Bat Boat, Bites, Bat Mobile, Bench.

It's interesting. I've been operating a blog and a youtube channel under the name "The Project Work Bench" for quite some time now, and it isn't until yesterday that I ACTUALLY had a project work bench. Check this out:

I had a lot of wood left over from the TARDIS project, and now that I SORT OF know what I'm doing when it comes to working with the stuff, I figured I would take a few hours to put together something that I would get some use out of. The total build time was just about three hours, and frankly, I'm shocked that I didn't do this years ago. The thing is so amazingly useful, it's just kind of stunning.

In a rare move, I took on a commission recently. I'm making a set of Black Widow Bites for friend and fellow costumer Tally Smith. Tally is working on an upcoming video project and had some very specific requirements about what she needed. She will be doing stunts, and therefore needed something both low profile, and impervious to damage. I recommended we put together a powder coated urethane, which would make it flexible, but also give a gold finish that should look pretty good.

I started by patterning out one of the cylinders from MDF. This is the raw shape, all sanded to where it needs to be. This design is an original one, based on some feedback I got from Tally and some sample pictures and drawings. I really enjoy the creative collaboration in a project like this, and I think that's what makes it fun. Reminds me of the work I did with Damian Buerer on the Batgirl webseries. As of this writing, I've since sanded and painted this master, and also molded it.

I posted this picture on facebook the other day, and the reaction was really great. As it turns out, I'm NOT making a bat boat. I promise. Bo the Welder is working on a boat project, and I have offered to let him store stuff in the Batcave as necessary. It made for a great picture though.

But on to more pressing things. Batmobile work continues. I went down to the Batcave last week and did a little fiberglassing work. Due to the shape of the shell, there's a couple little gaps that were left out of the casting. I decided I wanted to fill them in.

Here you can see where I roughed out the shape I wanted using foam core and painters tape. I covered the inside with vaseline, then started laying in the glass.

Here's how one side looked after a couple of layers.

And here's the other. Still need to lay in a few more layers, then I'll do some trimming and clean up.

Lastly, here's a little Brady Bunch Tiki that I put together for my friend Tim. Last time Tim came over to my house, he was admiring the one in my collection, so I figured I would make him one.

That's all for now! Please don't forget to check out my youtube channel where I'm not only posting progress videos for the Batmobile and Tardis, but also lots of Star Trek interviews and Star Trek Continues Behind the Scenes videos. Here's the latest I did with the special effects makeup dude from both projects, Tim Vittetoe:

Tricorder and Brady Idol

I am selling off some resin kits I have sitting around. Send me an email if you're interested.

Brady Tiki

Loads of updates today, and this will be the first topic to be covered.

Readers will remember that I got this resin casting a while ago, and had mixed feelings about the quality of the casting. LOTS OF BUBBLES!

I dug around on the inner-webs, and it turns out that there's TONS of information out there on this little tiki. I never knew it was so elusive. It took a friend of mine about a month or two of monitoring some tiki forums to find it, so I guess it's all about knowing where to look. Here's some interesting info on the tiki:

http://www.tikiking.com/brady_tiki.html

Here are a couple of screen shots of the tiki in action, from the Hawaii episodes of the brady bunch:





The interesting news is that it looks as if it IS indeed an off white, cream color. I had it in my head that it was white. Not so much. That's cool for me, as it looks like the resin that I'm using right now (and have a bunch of) is pretty much the right color.

I decided to use this one as a test, to see if the painting technique I've devised would work.

Here's the tiki, soaked in Krylon semi-gloss black.



All I did after that was go at with a sock that was dipped in laquer thinner. It came out REALLY great. I think this looks a whole lot like the one that was in the show. I could probably stand to take out a little more black, but you get the idea.