So, I am still making things; however, I have not
done much with the big E. Instead I had elements of a Halloween costume to
create, and right now I am working on holiday gifts, so I will post the making
of those after they have gone out. If I get any work done on the Enterprise you will see it here as well. I am working to
document the creation of something completely different than a model, something
you may not even expect. It is a gift, so after the holidays.
I do have some pics to post from my Halloween
work, as well as some explanation of how I went about making these things. So
for Halloween the wife and I went as Death and his granddaughter Susan from
Terry Pratchett’s Disk World books, specifically we had in mind The Hogfather
as we were reading a passage at Dead Writers’ Night. Death, in this world, is
the standard large skeletal guy we all know and love. He carries with him a
sword and a scythe and often has an hourglass. His eyes glow blue. With him,
most often, is Death of Rats, the grim reaper for the souls of rats. In the TV version of The Hogfather, Death,
Susan and Death of Rats all hold their cloaks closed with the same basic omega
pin. So, for this I needed a skull mask with glowing blue eyes, a sword, three
omega pins, a pair of hourglasses that would not break easily, and, well, a
Death of Rats.
Death, Death of Rats (on the piano) and Susan
Death of Rats turned out to be a pretty easy task.
At Jo-Anne’s I found a 1:1 plastic rat skeleton. The skull is nowhere accurate
(ears, really?) but it would do. Using a heat gun I softened the plastic in
some key areas to take him from being four footed to two. Then using a
combination of the heat gun and careful cutting I re-positioned the arms and the
head. Finally, I cut off the ears and sanded that area smooth. The skull was
cast in 2 pieces and came apart with just a screw, so I added a blue LED with
fiber optics to give the eyes a pin prick of blue light. I ran the wire down his
back and secured the battery and switch from an electric tea light to his legs.
The battery carries just enough juice to light the blue LED. Finally I shaped a
blade scythe blade and attached it to a piece of thin bamboo I had lying
around. Voila, a naked Death of Rats. I patterned and Coowee sewed a robe and
cloak for him. He was basically a one day build.
The original
Standing tall
With the robe, no cloak
Cloak and pin in place
The next thing I did was make the omega pins. Using
stills from the film I estimated a length for the pin. I then found an image of
a recreation offered at a website. I used word to set the length of the image
to the length I wanted for each pin (6”, 5” and 1”). I then printed them out. I
used these as patterns to cut out the shapes in sculpay. After they baked all I
needed was some paint to have three omega pins.
The finished pins
The hourglasses were an interesting process. They
are made of plastic wine classes, plastic plates, sand, and dowels. The idea
was to make large hourglasses that would not be easy to break. In the end I am
not sure if these are sturdier than the glass ones we have, but they did the
job. The shorter one used the disposable plastic wine glasses, and was a bit easier.
The seam between the two was already flush, so it was just adjusting the hole
between them to let the sand slowly fall through. With the big one I used acrylic
wine glasses where I had to cut off the bottom. Getting the two flush was a
problem, one I never really fixed as there is a slight lean. With both I got
the hole big enough, then glued the pair together. I filled one side with sand,
then glued on the plates. After that died I turned them over and glued on the
other plate. The dowels were cut to length and I spaced them out and both glued
and screwed them in place. Painting was interesting, I had the entire glass
part masked to do a coat of primer, then black spray paint. They work pretty
well, but once the sand gets to a certain level it will often bind up in the
hole. The sand is sharp and jagged, so it catches on itself. Still, they look
the part.
The small one I made first
The big one.
The mask was a longer process. Once I found a mask
to use it required a lot of work. The mask was a silver skull, and had fangs
and an angry expression. Well that would not do, so I ground down the fangs and
opened up the eyes to make a better looking expression. I needed some depth to
the eyes to allow for the scrim and the lights, so I used small paper cups to
get the basic shape, then glued in thin sheets of polystyrene. I used the epoxy
putty to sculpt the eye sockets back into shape and smooth over the
transitions. I also used a little to reshape the teeth a touch. The lights are stitched
into the scrim I laid over the open sockets after the mask was painted. The
circuit was a pretty simple one with a 9 volt, a resister and a switch. I then
added scrim around the mask to hide my.
The mask of Death
. . . with lights!
behind the mask
The sword was the last thing I made (well, save
cleaning up and painting the old scythe. Yes, that is a real one with a coat of
silver paint). I found a basic evil looking sword at one o the local Halloween
shops, along with some small skulls. From there it was simply a process of
cutting the skulls to fit onto the different parts of the sword’s handle and
using epoxy putty to fix them on. I also used the epoxy to create the spike at
the top of the pommel. Like everything here, a coat of paint and we were good.
Just in case you are wondering, I did not use the airbrush. These were all
given base coats with spray paint and detailed with acrylic.
