Airbrushing shirts

I've been playing away with my new airbrush, and I finally have things worth showing for my troubles! I've been airbrushing t shirts (the classiest of all things to airbrush).

The brown shirt is mine, it's a winged frog, the black shirt is Sarah's. It's me in a gas mask...I'm guessing you already knew that though. Both of these shirts were heat set with an iron, and have made it through the wash, so we know the paint took. The frog shirt's wing faded just a bit near the edge, so last night late, I added a little paint, then heat set it again, for longer and hotter. Hopefully this time it will take.

Both are done using Frisket stencils that I designed. The frog is a particularly simple stencil. It's just the outline of the frog and an outline of the wing (as separate pieces). All the detail on it was added by hand. As a result, the frog was more fun to make, too.

I've gotten a few more blank shirts over the weekend, so I will be experimenting with different stencil types, air pressures for the compressor and what not, even more. I'm also considering trying my hand at some 'fine art' airbrushing, but I don't quite feel like I'm there, yet.

As you are aware, this has slowed down work on my dolls...but it also means that now I will be able to airbrush them instead of just normal brushing them!

Showing off my Koopa

This fellow is my Koopa Trooper. He's just shy of 16 inches tall, and each block is 5/8"X5/8"x5/8". He hangs out in the living room, just inside the door. I am not sure what possessed me to make him, but I can tell you how I did it.

First, I found a sprite of the Koopa. (If you all aren't in the know about such things, the sprites are the 'models' used in the older games. This one is a Super Mario World sprite from the 16bit Super Nintendo system). I blew it up, printed it out, and drew a grid over it so I could see how many 'pixels' I would need. Turns out I needed roughly ...a bunch. I think it was around 244? But I'm no longer sure of the number.

I bought some bitty little wooden cubes from Hobby Lobby, while all their wood stuff was on sale, and I painted them with acrylic paint. I counted out how many light green cubes, dark green cubes, black cubes etc. I would need then divided them up and painted 'em all. It was a slow process.

After all the painting, I glued them together with wood glue, starting at the bottom and working my way up, one row at a time. I found it was easier to glue a whole row together at once, or at least big parts of the rows, then glue them to the existing rows. That kept things mostly straight. There's obviously some distortion in him, but I liked it, so I left it.

After he was all glued up, I left him to dry for a day or two, then propped him up on the mantle. I was afraid to put him anywhere else, cuz I thought he would break. He's tough, though. He lives happily on the floor, now. Maybe some day he'll get some company, like say a Boo to hang on the wall above him.

Key Chains

I have made my masters, made the molds, and poured some key chains! …and painted them. Anyway, here they are. I am sure that EVERYONE EVER will agree that there is something grossly wrong about the lack of gas mask key chains in the world. I’m here to solve that. Also, at least some people will agree that there are not enough sexy naked fox girl key chains, as well, so I did that, too.

As for the bad news: I’m having issues with air bubbles in both molds, but in the fox girl, they are almost insurmountable. The gas mask isn’t so bad, but it’s bad enough that it slows down my making of them. Also, the fox girl’s paint job is a little complex for me to just mass make these things to sell, so she may never be a sold product. This makes me sad, but it may happen!

I’m digging through every set of tips and tricks I can find involving the casting process I am using, and I will keep you updated on what works!

Also, if Austrich reads this, you have a gas mask key chain waiting on you.

Vacuum Form Table part 2

As promised, here's the beast! Isn't it beautiful? I particularly love the simulated wood grain finish with the lime green plastic. It has all the elegance and beauty of a early 80s station wagon.

The thing on the side of the bucket is an adapter for the Shop Vac. I just cut a hole in the bucket, then caulked the adapter up tight. The top started life as an entertainment center. I think that it's more entertaining now than it ever was while holding up a television. It's just a piece of particle board with holes drilled into it. The bucket is also the vacuum chamber, and well...using a poo bucket to make my own plastic crap seemed appropriate.

I've wanted to make one of these things for forever, but I was always intimidated by the various schematics, etc. that you can find on the internet. Apparently, it's just as simple as you want to make it. Crazy huh?

I still need to build frames to hold the plastic, but after that, we'll form some stuff up and let you know how it works, and anything I learn from the process. Also as the second picture shows...don't drown babies in your vacuum forming table.

Vacuum Form Table!

I’m starting work on my vacuum form table today, thanks to the awesome (Ausome, for certain readers) gift I got for Christmas, of a 5.75 horse power Shop Vac! Yay! I’m not sure what I’m going to end up making with it, but it’ll likely involve quite a bit of costume things, and likely some candy molds and plaster molds.

I’m thinking of making some plaster molds of mushrooms to decorate my bathroom with. We’re going with a ‘swamp’ theme in there, for some unknown reason… I’m trying to convince my girlfriend that Yoda lived in a swamp, and is therefore suitable décor, but I don’t think she’s buying it. I’m also going to be getting some food safe plastic for candy molds, but I’m not sure exactly what I’ll sculpt for those.

If anyone has any cool ideas for thinks for me to make, let me know! I’m overwhelmed with possibilities and could use a little focus.

As for the lack of a picture this time: The vacuum form table is currently being built, and is upside down on my work bench with a bunch of JB Weld drying/setting to link the top to the bottom. Tomorrow it will get a good blob of caulk around the edges to make a seal, then lots of little holes drilled in it. A picture will be forthcoming, I swear it... Mainly because the thing looks kinda funny. Construction also involved a kitty litter bucket.

My Kitchen Cabinets: A Project

As you can see, my kitchen has glass front cabinets, which look really pretty when you are going house hunting, and are completely empty. They look less charming after they become full of clutter and spices. There’s four above the oven and prep sink, and two more on either side of the kitchen sink, so that’s a lot of visible mess. I’ve wanted to do something about it for a while, but I didn’t really enjoy the idea of tearing out cabinets and putting up new ones (which I don’t know how to do, anyway).

I watch TED talks a lot, and saw a pretty neat one the other day which involved using what you have, recycling busted construction materials by actually using them in houses, etc. The man speaking was talking from a construction point of view, but it got me thinking about my cabinets again, from a different angle. I knew I could come up with some way of making those glass fronted things work.

Here’s what I came up with. With Fabric Mod Podge, it is possible to glue fabric straight to glass, which is kinda cool. I knew about it thanks to this video (which is a how-to! I’m addicted to how-to videos). Combined with my glass cabinet problem, I can see a really cool solution. Soon the cabinet doors are going to be backed with fabric bunnies! Yay! It will be fairly inexpensive, and should look neat. More pictures when I’m finished with it.

As I can never do things the right way (nor do I care!) I'm not going to be using fabric Mod Podge because it's extra expensive and after researching, it looks like regular Mod Podge will do the trick just fine. Now, I just have to figure out how to make 20" tall bunnies.

Mold Making 2

So, I finished the masters for my key chains, and today I'm going to be pouring the molds, I think. After the last disaster where the mold box sprung a leak, I'm taking no chances today.

Instead of building a box around the object and sealing it, I'm gluing the masters straight into the bottom of a plastic cup (see picture). No way these babies will leak! Right now the glue is setting, so later today I should be able to pour latex.

With any luck the molds will come out looking good, and tomorrow I'll be able to pour the first batch of key chains! That will be awesome (Ausome). I was going to talk about another project that I might be starting today, but I decided to wing it with the molds, cuz I promised I'd talk about them more. To give a hint, the new project involves Decor. Kitchen decor to be more specific. The kitchen cabinets to be even more specific than the others.

So, tomorrow we'll probably see what kind of horrors come out of these molds, and then Friday, we may be visiting the kitchen. Take care!

Paper Craft

Pictured here is Birdo, paper craft style. I made her (him? There’s some question to this critter’s gender, depending on what you read) from four sheets of cardstock and some glue. I didn’t design her (I like the idea of Birdo as a girl better. She’s Yoshi’s girlfriend!) I just printed the pieces, cut and glued the paper, and tada! I now have a new figure for the living room!

Of course, the bomb there is not Birdo, it's a paper craft version of the FallOut 3 Mini-Nuke...on top of my washing machine. It's really pretty impressive to see the range of objects possible with the craft. The Mini-Nuke looks great on my 'Villain Shelf' with my gas mask and dummy grenade and the like (I'll probably talk about the villain shelf later).

The whole Paper Craft movement/hobby or whatever it is, is really interesting to me. It also went pretty much right under my radar for way longer than it should have. I knew people did something involving cutting, folding, and gluing paper to make figures and what not, but I didn’t realize how big it had gotten, or how fun it actually would be.

I think that a really good hobby should be cheap, take up time, and provide a sense of accomplishment. Paper Craft does all three reaaaaallly well. New paper craft models are easy to get, and most of them are free. You just download them, print them, cut them out, and glue them together. It takes quite a while to finish a piece. Birdo took a couple of days of work at a fairly obsessive pace to finish, same for the Mini-Nuke. I was also very proud of finishing her, and have a neat little figure to display, now.

There’s almost as many websites devoted to this hobby as there are models, so rather than link to any one in particular, I’ll just say there’s tons. Now to get back to cutting! I think I’ll start on a mask, next.