The Aftermath: Part II

Look, it's an update! Remember that huge bag of greeblies that I got from the "Creation Station"? I think it was the night before the LAN that we finally spray painted those. Oh yes, that's how little time we had. I chose a reflective, metallic silver paint to make everything look futuristic and sleek. They had maybe 8 or 10 hours to dry in the freezing winter air before we were hot gluing them onto the chassis. Below is a good selection of what we chose to paint. Any guesses as to what objects the greeblies actually are?
According to the original sprite, there is terrain at the base of the arcology, as well as inside the dome. This was a good excuse for me to slant one end to use for the computer inputs. As you may know, the cords ran down the PVC support pipe in the middle to make the structure appear cord-free. I broke off large chunks of Styrofoam and carved them into large hillsides, then taped them to the base. The input board needed to be sturdy, so I just stained a small piece of plywood and used some L-brackets to secure it to the base. The edges looked pretty ugly, so I glued on some black fun foam to clean them up. Eventually, I sprinkled flocking here and there, and stuck foliage on it as well to give it some scale. The dryer tubing was one of the final things added which spiraled around the PVC, under the guise of supporting the arcolody, when really it was just stapled in place.
The interior of the cylinder was a challenging design process, because I had a lot of materials to fit inside but not a lot of space. I attached the silver SonoTube to the wooden frame with several large L-brackets, and it wasn't quite as sturdy as I had imagined. I bought some 1" wooden dowels, cut them to size, and screwed them in tightly at the cylinder's vertical hinge points. This reduced the wobbly factor by 23! I cut the original DVD-ROM and HDD brackets out of my old case with the dremel, but I think I used the wrong attachment head for it because it was completely worn to the screw by the time I was done. Oh well. One thing I forgot to account for when I measured everthing was protruding cords coming off the motherboard components where the door was to close. I shifted the position of the hinges to give the cylinder a slightly wider diameter, and this fixed the problem with just milimeters to spare. I had this awesome yellow clippy light that I hooked up to various edges to that I could see what the hell I was doing in this increasingly complex creation.
Here is an outside view of the cylinder with some greeblies glued on. We had just installed the DVD drive and were proud of how perfectly it had slipped into place. I had cut several holes in the SonoTube for the drive, a case fan for airflow, and even the LCD screen. Any remaining room on the face was reserved for greeblies large and small. There was a lot of empty space to cover, and so we used nearly all of the objects that I had spray-painted the night before.
The next update will show the finished shots. Stay tuned!

The Aftermath: Part I

As you may or may not have heard, I didn't win the competition. Gore lost the electoral vote, too. :) But seeing as how I still have a bunch of pictures, I'll show you guys how the finished product turned out! It's been a while since I've talked about the terrarium, so I'll finally indulge you guys.

After the plaster cloth dried on the Styrofoam for topographical features, I began to paint it. I didn't have many art supplies at all, so I bought a bunch of arcrylic paints, and borrowed brushes from friends. I chose an earthy brown for the hilly sections, and gave the lake bed a nice beachy blue gradient. The gradient was very gradienty, by the way. It was important to make the terrerium looking as much like a paradise as possible, because that's how the sprite looks. Anyway, when the paint dried, I sprayed it with the modeling equivalent of Elmer's glue, and pinched on some lime-green flocking. It was looking great, but it needed some texture. I added patches of artificial foliage along hillsides and where paths might be. I glued the trees I had made earlier into "artistically strategic" positions and added various Styrofoam rocks to the platform. I had bought some "EZ-Water" from a modeling store, to be used for the lake. All I had to do was to heat it up in an aluminum skillet and it dried in minutes. Unfortunately, it set with a glaring yellow hue. This, when combined with my blue paint job, turned my lake green. Son of a bitch!
I carved out a hole in one of the northern hillsides to make space for the access elevator. The culverts I had bought earlier were used for the main doorway, and were painted cement gray. I stuffed the interior with black fun foam to give the illusion of a continuous underground tunnel, because it is very non-reflective. The doorway was to fit about 3-4 people shoulder-to-shoulder for the approximate scale I had in mind. Eventually, I realized that the more objects I placed on the landscape, the more fully in control of scale I could be. Using a small funnel and more modeling glue, I created some large sand paths that could be used for rovers of some kind. The smaller paths again controlled the scale a bit more. By painting little greeblies, we came up with some great futuristic building ideas that might exist in this world. The idea was to have sightseeing/tourism structures as well as some practical maintenance areas as well. I don't have too many pictures of the different construction phases, but here are some shots of the finished product. Note the lunar rover toy which we temporarily used for scale reference. :)
The dome was destined to live on top of the main body of the arcology, so we had to make some kind of mount for it. From the beginning, I wanted everything to be easily disassembled for transport and convenience, and so we opted to have the dome simply lift off the top, with a snug fit. My friend Dan did the lion's share of the work on the outer ring that would hold it in place. He built it around the dome platform so it would fit perfectly. It was mainly composed of curved railroad tracks, plastic canvas, fun foam, and ungodly amounts of hot glue.
Dan is a self-proclaimed "Trekky", so there was plenty of "Borg" influence in the design. We wanted things as glowy and blinky as possible, so I obtained some LED christmas lights to line the inside of the ring. It was AC powered, but that was fine because I had a power strip mounted in the cylinder. Using scraps of old lighting gels, we were able to make the LEDs cast multi-colored hues on different sections of the terrarium. LANs usually have dimmed lights anyway, so this was sure to look awesome. The lights even had several different blinking modes, depending on what mood I was in at the time. Covering up cords (at least on the outside) was important to me, so the fun foam hid most of the christmas light evidence. Of course, some light leaked through, but that was cool in its own right. More updates to come later.

Crunch Time

Hello again. I'm taking a break from working on the project to post a status update! This week I've gotten a fair amount done, but between sleeping, job-working, and generally slacking off, I don't have as much spare time as I'd like. :) I have begun to build the bottom-half of the arcology. The main unit will be supported by a 4 inch PVC pipe, attached with L-brackets. I've cut notches in the top and bottom with the jigsaw so that all the extension cords can pass through to the base. The plan is to cut a small plate out of plywood that will house all of the connections, and attach it to the bottom of the model. I'll need to rig up power, DVI, audio and mic cables, and 2x USB extensions for use. I have a wireless card for internet, but maybe if I'm bored I'll put a switch at the bottom as well. Anyway, I spray-painted the PVC silver to disguise it among the ship's legs, which will probably consist of flexible dryer duct. Ducting? As you can see, my spray can had an accident on the tarp.
I spray-painted the SonoTube silver as well, and sanded 1/4 inch off the sides with the Dremel. I will eventually have to cut holes in the sides for the case fans, the DVD rom drive, and the LCD screen. Perhaps even more stuff that I add on a whim!
The sides were carved down to make room for the vinyl edge trim. It's not perfect, but it already looks a helluva lot better than the cardboard sides. I haven't decided if I want to keep it white or spray it silver as well. I'm probably doing this in the wrong order, but you can make one yourself, thank you very much. I had to jam the corners with superglue and clamp them overnight, because they really wanted to warp rather than do my bidding.
Hooray, the dome(s) have arrived! Why do I have two, you ask? It's easier to buy a custom-sized plastic ball than a dome. It looks great, much more like what I envisioned than the tacky, decorated punch bowls from the party store. I've acquired some small Christmas lights that will line the base of the dome to give it some sense of being a standalone structure. I may return them in favor of cooler (literally) LEDs, but they are a backup plan.
More to come this weekend, so don't launch anywhere! Yet.

High Gear

With only a few weeks left, I've been working hard on this project nearly every day. I don't know if I will finish on time, but I've learned a lot about crafts and it's been a fun experience. Although there are several tedious things that I've gotta finish, it sure is nice to have Netflix on demand. :)

One of the first things I started building after the last update was the case innards. I decided to construct the skeleton of the cylinder out of 1/2" birch plywood because it's lightweight, sturdy, and easy to work with. I cut my pieces with a jigsaw, then sanded and stained them for presentation.
I'm not worried about the wood being a fire hazard because my computer runs quite cool with its aftermarket fans, and I plan to add additional airflow by installing more fans in the cardboard sides. The motherboard is elevated from its foundation with standoffs as well. In order to make the whole computer fit in the case, I had to arrange some things vertically. The power supply sits on the bottom with the motherboard just above it so that applicable power cords will reach. The DVD and HDD will be mounted in the original metal bracket from my old case, aligned flush with the cylinder edge. I am using my one and only computer for this case, so here it is in all its glory while I have it temporarily set up for use.
I brush-painted a few coats of primer on the SonoTube in the hopes that I will be able to sand away some of the imperfections on its face. Eventually, I'll apply some highly reflective silver spray paint that will look futuristic and stuff. Yeah! By the way, can you spot the 18" of snow in the picture below?
While I was in Seattle, I stopped at a little store called the Creation Station. They acquire large quantities of recycled industrial materials that can then be reused for craft projects. You fill a bag with as much crap as you possibly can for a fixed price. My plan is to use this sort of thing for greeblies! Hmm, you don't know what greeblies are? Take a look at a ship model used in Star Wars. Do you see all of those random bits and parts and decals and things attached to the surface of the ship? Yeah, those are greeblies--details for the sake of art. Below is my creation station bag. The picture really doesn't do it justice. Maybe I'll take another one when everything is dumped out.
So, back to the terrarium. I bought some acrylic paint and made it all purdy-like. I then sprayed diluted glue all over it in sections and pinched on green flocking for grass. You don't get to see a picture of it yet. HAH. I will show you how I constructed the trees, though. I bought some pre-formed deciduous plastic trees from a hobby shop instead of trying to use a bunch of brittle twigs. That was a good decision, because these things are awesome. They have a wire skeleton inside the plastic so that you can twist them however you wish. I had to mainly use branches to represent whole trees because my scale is much smaller than they were designed for.
I then dipped them in glue and stuck on some artificial foliage. They look quite nice, if I do say so myself. The only problem is that I get bored to tears making them, and I will need quite a few. Might as well finish Heroes season 1.
My mother made some trees of the autumn variety as a joke. They look half decent, but would unfortunately be a bit out of place with the rest of the miniatures. Mmmmm... pizza sounds really good right about now.
I bought a pre-made culvert to use as some sort of docking bay/elevator for the Sims to travel to and from the terrarium. But the poor things are made out of clay or something and broke in half when I put some gentle pressure on the package to open it. Luckily, I now have a large collection of craft supplies, and I simply super-mega-e-6000-glued them back together. I'll paint them of course to hide the cracks even more.
Last but not least, my off-brand LCD arrived a couple days ago that I bought second-hand from a goon. The plan is to make a slideshow of the Simcity 2000 "advisors". Apparently it also plays music too, so I'll get the crappy music to loop as well.
This project will either be epic or terrible. I can't wait.