Less Bangs but Bigger Bucks?

A November Update

(*) For a Who's Who see below.

You may have noticed that I’ve not got much in the way of model building done recently. That has something to do with the fact that I’m not only working with Tenth Planet Events signings and Doctor Who conventions these days but also Fantom Films as well. This has meant that I was at seven events over six weekends not leaving a lot of time for building work.  These are fun to do and if you’re into science fiction and fantasy, especially but not limited to Doctor Who then why not come along to an event. These are held in Barking, Chiswick, Newcastle, Peterborough, Slough and South London – so covering quite a few miles travelling as well. 

Also, if you do come along and would like me to bring a set of Karl books for you then drop me a line, because then I can offer them a special event price. You can find the next event I’ll be at featured in the right hand rail of this site.

That’s not say that I didn’t take time to do my Dagenham walkabout following the national celebration of my brother’s birthday. Ok, so maybe November 5^th has other significance as well which is why the fireworks are let off. It might have been because the date fell on a Thursday this year, that when I took the walk this year’s haul was incredibly small by comparison to previous years.  But before anyone starts to shout, I’m in total agreement that fireworks should be restricted, they do scare pets and wildlife and it is not fare on them at all, but whilst they are still sold I shall continue to round up what sticks I can to recycle into these buildings. All the frame work on the haunted house was built from the rocket sticks from the last couple of years.

Building work aside I am also dedicating a lot of time again to writing, working on the new project that has been in progress now for a year or so since Karl was completed. 

There are currently two volumes planned to the new series of books – I’ve given some hints out in the past but not going to reveal too much at the moment, only to say that I was very excited by one of the figures in the recent Lego Minifigure series that was released, you might be able to guess why from this photo.








(*) Seen here with Barbara Windsor, Ralph Watson, Andrew Hayden-Smith, Peter Purves, Jimmy Vee, Daphne Ashbrook, Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Bonnie Langford and Nicola Bryant.

Rubbish or Raw Material?

In Doctor Who – Pyramids of Mars, Sutekh tells the Doctor: ‘Your evil is my good.’ The same reversal of truth often stands with scratch building models.

You can spend a huge fortune in a model shop buying polystyrene strips and blocks, thin strips of wood or sheets of cardboard to use in the construction of the model in question, and then throw away exactly the same materials as rubbish the next day.

It’s no secret on here that I collect up old coffee sticks and firework sticks post Bonfire Night to use for the wooden planking and beams on my models instead of buying strips of balsa wood, but there are so many other raw materials for building that can be sourced cheaply or for free that can make this a very cost efficient hobby indeed.

My mind has sometimes been described as a scary place. I admit it can tick over slightly differently to many others. It has been known for its darker side, as you would know if you have read the Karl trilogy, but it also tries to see more than is obvious.  Hence any unusual packaging that comes my way is almost always sized up for its potential.

A colleague at work came back from vacation with some chocolaty treats to share. Very nice they were too. However my greater excitement came at the packaging, there I could see exactly what I needed to make more window panes or broken windows from. This is just the right sort of stiff plastic that I need, and this time it is slightly cloudy hence these windows will be either misted over or dirt smeared depending on what effect I’m going to go for this time.

With a growing CD collection of audio drama I have had to invest in a couple of new storage towers. These came as flat packs, and once the Krypton Factor (Look it up) test had been completed without any of the listed pieces being left over I did have left over pieces that were not going to end up in the rubbish skip. These blocks and strips of polystyrene packing will make excellent starting points for walls and other constructions.

All the items in the above photo have been viewed as potential in one way or another and later I’ll share more of these thoughts. In the meantime since my coffee stick mountain is growing I am going to add a couple more cheap and simple buildings to the ghost town layout. The exact style and shape of these will depend solely on the next few empty boxes that come my way.

The first will be made from the Nature Valley, Cupasoup and Gu boxes...

November Update

Just after Guy Fawkes Night I took another brief tour of the local streets gathering up some of the fallen sticks. It’s the night it rains building material from the sky.

Although there were far fewer bangs and flashes this year, which has to be a good thing for our fury friends.

But while they still go up and the sticks come down I’ll gather up what I can and recycle them into something that will last slightly longer than a quick flash and bang.

Here is this year’s haul, not as vast as I said as the previous gatherings, but hopefully enough to complete the model of the haunted house that has also taken a back seat.

The main reason for the tardiness with the building is the final instalment in Karl’s adventure. The final part of the trilogy is undergoing final preparations now for publishing.

Although it will not now make a November release I hope to see it published early in the New Year. Watch this place for an announcement quite soon.

There are several reasons that the manuscript for the final part has taken longer than expected, one of them is the size. In the style of many fantasy series it weighs in more than twice the second volume of the series.


Previous article in the Mystery Model series:
Mystery Model - Completing the Basic Structure

Next article in the Mystery Model series:
The House is Back

More Wood

Not a lot to say really, I’ve worked my way around the ground floor of the building. The basic framework has been done and the sections that are just wooden panels. 

The other sections which will include windows and the door will be done later.

This allows me to add on the pieces for the second floor.

Next article in this series: Mystery Model -Top Floor

Previous article in this series: Starting on the Woodwork

Starting on the Woodwork

Thought I’d get one last post in for June, since I’ve managed a few this month. I didn’t get as much done this Sunday as I would have liked, for various reasons. 

One being the need to take some faulty goods back on Sunday morning – and transport on a Sunday is not good taking twice as long to get anywhere. 

After that it was a game of dodge the showers in order to use the garden table to cut the strips of wood for the beams used to build the framework for the ground floor. These beams are made from the old firework rocket sticks stored up since last year.

I started to fill in the panels that are just going to be planking using the good old fashion coffee sticks, but the panels where windows are going to go I’ve left for the time being.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance later in the week to get this basic set of features completed for the ground floor.

Previous article in this series: Piece #7 the Corner Tower.

Fog, Snow and Fireworks

According to my records this is blog number 50, time for a party? Fireworks anyone? It is that time of year again, Guy Fawkes, gunpowder, treason and plot.

Following on from last week’s post about using Halloween Spider Web material as fog on terrain, I went in search of some extra in the post Halloween clearance sales, and there wasn’t any. 

Not just no fog, but no sales this year, usually you get this stuff by the sin-bin bucket load in many shops, but not this year. 

However, I have found an alternative and one I actually like even better. Snow. Yes, snow joke, (well that was and it wasn’t even funny). 

Whilst wandering round Hobbycraft with their Christmas ideas on display I notice ‘Snow Blankets’ on offer at half price. They looked remarkably similar to the spider web material but flatter, thicker and more woven.

You could really cut rounds out this quite easily and glue them to a base to mount figures on a crisp undisturbed snowy base. 

But if you pull it apart then you can create a more whispy, floaty carpet, not so much like fallen snow but more like the rolling fog. 

Here’s Karl and Tomkin again exploring part of the old church yard this time using the pulled apart snow blanket as the fog covering.

I did mention fireworks earlier; yes I’ve just had another 10.5 mile wander around the streets of Dagenham collecting up fallen rockets for the third year running. 

I did get some funny looks, no one asked why. Maybe next year I should do it in fancy dress and get sponsored. Ok, maybe not.

Here’s a photo of this year’s haul. At first I didn’t think I would not collect as much as last year, the recession having taken a bite out of people’s budgets, but actually by the time I had finished I think it’s about the same.

So more house and cottage building for me next year then. I also found a couple of pieces of polystyrene, a nice flat piece and another archway.

Before I went out I got the slow cooker on and the stew set to bubble away so that a nice rich dinner smell welcomed me home. Just the thing for an adventurer in the wilderness with a lump of crusty bread to eat by the camp fire, time to dish up, turn the lights down and maybe set some suitable forest music on. 

Country Cottages, Fireworks and Fur

After boxing up some of the recently finished parts of the ruined castle and the ghost town to give me more working space, I uncovered a box of partially completed models.

This included two of the country cottages, I have four completed, pictured here – but I found another two packed away for whatever reason in a just started state.   I’ve dug these out and now intend to finish them off.

 

Regular readers will have recently seen a tribute piece I wrote for my parents. Once again I must credit mum with two great ideas which feature dominantly on these cottage models, in fact I’m sure it was these ideas that fuelled my drive to use as much recycled materials in my models as I could.

These models start life like most of the other buildings with a foam board skeleton, and cardboard roof.  I was buying a lot of balsa wood sticks to build the models, and then following one Guy Fawkes Night mum retrieved a rocket stick from our garden. Instead of throwing it away she brought the stick in, it was a bit harder than the balsa wood but certainly very similar that it could easily be used in the model construction somewhere.

Now, for the last few years I take a stroll around the streets of Dagenham on the morning following the Guy Fawkes celebrations and gather up as many sticks as I can find. This annual horde provides quite a collection of different sizes and thickness of wood all very suitable for model construction with just an occasional clean up required for a few burnt ends and paper bits glued on.

(Need I emphasise here the firework code, about not returning to lit fireworks?  These sticks have all fallen from the sky once the fireworks have gone bang and all that remains is the wooden stick.)

Last year's horde of sticks

Most of these cut with the craft knife like balsa wood, some of the thicker or harder wood sticks I use a small hand saw. The front of this cottage was built with balsa wood; the other three sides which I completed this weekend have been constructed from firework sticks.

Once the wooden frame has been stuck to the foam board I fill the areas between with the good old modelling favourite the wall filler.

I know from memory that the original cottages were made using the mix it up yourself stuff, but this one I’m now finishing off has been filled using the same ready mix product I’ve been using on the castle ruins.

Now comes the next idea from mum, the thatch roof. I tried a few ideas for thatch none of which appeared to come close – then mum suggested an old (fake) fur hat that wasn’t wanted anymore.

We cut this up and glued it to the roof of the cottages, then cut across the fur in bands to give the fur a layered look. After that the main effect came from the painting.

This time I’ve used some craft fur bought from the hobby store. I’m hoping this is going to come out just as effective, at the moment it looks a bit like a bad wig.

You glue the fur on in separate pieces, one for each side, ensuring that the fur hangs downward on both sides. Using a straight edge I ran a blade along the fur forming layered sections, not cutting right into the fur but enough to make it appear like the fur is like layers of thatching.

The next stage is to glue on the chimney and the capping stones seen in the finished models before giving the whole model a clean up before painting. The true effect of the thatch comes with the paint work.

But that’s next week. Country Cottages The Thatching