Hectic Few week.. but damn good progress!

ZWell its been a hectic week or two! We've been working on the set and model's as much as possible, the downside of this was the time left to update the blog was spent eating/sleeping.

I'd have liked to update the blog alot more during the construction.. but do not fear! Here's a pretty big series of updates on the build, with more to come.

I've made up the fireplace wall! After cutting the hardboard to the right size I made a frame to hold the chimney breast and boarded it over, then I masked off where the fireplace is going to fit and layered filler onto the walls.

After doing a final wall that sits at the side of the staircase I decided filler was in a way a waste of time & materials. I had decided to use the rough side of the hardboard so we could filler over the top and it would stick better, the problem was it had to be put on perfectly or mark's and indentation's are left everywhere. I think I could have used a thinner mix of filler to get a better coverage but.. its something we're learning! With the wall at the side of the stairs I decided to just use the smooth side as the "dress" wall, it painted over fine and looks pretty damn good.. so in future I'll definitely use this method when using hardboard.

< ----- Initiate Time Travel ----->

After taking this picture I basically went turbomode and worked through the rest in 2 days, waking up at 8 and working on the set from the get go till bed I got it ready to basically move to university! We shall be having a breakdown of the set on the main website to fill in the construction gap's, but basically after putting up the walls I fixed the floorboard's down, made a frame that sits on the bottom of the whole set, sorted out fixings and pre-drilled holes so the set was transportable. When everything was fixed and done I painted the wood with woodstain (a Rosewood stain and a "Dark Woodstain" stain.) I undercoated all the walls with some dark grey emulsion I had lying around and made up the hearthstone.

The Hearthstone & Surround Top.

This is something I'm proud of! (note the bold text..). We came to the point where we ran out of wood. Luckily a last minute trip to B&Q fixed the problem.. but thats not the best part of this little story! Whilst wandering around B&Q i came across the broken tile shelf, and to my wonder found smashed marble tiles, normally £40 for 5 after a cheeky conversation with the manager I got away with 2 barely chipped tiles for .. .. £2! I didnt even end up using even one whole tile, so the buy was spot on. After cutting a hearth & surround top, then breaking the hearth and cutting another one I sanded them down (which was much easier than expected) and wrapped them in kitchen roll, ready for transportation to uni.

Touchdown 

After getting the set through to uni we assembled it the next morning. Here's the outcome!

Here it is assembled, in total it measures around 4foot x 4foot, stretched across 2 table's its a pretty hefty build! The red door is just a placeholder until we make the cardboard version. Karl brought the model's and we did the nerve racking part of seeing if we had kept to scale.. Huzzah! We did perfectly, which wasnt bad going seeing as we were building everything whilst 25 miles apart. We have construction photo's of the model's incoming so don't worry!

You may have noticed the different coloured wall on the right.. it's wallpapered! We went to wilkinson's and found tester pack's that were ideal for wallpapering the walls, a pack or 2 more and we'll have all the walls done.

Props!

This week I nipped home for a day and had the chance to build some prop's! I built 3 bar stools, shelves and a cupboardy thing.. oh and the kick ass feast table with 3 benches above! Note the scroll saw abuse on the leg's and table stands, I think its a new addiction. Oh and please do mind the bins & garden in shot!

After getting these to uni we'll paint them up and the set will be filling out pretty quickly! Just a load of jar's, skulls, food and other random horrible things to make now!

Early Rig Photo

I dug up this early photo of the armature used in the mummy & dwarf. Its very interesting seeing the progression from wire wrapped in masking tape to fully functioning model! Oh and did I mention we have gotten some photo's of the set professionally taken? Well we have, and they're awesome! Watch the website for us uploading them.

There's the massive update, more to come yet..
Craig & Karl

Stairs! God damned stairs!

Finished the stairs yesterday, they took some time. Every step had to be the same so the angle wouldn't become too steep on the runners. The staircase is free-standing at the moment but I'll probably bolt/screw it down once we get the set to university.

I also "plastered" the wall facing the bar, the staircase sides are made out of hardboard where one side is smooth and one side pitted, I decided to put about a 3mm thick layer of polyfill onto the board to make it look like its actually been plastered! Once its dry I'll sand it down and undercoat it.

I stained the wood using some (very old) wood stain I found in the garage, before that however I sanded down the middle of the stairs with some sandpaper wrapped around a tube. This left a slight but apparent indent down the treads, so that when I stained the wood it looked worn.

What Im going to do next is sort out the walls, the back wall is just propped up against the stairs at the moment, but im going to strengthen them with lengths of wood and work them the whole way around. Then I need to finish the flooring and add the second segment on the board. The problem is everything has to come apart so I can transport it to university!

Craig