really didn't want to mess with. When she got back she threw herself into her work; repairing ships and racing speeders to earn enough money for her to buy passage off the world. Her cousin then gave her his ship, the then unnamed [i]Helios[/i], when he upgraded to something a bit more classy and Skai turned her attention onto adapting it for her own purposes. Unfortunately this got her into quite a bit of debt with a local gangster but she dealt with that in her own inimitable way. (in other words she legged it and hoped for the best. :P) Soon afterwards she managed to acquire herself a crew which she quickly grew very attached to and they headed off in search of adventure - all the while doing their damnedest to avoid detection by the Syndicate.

• 1. Touch the Sky - Julie Fowlis
• 2. Paradise - Coldplay
• 3. I See The Light - Mandy Moore/Zachary Levi
• 4. Merry Go Round - Tanner Patrick
• 5. Big Bar Fight - Greg Edmonson
• 6. Burning In The Skies - Linkin Park
• 7. I'm Your Captain - Grand Funk Railroad
• 8. Me and My Gang - Rascal Flats
• 9. Pop That Lock - Adam Lambert
• 10. Yes - Coldplay
• 11. Romani Holiday (Antonius Remix) - Hans Zimmer
• 12. Final Hour - X-Ray Dog

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I'll get Ruby and Bacchus' up here eventually. :D

Sloths and Samples

I had a very odd but satisfying day today.

I was volunteering at GMRC again after a good month or so of not being able to make it in due to one thing or another. Instead of painting rocks again however I was tasked with something else entirely.
There's a display planned for Kelvingrove in the next couple of months and some of the specimens needed a bit of a clean before they could be installed soooo...

I spent most of the day giving this lovely little Three Toed Sloth a bit of a beauty treatment!

 



I forgot to take a 'before' photo but it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference, these things look grubby even when they actually are clean. XD She (I think it was a she anyway) was mounted in 1879 so she's looking pretty damn good for her age even if this photo makes her look awful!

Barbara got to do the same but with this gorgeous little creature; a Kinkajou!





I also took some very useful reference photos of some deer and antelopey things in the store for use in my Unicorn project which are sure to come in handy for when I need to sculpt things from different angles.

 

I jokingly asked Laurence whether he had a Unicorn hidden away somewhere that I could 'borrow' for college and then had a bit of a lol when I found this next to the Narwhal tusks.

Apparently the Learning and Access people had been taking a school group round. XD




I also managed to finish the Adder base after months of waiting for the wiring to be done so I could actually install the snake onto it.

I'm really rather pleased with this one actually and it really makes me want to get some small specimens for myself.

(Not that I'd actually have the space for them to sit in my room though, lol, nearly every horizontal surface is covered in crap!)





After lunch Dad informed me that there was a surplus of bits of fabric going spare in the Activity room as they were having a clearout and wanted people to come in and take anything they liked for hobbies etc and asked if I'd like to have a look. Naturally I said yes - I can't resist the opportunity to have a good rummage through a pile of free fabric! - and came away with what felt like most of it. Some of it I know I probably won't use any time soon but it was so NICE and as anything not taken by the end of the week was due to be chucked out I really was doing them a favour by taking it.



I now have a whole drawer almost overflowing with fabric samples from the internet and this kind of thing - I should really get round to doing a post on them actually, I've made some nice things from a few of them.

Anyway, tomorrow will hopefully bring some progress in terms of getting things done so keep your fingers crossed! :D

EG out!