Karl's Big Build! 

We have bought a train! 


Well, part of a train, to be precise its an early 1900's ventilated meat wagon (already christened "Rupture Farms" by Sue.  

It has been, along with another wagon, used as a store on a local recreation ground since the 50's and has reached the end of its useful life so when we heard it was being demolished I offered the owner £50 and became the proud possessor of piece of railway memorabilia! 

In the picture top left, its under the tree on the RHS, so you can't actually see it!


The idea is to put it at the bottom of the garden as a garden office, keeping as much of the character as possible. (While taking off the rude graffiti!)

It is pretty big, (18ft by 8ft) and should make a really nice space, the ends are metal but everything is lined in wooden paneling making the entire thing incredibly heavy and solid. 

The steel used on it is fantastically think and must be an excellent quality as there is very little rust.  

Next order of business was moving it, I had 4 days to clear if off the site before the JCB moved to prepare the ground for its replacement.  

I don't think I have ever posted this, its the short movie I made while on my MA at UWE. Its the story of the first dog in space, sort of...
All of the Modelling, Animation and rendering was my own work in 3d Studio Max, I then assembled the individual scenes in Aftereffects and the movie in Premier.
Billy Bragg kindly allowed me to use his song "I wanna be a cosmonaut" as the closing track.

Karl

Kids fantasy Armour

I seem to have been neglecting this blog, in no small part due to the lack of "making" required in the kids Christmas school play costumes.

A wet Sunday gave me the incentive to start something I have been wanting to do for some time. I brought a pack of foam from amazon last year which has sat there just waiting for a project to use it on. 

Over the last month we have been to Tamworth castle & Hampton court which combined with reading the Game of Thrones books and watching "How to Train Your Dragon 2" Pushed me over the edge. 

I needed to make a suit of Armour.

Ill make a suit for Seth first and if all is good, make myself a suit afterwards :-) 

This is the start of the arm, I'm really looking forward to the painting and decoration, I'm aiming to make it look as real as possible (for foam)

More updates soon.  

village show art

Every year our friends run a local village show, and normally we enter a few photos and drawings in the hope of winning the art cup, which, to be fair we do win quite often :-) (well sue my partner  normally wins it) This year with two days to go to the show I started my painting. We like leaving these things to the last moment.

I have had some success with bankys style pictures, two years ago my cowboy riding an

ATAT picked up a 1st or 2nd.

The picture above is painted on the back of a piece of perspex, unfortunately,

this year I forgot to take my painting.

On the day before the show i did the pencil drawing entry, 

This was drawn from photos we had taken at Warwick castle last week. 

This one picked up a second place which with a couple of results with photos meant I got to bring the trophy home ! Whooow!!

Cardboard castles

After the success of the Houses as the backdrop to the kids school play we were approached by the year six teacher to see if we could knock her up a quick castle for their rendition of the robin hood story, the final school event of the year, and the last thing the year six kids take part in before going off to new schools.

Sue couldn't refuse so with a couple of weeks to get something done I started collecting the cardboard!

Working out how to make it all free standing.

The tops of the turrets

A slightly simplified Nottingham forest.

The finished paint job on the forest

Sue helping to put the last details on the castle. It stands about 7ft tall and is something like 12ft across. Its only loosely bolted together in the picture. 

And for the first time I managed to make something that folded up and went in the back of my car (a VW Polo) So it actually made getting it to school a piece of cake. 

I'm looking forward to hearing what the kids think of it later today. :-)

Cardboard houses

A few pictures of the two "buildings" made for the schools version of the ginormous turnip, all the buildings were made using some fantastic 3ply card we have our injection moulding plastic delivered in at work. The  card is fantastic, as strong as hardboard but much easier to cut. 

the roof is much thinner and was givn a few coats of paint to help it look suitably wobbly and rough.

Between the houses is Seth in his dog costume. I made the head and my wife the body suit/gloves and feet.

The turnip house, made in two pieces as everything had to fit in the back of our car.

Beach buggy tot rod rebuild

Its been a while since I have posted but that's not to say I haven't been busy, In the last few weeks I have rebuilt the buggy and built two houses for number one son's school assembly. The houses and a fence were for a production of the ginormous turnip, for which they needed a tumbledown cottage and a turnip house along with a length of fence. The same weekend the school held a summer fayre, for which I had foolishly offered the buggy as an attraction. It was a long way from being ready to use, so in the last two weeks I have welded the chassis, painted all the steel, added chrome bumper cages front and back, made and upholstered the interior panels and seats, painted the wheels and built a pretend engine(which annoyingly didn't fit at the 11th hour!)

We made it to the show and it was a real hit, not sure who much we made yet but I had over £50 in my bucket including the float so a reasonable 2h work. :-)

above, on the morning of the show, fitting the wheels.

.

My space on the field with my cottage as a backdrop

OFF ROAD!!! :-)

One of the 80's "Love Is Cards"?

It really could have been built to fit in the back of the car, there is an inch to spare in every direction.