Game of Thrones Pedestal - Commission, sculptural build

[rablack97]

WOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW............

 

[njgsx96]

Are you kidding me?  I saw that picture of foam stacked and then the picture of it carved....  OH...  MY...  GOD...  THAT IS AWESOME!!!   

[talkgeek]

Are you kidding me?  I saw that picture of foam stacked and then the picture of it carved....  OH...  MY...  GOD...  THAT IS AWESOME!!!   

+1 - dam the bar has been lifted yet again

[Brian74]

Im not going to start any new build threads, whats the point! Amazing work LC 

[wirenut]

Just wow. 

[AlienInferno]

Holy Crap!!!  That is amazing.  You have some skills man!  I wish I did.  I've always wanted to get into carving/sculpting but my body doesn't like working with my brain.  I can picture all kind of cool stuff in my head but can never get it done in any kind of media.

[Le Chuck]

Thanks guys!  It's a lot of fun and very forgiving, I recommend that everyone try it - you'll really be amazed what you can crank out.  All of that was done with the following tools:

Wood saw
2" paint scraper heated with blowtorch
Sureform rasp (an absolute must have when working with foam)
Dremel with drum sanding head and 1/8" spiral cut bit. 
120 grit sandpaper

I put some of the primer/glue on a bit thick for a few panels and it was still wet when I started carving.  Some started to de-laminate a bit but a squirt of Great Stuff^TM and a few toothpicks locked everything back down. 

Also, as a note if anyone is looking to start working with foam, bondo disolves polystyrene.  You have to seal the piece before you coat it (and that's only necessary if you have a lot of laminate sheets like I do, or want to change the surface texture).  I used the same Glidden Gripper^TM to seal the piece as I did to glue it all together.  I used a foam roller and then went in with gloved hands and used my fingers to really work the paint into the cracks so that way when I go to bondo over the whole mess it doesn't shrivel up and disolve away.

If you wanted to make the whole thing hollow you could bondo it all then drill a few holes and pipe in acetone and wash the whole mess out.  Also, if you want the styrofoam to be super hard I recommend using half bond and half urethane resin mixed together with bits of fibreglass sheet cut up and mixed into the compound.  The bondo activator will work on the resin also - it's called "bondo-glass" and is pretty much the hardiest stuff around, but is total overkill for this application. 

Anyway below is a pic of the stand sealed and drying.  Tonight I'll be able to apply the bond and start doing some of the bark effects on the build.  I'll also start foaming the CP and may start on getting it shapped as well.  You can see R2 in the back, the drink tower is back to chrome now (I keep changing things on it trying to get the look just right) and I still need to make the updated drink tray - so busy right now), but he serves beer and should also serve as my jukebox here shortly...or whenever I find time to mess with him lol. 

[AlienInferno]

So that's just glue and paint to seal?  Looks pretty good IMO.  Maybe it's just the picture but it seems like it covered the lines were two sheets meet pretty well.  I'm a bit surprised.  I figured it would take at least a thin coat of bondo to hide all the imperfections.  But being a tree I guess that with bark you can have a few imperfections.  Real trees aren't perfect.

[Le Chuck]

So that's just glue and paint to seal?  Looks pretty good IMO.  Maybe it's just the picture but it seems like it covered the lines were two sheets meet pretty well.  I'm a bit surprised.  I figured it would take at least a thin coat of bondo to hide all the imperfections.  But being a tree I guess that with bark you can have a few imperfections.  Real trees aren't perfect.

The paint is the glue, but yeah, that's all it is.  Still going to get a top coat, there are a number of cracks that don't look at all natural and then I'll need to go in with the chisel and dremel and add natural looking ones back in after I coat it all lol.  The bondo will serve a second purpose beside cosmetics, which is to harden the whole thing so it can stand up to some knocks and kicks.  If you're doing just a display piece you can just do about three layers of the sealer and then sand it back smooth and it'll look like plastic. 

[yotsuya]

Looks good, bro. 

[Vigo]

  Who wudda thunk there was a tree hiding in that pile of foam? Sneaky tree.....

[rablack97]

don't care what you think.....your getting one of these for this work.

Trousers messed   

 

[yotsuya]

don't care what you think.....your getting one of these for this work.

Trousers messed   

 

Your wood gave Rodney wood, LC!

[markc74]

Wha.... How...

That's how you do a custom cab. Got ideas for the cp overlay yet? Guess you could do leaves to finish the tree vibe?

[rablack97]

I graced Maximus's first build with the line, drove LC nuts 

This is one of those Ond builds, when you check the thread your like how the hell???  Then your mouth just drops.

Massive props, keep it going and dont lose interest like you did on the other projects!!!

[DaOld Man]

Wow! Very impressive!

[Generic Eric]

We're not out of the woods yet.  Just getting started!

[ChanceKJ]

We're not out of the woods yet.  Just getting started!

Boooooo.

Not very punny.




Working with poly is brutal. I had to make a 3 foot tall apple for a show we did in college and sometimes it's just a pain in the butt. And messy.  I commend you for putting up with it.

[ark_ader]

So is that supposed to be a portrait of Diana Rigg with her mouth open?

[Le Chuck]

@rablack -  my god you guys have long memories.  Totally forgot about that.  Well, glad to hear it, now clean yourself up, it's getting funky in here.     Also, I'm not likely to lose interest on this, I haven't dropped a comission yet (knock on salt thrown over crossed wooden fingers).  Besides, really it's just one project I straight up dropped, I'll still get around to those minis - I was just tinkering with them the other day 

@yot - it's honestly one of the perils of being me.  Let's just say that gym showers get very awkward very fast. 

@Generic Eric - true; but hopefully we can start to see the forrest through the trees perhaps   

@Chance - it has its pros and cons for sure.  For this build I think it makes sense - I do wish I had access to much thicker block stock, laminating all those sheets was not ideal and I still have more to do.  How did you finish the apple prop?  Paper mache?

@ark - She's a peach...but in so much as one is a face in a sea of cloth and the other is a face in a sea of wood cut on a similar bias they look nothing alike.  If you would like a sculture of Dame Rigg I can do a bust for you in the medium of your choosing.  I recommend chocolate. 

[harveybirdman]

That feisty little one in the back looks ready for a tour of duty on the master's sail barge.

[ChanceKJ]

After I spend a month taking a rasp and power sander to it, yeah we used strips of the Red Deer Advocate and what seemed like a 55 gallon drum worth of Weldbond/water half-n-half.

...just went and found the pictures. It was like a 2 foot apple and a small hill with a tree for scene 2. Wish I had better pictures to show you.... Meh. These were taken in low light on a Palm Zire71 a decade ago.  If I remember correctly they were so sturdy you could stand on them with quite a bit of weight.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Subscribed!  I need to show this to my other half once it's completed, she's a huge fan of Game of Thrones.  Arcades... not so much.  This is definitely one in the win column for me.  LOL!  Don't let me down!   

Excellent work as usual LeChuck!

DeLuSioNaL29

[Le Chuck]

Step 5: lather rinse repeat on the CP but make it like a big rock.


 I'm in the middle of Step 6 which is to join the two but I ran out of bondo tonight. That's why it all kinda looks kerfuddled right now but I'll get that sorted this week. Next weekend should be detailing, texturing, weathering, leafing, and painting. Oh and pesky assemble of the arcade controls.

I might need one more weekend after all 

@chance - that's awesome man, I'd love to be able to do scenery building at set dressing all the time. Such a fun gig, those look great from what I can see

[AlienInferno]

Looks awesome man!   

How are you mounting the controls?  Does the CP open?

[Le Chuck]

Looks awesome man!   

How are you mounting the controls?  Does the CP open?

Out the back.  It's not the most super user friendly setup but you can still swap everything out if necessary.  That allows me to have the seamless look from the business end. 

[Vigo]

Where's the cupholders?

[wp34]

It looks a bit like a bird bath at this stage but I see where you are going.  This is one cool build.  Nice work Le Chuck.

[emphatic]

I can't stop thinking a huge Iron Throne poster as a wallpaper behind it would look cool.

[Le Chuck]

@Vigo - oh they were discussed.  Big tankards permantly affixed that you put the bottle in, all kinds of cup holders.  The design went a different direction. 

@empahatic - Or just swords on display on either side of the TV would be cool

@wp34 - lol, yeah it's pretty rough right now, most of the hard work is done tho.  It's all in the finishing. 

[rockyrocket]

Dude I am completely draw dropping amazed at this, and I don`t remember the last time that happened.
Very original, well done  .

[ChanceKJ]

Where's the cupholders?

I second that, wtf?  The omission is almost a deal breaker.

It looks a bit like a bird bath at this stage but I see where you are going.  This is one cool build.  Nice work Le Chuck.

Haha, agreed. Up until I read that I kept hearing the Ghostbusters theme in my head when I looked at it.

I'm not going to be ultra impressed until I see your drybrushing technique on the finish. 

[Le Chuck]

We're a week out from the one month mark.  Still a lot to do but hopefully we are looking less bird-bathy.  This next week I need to dye the plastics, hook up all the controls and paint the sigils and runes on the CP.  Minor touch up needed here and there as always but the client is happy and so am I. 

Too many steps at this point...Pics!









Looks like there is a red mark on the forehead, I didn't notice it in the garage but it is sticking out a bunch in the pics, probably a finger print from when I was using the cut up visine eye dropper to do the red paint and it got all over my hands.  I'll have to go fix that. 

[DeLuSioNal29]

 

Great work!  Not sure if I missed it, but is there a pic you are referring to when designing the tree?  Did you post the original?

The only one that I found in a Google search was this:


D

[Le Chuck]

Great work!  Not sure if I missed it, but is there a pic you are referring to when designing the tree? 

Thanks. Nope, I just did some sketches on a scrap of paper while chatting with the client and went from that.

[darthpaul]

Amazing work Le Chuck, how do you work so fast and still create such high quality work?

[Le Chuck]

Amazing work Le Chuck, how do you work so fast and still create such high quality work?

Thanks bud (but tell that to my other projects that are languishing in project purgatory ), I'm pretty comfortable with certain build materials so the stuff tends to go pretty quick, plus when you're not trying to replicate something but just making stuff up instead it's a lot easier because there are no "mistakes", just happy little accidents [/bob ross mode]

One happy accident I need to render down a bit is the moss, I like the pattern but it's too high, throws the scale off of the build.  I need miniature moss.  I'll give it a haircut - I'll also add more, that's not complete, just complete for that bag I bought.  I'll be adding in more on the braches and lichen up parts of the bolder as well but won't do that till the very end. 

[thatpurplestuff]

This is just incredible.  Can't wait to see the final product!

[rtkiii]

This cannot be a month build...I would just like to see it finished!

[wp34]

We're a week out from the one month mark.  Still a lot to do but hopefully we are looking less bird-bathy. 

Yep.  Looks great Le Chuck.  I think you have just created a whole new genre of builds.