Pasty Shop Floor

We had been wondering for a while what to do about the pasty shop floor. It would have looked fantastic with a similar hand-tiled floor like the one I constructed for the pasty child's bedroom, however this was an extremely time-consuming (and expensive) way of doing it. So we thought of a much easier way of going about making the floor look tiled... print off a tile pattern from the computer and slap it on the wooden base floor with pritt stick, easy peasy!We did think about painting the tiles ourselves on photoshop but it seemed a bit pointless in the end. So I printed off about 10 sheets of a white and black tile pattern that we liked, and then began sticking them straight onto the wooden floor with pritt stick. It was a bit fiddly cutting and matching up the tiles in the correct order, but compared to sculpting, baking and fixing down fimo tiles it was a walk in the park! Here are some piccies of the process and also one of the finished floor fixed onto the shop set:

Finishing Touches on Shop Set

The shop set is looking fantastic, Andy has done us proud as set engineer! The inside was looking pretty bare, so we initially painted the inner walls a creamy yellow colour and Andy glued on some varnished lolly sticks around the bottom half to look like wood panelling. They look really effective, but both the walls (inside and out) and the wood looked a bit too 'new,' whereas we wanted a more battered and rustic appearance. To achieve this effect, I dry-brushed a combination of lighter and darker tones of paint over the walls to grudge up the corners and edges, and then brushed a darker brown paint over the wood panelling to create more of a shadowing effect.

For the outside walls of the shop, I used a larger brush with thicker bristles and dry-brushed black acrylic over the surface, and also touched up any mistakes or wobbly lines with the original green paint. Here are some piccies of the shop set so far, complete with some props!:

Dressing the Pasty Child Puppet

After George had finished constructing the armature of the pasty child puppet and coating it in a layer of latex for the skin, he handed the pasty child body over to me to make her a bit more decent! The intended 'look' for the pasty child was almost like a sailor theme (to go with the Cornish elements of the film)with a stripey jumper and blue skinny jeans. To start making the jumper, I cut out sections of a red stripey toddler's sock that I measured out using the body as a guide. It was a bit fiddly trying to measure the arms because they are quite long and the sock itself wasn't long enough to cover up the exposed K&S brass tubing that held the hands in place. To hide these, I cut out sections of red fabric to extend the sleeves and also another piece to make the jumper have a turtle-neck to cover up the exposed K&S on the neck as well. Once all the pieces of the jumper were cut, I moved on to cutting out sections of 'jeans' fabric, once again using the body as a measuring tool. The trousers had to be measured accurately (long enough to cover the ankle K&S, but short enough to show the fantastic mini converse boots that George made for the pasty child!)Now that all the clothes pieces were measured and cut, I could start putting them onto the armature. It was fairly easy because I could simply glue the sections together over the body with a special fabric glue instead of sewing which would have been time-consuming (though I did have to take care to tuck in any frayed corners.)

I could glue the clothes straight onto the puppet's body because we were going to be using a few bodies during filming as the aluminium wire in the armature tends to weaken and snap over time (George has already made a few spare bodies so I can just quickly dress one of those if an arm falls off!) It was quite fiddly at times trying to make the clothes look neat and realistic, and making the sleeves fit the arms was a bit tricky! But I am happy with the finished result, here are some piccies of the finished dressed pasty child puppet:

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!: