I have a cunning plan....

3/4 View of Desk - Resin Cast with Bronze Powder

Front View of Desk

So, back again!  My posting has been a bit random as I've just started a new job.  Unfortunately it is not in Model Making but fortunately it is helping to pay the bills, so I'm not complaining too much.  Now that I've been trained up, I expect my timetable to be more predictable so that should help in letting me get to the computer to post.

My photos this week are of a piece that was part of my final project.  For this project, I made a segment of an animation set that was set in an old world library.  This was a desk that was placed in the centre.

A lot of being creative and making things is about going with the flow and letting things happen naturally.  However, one thing this project has definitely taught me is that there are times for letting things happen and then there are times when you MUST have a plan.  I should have planned my time and actions much better when I made this table.  I thought I had it all worked out in my head, then I tried to make it and it all went horribly wrong.

The legs were not too bad.  Only minor disasters when I was making those.  Such as, forgetting to weigh my sculpt before I boxed it up to make a silicone mould, and thus having to (guess)estimate the weight of silicone needed and getting it very wrong.  I was short a 100g and had to frantically mix a second batch before the first set.  This too went wrong, because when I poured that in I was still short.  Aaargh.  It was Friday and College was closing in 5mins and I still had an almighty mess to tidy up.  Aaaaaaaarggh.  Luckily for me my tutor walked in at this point and helped me rescue the situation with a genius solution.  By placing some sticks into the corners away from where the main mould was the level of silicone was pushed up to fully cover the sculpt.  Yeaay!

Until I came in on Monday morning and found one of the sticks had fallen over aaaaaarrrgh!!!!  Luckily it had just missed the sculpt and so the mould was still useable.  Phew.  You would think that this would have taught me a lesson but I really like learning things the hard way and so onto more fantastic blunders with the table top.

I started with a square slate tile that I picked up in a home ware store.  It had a really good texture and I thought it would work really nicely as a table top.  Then when it came time to use it I realised that it was squint.  Damn.  Thinking about it though the Griffin legs were bronze (a resin cast with bronze powder) and the bronze and slate may not have worked together and so it was probably just as well.  So, add the slate tile to the pile labelled 'This might be useful for something else later'.

I got some wood, added some plasteline detailing and made a plaster cast of this.  Lovely, now one resin cast of the plaster mould and presto - one fine looking table top.  Yeah, good plan as long as you don't forget to put mould release on the plaster mould.  Doh!  In the end I coated the wood original in a gel coat resin mixed with bronze powder.  This worked reasonably well and rescued the situation.

I could have saved myself a lot of time and headache if I had only planned my project and time better.  This makes perfect sense to me and I understand the principle very well but despite this knowledge I still find it difficult to break every detail down before I start a project.  Still I guess that all comes together with practise.  Here's hoping.