Foam board, magnets, spackling and random bits [Finished at last... at least the wall and floor part] 02/15/2020]

Hello!
I've divided this in two, first part is how I'm doing here in PR, second part is about the wall, they've been highligted with the good ol' bold button.


What's been going on in Puerto Rico and how my family and I have been dealing with.
 
Talking about the wall, techniques used and processes.

I hope you and PitViper are staying safe over there, and that the worst is over. (Our Australian members are dealing with some horrible fires at the moment, as well). So hoping everyone is okay.

I like your wall, and the window design is really cool. Nice use of all those materials.

Nice job. Most of my previous dioramas were in smaller scales too. It still amazes me how much space I need for even a simple diorama in 1:6.

Stay safe.

Very creative use of materials! And wow, thanks for sharing with us in the midst of what sounds like a rather harrowing situation! :O 

All my best wishes to you, stay safe!

Glad you are safe (and apparently PitViper and shazz, too, knock on wood), and hope you stay that way.

Very nice backdrop wall, and love the 3D aspects of it and the results of all this hand spackling. I'm sure I'm not the only one glad you shared your technique.

Foamboard is the way to go with wall backdrops, although in my case I simply use it as a surface to which to attach printed out elements with tape or (more recently) magnets. I have done a little bit of 3D work, too, but on a more limited scale, like a Death Star control panel and a wall made from actual tiny bricks and insulation tape in lieu of mortar (but I got rid of it when I moved).

Yes, best wishes to you and your family and friends, sir.

I like the Diorama path you are taking, will make future photoshootings much more fun I am sure. The second window type looks good, very starwarsy. You can hear some John Williams Tattooine ambient music and background noises when looking at it.

The Christmas village sounds cool, I guess creativity runs in the family.

@Theboo-bomb. Nice project you got there, thanks for sharing and keep safe!

Wildfires in Australia, earthquake in Puerto Rico, and now our Taal Volcano (60 kilometers away) erupted this morning!
We're experiencing ash fall right now so better to stay indoors for a few days and get busy with bashes.

@Gub - What's that backdrop behind the Death Star gunner?

rollotomasi wrote:Wildfires in Australia, earthquake in Puerto Rico, and now our Taal Volcano (60 kilometers away) erupted this morning!
We're experiencing ash fall right now so better to stay indoors for a few days and get busy with bashes.

@Gub - What's that backdrop behind the Death Star gunner?

Nice start to the year, eh? I hope you will be alright!

If you mean what is the backdrop in the actual movie, it is part of the control or support systems of the super laser control room. Around 1:58 (and others) in the clip below.


If you mean what I made it out of, it is black foamboard, shiny black drawer liner (for the smooth surface part to the left), those translucent small rectangular rubbery pieces that you place on a wall to keep a door from bumping and scrapint it, semi-spherical "rhinestone" pearls they sell at craft shops (I painted over them but they still don't look quite metallic enough), and staples. All painstakingly assembled to look movie accurate. But I think the "pearls" should have been on the inside, below the translucent rectangular prisms, and so probably just painted on...

My situation as far as the earthquake's concerned: My wife and I live in Mayaguez, basically in the center of the western coast of the island, and 30-35 miles NW of the epicenter of most quakes.  Although we were not in PR for the strongest of all the quakes (early morning of January 7) we have experienced all others since December, particularly the one yesterday morning (6.1 in the Richter scale).

Needless to say, anxiety levels have been very high.  It is hard to sleep, as the strongest quakes have occurred in the wee hours of the morning.  The smallest aftershock is enough to get us very antsy.  As far as damages, I  have seen photos and videos taken by coworkers of their homes and hometowns, roads, public buildings etc, and given what I've seen from municipalities along the southern PR coast, I must say we have been very lucky indeed.  Our building (I live in 5th-floor "penthouse") has been inspected twice since the 7th, which also happened to be my 57th birthday, and has been rendered structurally sound so far.  My figures have sustained several falls with the quakes, but no permanent damages to report.

My thoughts are with both our Aussie & Filipino members who are also experiencing afflicting situations.  I hope all stay safe.

Yikes. Sounds like a scary situation, Angel.

Happy late Birthday, by the way; though I’m sure it was a bit stressful.

Stryker2011 wrote:I hope you and PitViper are staying safe over there, and that the worst is over. (Our Australian members are dealing with some horrible fires at the moment, as well). So hoping everyone is okay.

I like your wall, and the window design is really cool. Nice use of all those materials.

Thank you, Styker. I'm hoping this will soon pass. I'm glad you liked the wall, it's fairly simple but it does the job.

shazzdan wrote:Nice job. Most of my previous dioramas were in smaller scales too. It still amazes me how much space I need for even a simple diorama in 1:6.

Stay safe.

Thanks, I originally was going to make it much bigger (around 40 inches wide and 30 high) but it soon dawned on me on how big that is and how much time I would have to spend on it alone. Maybe if I start collecting smaller scale star wars figures I can make a bigger one.

Thank you, we are fairly safe up here.

skywalkersaga wrote:Very creative use of materials! And wow, thanks for sharing with us in the midst of what sounds like a rather harrowing situation! :O 

All my best wishes to you, stay safe!

Thank you, it took me a while to figure out what to do, lots of screenshots from movies and games to get an idea of how it could look, a bit of creative liberty was taken since it's meant to be somewhat generic. Also staying safe so far.

GubernatorFan wrote:Glad you are safe (and apparently PitViper and shazz, too, knock on wood), and hope you stay that way.

Very nice backdrop wall, and love the 3D aspects of it and the results of all this hand spackling. I'm sure I'm not the only one glad you shared your technique.

Foamboard is the way to go with wall backdrops, although in my case I simply use it as a surface to which to attach printed out elements with tape or (more recently) magnets. I have done a little bit of 3D work, too, but on a more limited scale, like a Death Star control panel and a wall made from actual tiny bricks and insulation tape in lieu of mortar (but I got rid of it when I moved).

Thank you and I hope they too are safe along with their families. I was originally going to print out the back drops or rather have them printed at a shop downtown but I wanted to see if I still was capable of putting something like this together, I guess I can. I like those backdrops and I find using tape interesting, I might look into making a brick wall like that and holding it with insulation tape.

Ovy wrote:Yes, best wishes to you and your family and friends, sir.

I like the Diorama path you are taking, will make future photoshootings much more fun I am sure. The second window type looks good, very starwarsy. You can hear some John Williams Tattooine ambient music and background noises when looking at it.

The Christmas village sounds cool, I guess creativity runs in the family.

Thank you, I'm hoping it will be fun, I'm personally looking forward to being able to move stuff around with magnets though I still need to come up with the stuff, maybe some utility nooks and random techy bumps, I'll look at some stills from the movies and games to get some ideas. Creativity does run in my family but mostly on my mother's side, my father's side is diy side which I don't think I inherited much.

rollotomasi wrote:@Theboo-bomb. Nice project you got there, thanks for sharing and keep safe!

Wildfires in Australia, earthquake in Puerto Rico, and now our Taal Volcano (60 kilometers away) erupted this morning!
We're experiencing ash fall right now so better to stay indoors for a few days and get busy with bashes.

@Gub - What's that backdrop behind the Death Star gunner?

Thank you, I hope you too are staying safe out there. And yes, in such situations it's best to stay indoors and come up with stuff, or at least I think so.

PitViper wrote:My situation as far as the earthquake's concerned: My wife and I live in Mayaguez, basically in the center of the western coast of the island, and 30-35 miles NW of the epicenter of most quakes.  Although we were not in PR for the strongest of all the quakes (early morning of January 7) we have experienced all others since December, particularly the one yesterday morning (6.1 in the Richter scale).

Needless to say, anxiety levels have been very high.  It is hard to sleep, as the strongest quakes have occurred in the wee hours of the morning.  The smallest aftershock is enough to get us very antsy.  As far as damages, I  have seen photos and videos taken by coworkers of their homes and hometowns, roads, public buildings etc, and given what I've seen from municipalities along the southern PR coast, I must say we have been very lucky indeed.  Our building (I live in 5th-floor "penthouse") has been inspected twice since the 7th, which also happened to be my 57th birthday, and has been rendered structurally sound so far.  My figures have sustained several falls with the quakes, but no permanent damages to report.

My thoughts are with both our Aussie & Filipino members who are also experiencing afflicting situations.  I hope all stay safe.

We both live high then, I live on a second floor and quite  close to the coastline, on Jan 7 when there was the tsunami watch you can guess our fear, specially since my grandmother lives on the first floor and our escape route is up a narrow two way road which is still technically not out of harms way. Tense moments but I'm sure incomparable to those you've lived thus far or those in the south. My other family lives in Utuado and our main fear is a collapse of the roads leading there or worse even that Dos Bocas breaks since my uncle also lives close to the river. Tense moments for all of us in Puerto Rico, Australia and the Phillipines, hopefully things will return to normal as soon as possible so we can all start to heal.

Early this morning I went to buy some bread at the local bakery, nothing like the fresh baked stuff. On my way there I decided to take a detour to the supermarket since it's close by just out of curiosity, walking down the beverages aisle I came across some crazy straws, six for 1 dollar and I thought I could use those for pipes since they come bent and they are made of some type of hard plastic.

The second thing I came across was later today, some type of plastic netting which I plan on using as grating or interesting window designs, bought six sheets which I hope is more than enough.


Once I put more stuff together I'll be updating this thread until I finish the rest of the elements for the wall.
As always stay safe out there and try to have some fun.

Nice finds. As for the mini bricks, they look great, but are messy because they are actual brick material. At the time I had trouble finding enough and eventually ran out of bricks (as you can see from my wall). Maybe you can find more now -- got them from eBay.

I’m so sorry you are both experiencing such a tense and fearful situation. My thoughts are with you!

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice finds. As for the mini bricks, they look great, but are messy because they are actual brick material. At the time I had trouble finding enough and eventually ran out of bricks (as you can see from my wall). Maybe you can find more now -- got them from eBay.

I don't think I would buy actual mini bricks, actually I could buy a few for something... we shall see. Some time ago (a long time ago) I tried to make some bricks using grout, they sort of worked except they crumbled easily and no one wants to deal with dust, I still have a few around in a bag just as a reminder of something I could make at some point.

skywalkersaga wrote:I’m so sorry you are both experiencing such a tense and fearful situation. My thoughts are with you!

Thanks for your concern Skywalkersaga, we are dealing with it the best we can.

So another tiny update to this little project, working on it has been a bit tricky, specially when it shakes you up but no biggie, so far we are fine.

Anyway I've finished the windows and applied some orange stripes to the windows for warning purposes (Not Space OSHA approved) and also made some vents, originally they where meant to be some windows with some bars but the plastic grating I used is too small so I turned them into vents or drains of some sort.

Nice work! I actually need a circular vent cap for the side of my house... do you think this would work?

That turned out really great. Nice use of the spackle and paint. Bravo!

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice work! I actually need a circular vent cap for the side of my house... do you think this would work?

I have a big lid from a tub of ice cream, I'll see what I can do.

Stryker2011 wrote:That turned out really great. Nice use of the spackle and paint. Bravo!

Gotta use what one learns, besides these are cheap paints so If I mess up and have to repaint it all I will, after all what's 80 cents?

New update on magnetized stuff, currently finished (or close to finish two) one is some sort of vent while the other some sort of intake (water, electrical, space gas) made out of foam and those twisty straws I showed some time ago.




Both are made the same way as the wall, first a coat of PVA and black paint to coat it and stop the paint from soaking in (specially when using styrofoam), let dry then put the latex gloves on and dip into the spackling tub and apply it by hand, I did use some instruments for the one with the pipes as my fingers are neither flat nor thin enough to fit under them.

I plan on making some more bigger and thicker pipes along with some sort of controls or whatever made out of old electronic parts and probably lego, I also need to get started on the floor. Well that's all for now, hopefully next time I update this I have the floor done, or some pipes.

Nice to see you making more of these diorama elements. Depending on the desired size, you might be able to use straws and small diameter tubes for the pipes, too.

You have a talent for it! Man, I love foam board!
This reminds me of how cool a little “this and that” can make a diorama look.

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice to see you making more of these diorama elements. Depending on the desired size, you might be able to use straws and small diameter tubes for the pipes, too.

I'm currently thinking on using the cardboard from paper rolls and the like, it is quite thin and flimsy but I think I can strengthen them up with some cardstock and glue. Though I might try using some old pvc pipe I have laying around to see how it looks.

Pontiacivan wrote:You have a talent for it! Man, I love foam board!
This reminds me of how cool a little “this and that” can make a diorama look.

Thanks! Using bits of this and that is what I'm doing,mostly lots of old foam that I have saved for future projects like this and cereal boxes for any other thinner details or covering seams and the like.

It is time for another little update!

Gubernatorfan last time gave me an idea to use straws or tubes of a small diameter, while I had some small pvc pipe laying around I didn't feel like working with it so I started looking for what I could use, originally I was going to cut styrofoam circles and then cover them with some paper or something but that would have taken a LONG time to do, not to mention getting them as round as possible without a hot wire. I needed something that I could cut easily, wouldn't create a huge mess and that it where hard enough to properly work with it... pvc pipe wasn't on there, and styrofoam circles? no way... then as if by a miracle I found it.... cardboard rolls inside of aluminum foil, for whatever reason I had saved two and where laying along side some of my random bits of styrofoam, I also have some slightly larger diameter ones that I plan on using later on (perhaps not even on this specific build).

Picture time.





As always it's a simple process, cut or just leave it as is, give it a layer of pva and water mixed with black paint (to see where it's missing some) let dry and then paint up, once that's dry start to weather it up, a bit of rust and some dry brushing and a couple of brown and black washes to sink into those harder to reach areas. There's only the awnings I want to make to give that desert sort of look and start the floor which right now it's just a blank piece of foam, hopefully those two will be the next updates and then I'll move to another backdrop unless I continue making stuff for this one.