Bits and Bobs

Here are some piccies of some odd jobs I've been doing around the studio on the sets! To make the stairs that George built look more authentic, I first painted them with a base coat of black, and then used the special effect spray paint over the top of the base coat to create a stoney appreance:

The next job to do was plastering the walls of the hallway set to add texture. Once the plaster had dried, I painted over the top of it with a grey base colour, and then added a grundge effect to the corners of the walls using black acrylic paint:

After Andy had painted a few coats of special green paint onto the pasty shop set as the main base colour, I focused on getting the bricks that I sculpted underneath the shop front complete. To start, I used up the grey paint from the hallway set by painting the brick texture a grey block colour. Once this was dry, I brushed a darker colour over the bricks by using a dry-brushing tecchnique with black acrylic paint, and this created a more 3D effect as the darker colour clung to the morter (however you spell it) between the bricks. To make the bricks look even more £D, I dry brushed a lighter colour over the tops pf the bricks to make them stand out a bit more. Here's the final effect:

Dressing Pasty Shop Counters

In one of my previous posts, I described how I constructed the shop counter and also window display counter. I left these props to one side while focusing on other jobs, but they were looking a tad bit sorry for themselves so I thought I would make them look a bit snazzier! To make the main conter look more authentic, I sawed sections of bevelled thin wood and filed the corners into angles. The I glued the sections onto the side of the counter to create a more 3D effect.

Once the araldite glue was dry, I painted the main structure of both counters with a few coats of deep green colour to match the continued colour scheme, and then added a rich ochre colour to the glued-on sections of wood.

Whilst this was drying, I cut two rectangular sections of cardboard for the countertops and then painted them with a grey basecoat. Once this was dry, I sprayed over the grey coat with a special 'stone' effect spray paint to create the impression that the countertops were made of granite. Once this was dry I glued the two contertops onto the main counter and window display, and voila! Counters done :)

Waste-Paper Bin and Laundry Basket

Props like the waste-paper bin were really easy to make because I literally just sculpted it out of milliput, sanded it down and painted the outside, and then added scrunched up bits of paper inside to make it look authentic:




The Laundry basket however was a bit trickier to make! I wanted it to have a wooden structure with a fabric 'basket' in the centre. To make the main structure I used wooden coffee stirrers cut into sections and glued together with pva. Once the glue had dried I painted the wood a dark grey colour, and then got started on making the inner basket. For this, I cut up a grey sock and glued the sections together with fabric glue. Once the glue had dried, I attached the fabric basket inside the wooden structure and the prop was complete!:

Clothes and Rail

The next prop that needed to be made was a clothes rail complete with clothes on hangers, to make the bedroom set look more homely and believable. To make up the main structure of the rail, I cut pieces of K&S brass tubing using a hand saw and glued them together with araldite glue. Once the glue had dried, I constructed a base out of wooden coffee stirrers out into sections and then attached this to the K&S structure with araldite so that it could stand on its own:





Whilst the main structure of the rail was drying, I constructed some tiny clothes hangers by cutting sections of thin aluminium wire and bending them into shape:




Once the clothes rail was fully set, I neatened it by cutting away any excess wood and then sprayed it with a few coats of silver spray paint to make it look metallic. However the silver was a bit too bright and it didn't go with the look of the bedroom, so I 'grudged' it up by adding dark and rusty tones to the corners and edges:




Now that the rail was complete, I could get started on making some clothes to hang on the wire hangers I made earlier. The first piece of clothing I made was a stripey long-sleeved jumper, where I cut sections of measured fabric from a children's stripey sock and then glued them together with a special fabric glue. I then made a pair of jeans, a skirt, a t-shirt and finally a tiny pair of socks (these were to go on the bedroom floor.)












Once all of the clothing was completed and attached to the wire hangers, I hung them on the finished clothes rail: Here's the final result!:

Real Book

In one of the bedroom shots, the Pasty Child is flicking through a travel book, therefore I needed to make a fully-functioning that had real pages and text inside. To make the basic structure of the book, I cut out small sections of paper and folded them into two to make up the pages. To fasten all the pages together, I placed all of the page edges together and applied a layer of p.v.a glue and a section of thinner paper to hold them all in place. Once the pages felt like they were secure, I cut out a larger piece of brown card and folded it in the shape of a book cover, and then glued the stuck-together edges of the pages onto the folded area of the cardboard that would be the binding:





Once the main structure of the book was complete, I could start decorating it and make it look pretty :D I painted a base coat of blue on the books cover using acrylics, and once this was dry I printed off a page of text (complete nonsense that I typed in teeny tiny print in Word.)I then cut the text into sections and then glued them straight onto the book's pages to make it look a bit more authentic. However the text looked a bit too obvious so I put a wash of pale yellow paint over the pages t blur the words and make the book look a bit more rugged. I added final detail and a Cyprus design onto the front of the book (a tribute for George!)using fine-liner and acrylics, and Voila! Book is done :)

Where has Easter gone?!

Once again I have left all my blogging to be done in one almighty chunk, bad habits are hard to kick up bum! It is now the end of the Easter holidays (eeeek) and I can't believe how quick this month has gone.... we are now going into our final term of third year... oh my! It's been a busy few weeks trying to get everything ready to film the bedroom set, and we have had some problems with the computer being too slow which has set us back quite a bit. But we have finally been given a shiny new computer complete with stop-motion pro and all the programmes we need to get cracking, hurrah! :D To make this update less meaty, I will post my progress in little bite-size chunks and blog about the individual things I've been working on over the past few weeks :)