Serving Tray (2017)

For my housewarming party I made some home made industrial looking serving trays.

Serving well as a serving tray.

These are made from plywood and metal rings from (industrial size) filler/ paint bins.

Plywood circle

Metal ring

 

There's not that much to tell for a tutorial. You trace a closed ring on a piece of plywood. You cut these out slightly bigger (5-8 mm depending on the size of the ring).
Sand the edges to make it fit into the rings.

Then divide the board into 3 smaller boards and use a ruler and awl to scratch that line.
With a pair of scissors or another sharp object you  can make some wear and tear cuts on the surface of the board.
Then add a layer of stain. When that layer is dry, sand the middle.
Add a new layer of stain and add black tones around the edges.

I made a stamp out from craft foam and added these after the staining was done.
I choose the name "One of a kind" because they are hand made, which makes them similar but unique.

Add at least 2 layers of varnish and close the ring around it.

Different rings mean different sizes. 

I'm planning to make these into small side tables. I will give an update when I've made those.

Sidenote; Make sure the rings are cleaned; use a good cleaning detergent and a scouring sponge. Especially when it's going to be used in combination with food.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them: Bowtruckle (2016)

This might be a very quick tutorial.

After seeing the movie "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" I decided I wanted to make my friend a figure from that movie as he wanted to come with me, but I didn't know that in time.

This isn't the perfect photo, I'll try to make a new one soon.

 To start of I looked at footage/ photo's of the actual Bowtruckle from the movie.
From that I made a wire frame from electric wire (I don't really recommend this afterwards as it proved to be way to bendy.

The tiny frame was covered with a bit of clay and some basic shapes were added.
I left 2 antennas sticking out of his head. Later on the leaves would be glued to these.

I used some expensive new clay for this project instead of the regular cheap one I use. It's a nice smooth clay but it breaks rather easily. So not that suited for this tiny project.

Wireframe

Covered with clay

Once the clay part is done I gave it a solid green layer. On this I added all the variety of brown and greens.

The leaves were made from regular (eva) foam; 1mm. I cut this in shape and with something sharp I added the lines of the leave.
With help from the heat of a lighter I was able to make the leave a bit thinner and bend it into shape (it will stay that way once cooled)
This was also painted several shaded of green.

2 coats of varnish (semi-gloss on most of it, gloss on the "wet parts" like roots, tips of his fingers)

In case you wonder: The "Pepernoot" he's holding is an inside joke. (This is also made from clay)

Birdhouse Clock (2016)

As a present to the designers of the Fruitcorso cart I've wanted to  give them something in spirit of their design. I came up with a birdhouse clock, because the design was a clock with gears, carried by birds and butterflies.

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT USE THESE FOR REAL BIRDHOUSES
I've been told that they serve as an oven when they're put in direct sunlight, cooking the little birdies.

Open and closed "clock"

I went to the local thrift shop and got 2 cookie tins.
There were spraypainted black.

2 nice cookie tins

Black cookie tins

When the tins were black I added chains, hinges and a front plate.

Some chains are added

The front plate was covered with a  printed clock. The hands of the clock are put at 17:09
The Fruitcorso took place at September the 17th.
The tins were then painted gold.

Basic gold

I added some darker colors around the edges to make it look older and I made a template which I then dabbed with black/ dark gold.

2 layers of varnish finished this project.

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

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.

Nightstand "Craquelé" test (2016)

Back in the days I've seen some things done with a special "craquelé" paint. This cracks the top layer of paint, revealing the color beneath it through the cracks.

While I redid my room (the green is still there, no worries, but now there's also a soft yellow wall and a brick-wall-wallpaper-wall.)

Anyway, I wanted to give the craquelé an attempt on an old nightstand I had.

Finished piece. Looks better in reality than on the picture I must say.

The original nightstand was unpainted pine-wood. I gave it an orange primer; the one I've also used for the shelves I made not that long ago, which also are this kind of craquelé by now. The craquelé worked a bit better on those, but I lack pictures of them (Maybe I'll make them later).

Back to topic: The nightstand was sanded, orange primer as was added. After that the "base" color was added; this is the color that shines through the cracks.

Then a special liquid was applied (It reminds me of diluted glue the kids use at primary school). The lady from the store said to let it dry and quickly apply the top color.

Orange primer

Original color

Brown under coat

Mint top coat, green sided and red rims.

This went fine with the drawer as this is a small surface, but the door was a different story.

I've redone it twice or so. What I did last time is to let the "liquid" dry really well (it doesn't matter if you leave it for a few days, so don't hurry). Then apply the color coating in a thick layer; don't keep rubbing the surface with your brush as it will mess things up with the "liquid" coating.

Also keep the surface flat. Due to the thick layer of paint it will run down if you keep things up right.

To give things an even older look I've sanded some of the corners a tiny bit. The orange wasn't such a great choice for this, blue might be nicer.

Another thing: The cracks have a certain way of cracking; the nicest cracks are the ones where this "liquid" coat is applied in the same stroking direction as the final coat. (drawer is done this way, the top is done the other way; liquid on the top was applied top to bottom and the top color is done left to right.)

Top coating, as you can see the cracks aren't nicely "open" due to the different stroking directions.

Fun to show: The door, cleaned with a scouring sponge.
Which actually is a nice effect also (ideal for faux-copper).