Writing Desk Make-Over (2016)

This is a project that's already been finished some time ago. I just needed some last things to paint, which I just did.
Due to an error to my camera memory card I've pretty much lost all the before and process pictures. I found a similar looking writing desk online, which makes it able to show what it looked like before I even started.

On a second hand website I had found this writing desk. The people selling it didn't ask for much. They wanted a plant for it in return. For a project that's a very nice price. :)

It was an oak laminated writing desk, nothing fancy.
Before painting the desk was sanded and the knobs were removed.
From aliexpress I ordered some new knobs, which might have been a that bit bigger than they turned out to be. But it looks kinda nice.

After the sanding 2 layers of brown primer were applied. When the last coat was dry I added some hair straightener fluid on the edges so the white coat wouldn't attach to the layer underneath.
Then several coats of white were added. The paint I had was quite crappy (Hema) so it took me like 4-5 layers of paint (Take Histor or something similar; this takes about 2 coats. It might cost a bit more but it takes less paint.)

When all that was dry I scratched the edges lightly with a putty knife. On the places the hair straightener liquid was added the white paint would scratch off, leaving the rest of the paint intact.
And last but not least the new knobs were added

FruitCorso: De Tijd Vliegt (Time Flies) (2016)

Another year, another FruitCorso.
This year we went a bit smaller than usual. The cart has the name "Time Flies", it's in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the club.
We did a literal interpretation of "Time Flies" by having a pocket watch carried by butterflies and swallows.

The cart during the FruitCorso Parade.

I was asked to help out with the design of the birds. I had to do a drawing of one in several positions with the wing width of 1,5 meter.
I made 3 flying designs; 1 flying, 1 braking and one with its wings half folded (that last one was skipped). Next to that I also designed a sitting one.

Top view of my sketch.

From this I made a metal design together with the welder. Me and the designer decided it was easiest to do the wings out of carton with a simple metal framing inside; this makes the wing look thinner and the separate feathers are easier made.

Metal frame with a Styrofoam head.

The metal frame with a cardboard wing glued to it.

During the metal work I was trying to make 11 swallow heads. Birds aren't easy so there's a bit of difference between them. (There's one that looks more like a pigeon)
At home I used clay to improve the faces of the birds.
In all honesty I was skeptical about the size of the birds; they were the same size as the butterflies, but looked even smaller since their wings have less surface. None the less, no discussion, they were approved by the designer. The sitting ones were allowed to become a bit bigger.

After the metal work I could attach the wings. This took a lot of work so I was lucky there were some folks to help me out.
When that was done the feet/legs could be welded and attached. It was a bit unclear if we had to wait until the chain was done (making them fit better), but we got a go to just give them feet.
Now the paper team could finally add paper to them, to which we could add plaster (takes the metal framing edges away and makes sure the neck runs smoothly to it's back/chest)

"Birds falling down the rooftops..."

The bird finished with plaster.

 After all the "paperwork" it was time to draw on them. I had miscalculated how much time would go into this. There were a lot...a lot of feathers! One of the designers stepped in and helped me out with this.
When everything was drawn and painted, people could finally start gluing on all the different kinds of seeds.

Painted bird.

The product design was also part of my "job", I made a 2:1 sketch to make it clear to other which and how the products were going to be glues on. (I made a copy which I colored and gave it a caption what it all meant). Unfortunately, time was our enemy, so we had to change the design and switch some products. All in all I'm quite happy how things turned out.

The sketch of the different types of seeds/fruits/vegetables that had to go on the bird.
Left = back, right = stomach. In the end we did some changes due to the time consuming design.

My bird, finished with the seed part.

The backside still needs a lot of work. Therefor it will go home with me.

It barely fitted in the car.

When everything was done, every seeds was glued on, every tomato was in place, every bird/ butterfly was welded where they needed to go it was finally time to go outside!

The cart during the FruitCorso Parade.

The end result of my bird.

 And here some Bonus pictures from the build.

How the clock looked during the 50th anniversary party.

Backside of the cart when it was finished and almost ready to go outside.

The framing of one of the butterflies

Pretty red butterfly.

Side of the watch.

This is my favorite bird! It's a really chubby one.

Wedding Gift Heart Sign (2016)

A co-worker of mine was getting married. As we are all creative people at work I couldn't give a non creative gift.
At a wedding of a friend I once saw a board with keys and note cards on them.
So I thought of a sign with a lot of hearts on which people who had attended the wedding could leave a name or a note would also be a nice gift.

After the wedding this was the result. Unfortunately not everyone decided to write something down.

The hearts were painted with chalkboard paint. The sign has 49 small and 1 big heart.
I painted their names on the sign and added the date to the big heart.

I made some spare ones in case people mess up their message.

The hearts are held in place with  turned over duct tape.

I had some better pictures. But I accidentally deleted some files before they were transferred to my computer.

Foam Fantasy Armor (2016)

 For the Elf Fantasy Fair this year I build my own foam armor using EVA-foam sheets (5mm and 3mm)

Finished piece

The whole process starts with collecting pictures for inspiration. Google for Fantasy armor, female armor, world of warcraft, league of legends things like that.
From that you can sketch some designs/ directions you wanna go. My main inspiration was the Griffin, since this is the creature of Castle De Haar where the event is held.
In the end I let go the Griffin theme and created something I thought was cool.

When I find my sketches again,  I'll upload them.

Shoulder pads:

There aren't many pictures of this process. I first build a tiny model to see if the kind of shape would make sense. When I was happy with that I scaled it up to a size that would fit me.

Every shape that was made, was first put together with pins, this way it was easy to adjust things.
At first had the "feathers" pointing backwards, but in the end this would be useful as you would poke your own eye out when you move your arm. Therefor they've been put outwards.

I needed a symbol or some sort to pimp up the whole armor. I went online again for some inspiration, looking for tribal symbols. I found something and altered it to the tribal dragon/ scythe thing it is now.

When I was happy with it's final shape, I used contact glue to stick the pieces together. A glue gun is also a fine method.

"Side" view. I'm not 100% happy how it looks from this angle.
It looks like a weird rooster.

"Front" view. This side looks really well,
and because this is the main angle, I didn't change a thing.

I deliberately made it a-symmetric as for some reason it looks more bad-ass that way.

Breast Plate
This is the most difficult piece to create.

I took some measurements of myself and created a paper pattern. I'm not a tailor, I don't really know how these things are measured. I took the circumference underneath my breasts, over my breasts and the measurement below breast-shoulder. This gave me some rough measurements to work with.
Paper can be cut on places you have to much and added on places you have too little or cut away to much. In the end you'll have a decent basic pattern.

I traced this on the foam sheet and glued the 2 bits and the breast seams together.

Now you've end up with some sort of Madonna halter top with pointy boobs.

Pointy boob harness.

Pointy boobs aren't that good looking on armor, or at least I didn't want it too look like that. Therefor I started to shape them; I used a heater gun and a glass ball. The heat makes the foam pliable. I used the glass orb for the shaping, rubbing the heated breast part over it. This made it more round.

Difference between unshaped and shaped.

Once the basic harness was established by making the back part, I added some details: A crest with wings, some edges, a collar and I added some sheet material around the boobs to make them look even rounder and masking the seams. I also added a layer underneath.

Adding the extra rim so it's no longer a sports top.

 In the end this was the result of the breast plate:

Front side

Back side

Right side

 To put it on I made it like a football harness as it can be closed on the sides with velcro (which wasn't perfect and I made the harness a tiny bit to tight)

The harness folded open.

With the shoulder parts:

Final result before painting.

Arm/ Shin guards:
Next to a breast plate my limbs also needed protection.
I took a measurement for my arms and legs and drew this on a piece of paper.
On this paper I drew the outlining of the guards as I wanted them to be.
After that I cut them out, adding missing paper parts to create templates that had some extra 1-1,5 cm to glue them together.

Paper parts stacked together as it will look like.

These were traced on the foam and cut with an exacto knife.
Details were added and with the heath gun I curved the foam into it's final shape.

Different stages of a shin guard; the right one is just as big as the middle one, but due to the shaping it's closer to the camera making it appear bigger for some reason.

Same thing goes for the upperarm/ shoulder guard and the lower arm guard.
Because I like armor to be a-symmetrical I only made one upper arm and one lower arm guard.

Beginning stage of the upper arm guard.

Final stage before painting.

Lower arm guard.

After everything was glued, it was time to paint. For this project I used some acrylic paints. Silver and Gold aren't acrylic. There's a slight difference between them; I noticed the non-acrylic paints crackle way more than the acrylics do. Also they seem to rub off more quicker.

Black is a great base color. I didn't need to add this color as the sheet color was already black to start with. Only the self adhesive pearls needed a black coating.
Usually I would do a "dry brush" technique, but it didn't work as efficient as I hoped. Instead, I used a bit more paints and brushed it out on place.
I've added about 3 different tones of the same color to get the high lights I wanted. In the edges I brushed black acrylics so it "pops" a bit more.
For the blending of the highlights I used a lot more water as I brushed away the color. (A airbrush would work better, but I don't have that luxury.)

To secure the paint I added 2-3 layers of acrylic varnish. This also seem to crackle a tiny bit after 2 days of wearing this outfit, so there might be a better solution.

Arm guards.

Shin Guards.

 When all of that was done I needed to attach my parts to my body, breast plate and boots.

-Shin Guards: I used elastic bands (the ones for fabric, not the post office ones) for the shin guards to slide them over my boots.
-Breastplate: for the breastplate I used velcro on the sides. Which was a bit difficult to put on without help because I wasn't able to reach over to attach both sides that easy anymore when I was wearing it.
-The shoulder guards: these are attached with velcro to the breastplate (3 points; front, on top of the shoulder and on my back.) This can probably also use some improvements.
-Arm guards: As you see on the picture I used elastic band on the upper arm one and nylon straps with plastic clasps on the lower arm one.

Tip: Elastic bands can't be glued directly to the foam, the stretching will detach them. Instead sew the end of it on a piece of nylon strap and glue that to the foam.
Still I had some trouble with the nylon staying in place, so it's even better to do it the Evil Ted Smith way: Cut a small piece away from the foam so the nylon part fits snuggle inside, glue it tight with hot glue and use more hot glue over the nylon and foam to cover it up. The foam will now break sooner than your nylon will be detached.


Bonus: Because it's a great event with a lot of well dressed people/ creatures, I always bring my camera. I bought a little suitcase (beauty case) which was just big enough to fit my camera, an extra lens and a cosplay emergency kit (glue, markers, tape, needle and tread etc.).
I pimped a simple aluminum case with some left over foam and a nice paint job. (Yes, I should've cleaned the edged, but it looks more rough this way :P )

And here you see the final result: A picture of me with Dr. Who.

Memo Board (2016)

Next to the walls, my shelves, nightstand and such, I also needed something new on my door.
There used to be a plastic memo board with a small pinboard and whiteboard. Although functional, it didn't really look great.

Finished piece

There wasn't really a plan for this build, I took some measurements about the width and how big I wanted the shelves and the middle section to be (I wanted it as big as regular business cards and other passes/cards.

It's made from left-over pieces of wood (plywood/ MDF), a reused pin board and old curtain hooks. Basically the whole thing is made from actual scrap.

Grey primer

When the woodwork was done I gave it a grey primer. On the left side I wanted a pin board, I used the cardboard one with the self adhesive velours from the previous memo board (I cut it to fit) and on the right side there would be a chalk board.

I had some left over brown from previous projects, this was going to be the base color. I liked to give it that "antique" look, but not the sanded kind (where you sand the edges, making the base color show through, with the risk of sanding too much and revealing the primer or wood)
I read somewhere you can use vaseline on the edges to prevent the top coating from sticking to the surface. I didn't have any laying around, I did however, have some hair straightener spray I never use. I took out the nozzle bit and applied some of the liquid with a paintbrush to the edges and a small dot/ strike every here and there.
When the white coat was applied and dry, I could easily scrape off the parts where I'd applied the hair straightener, with my nails (strong tape will also work).

To finish this project I painted the chalk board with special chalk board paint.
And I added some old curtain hooks to hang things on.

Finished and filled with things to show its functionality.

Finished piece perspective view.