Later this week, I’m going to make a virtual-in-my-home showing of my paintings that are for sale. Here’s a preview:
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I found a cool lamp in the building’s office but the shade let light out the top so it was no good as a table lamp, and besides it was dirty. there was also one of those tall floor lamps with the upsidedown plastic shade so I grabbed that. since I’m using an LED bulb it doesn’t heat up the bulb area and I can just rest the lampshade hole on the tip of the bulb. but it emitted a bunch of light out of the hole and also it just looked bad. so I created a cardboard cone and covered it in black tape to put over the flat part of the shade with the hole. looked a lot better but the pointy tip looked off, still. so cut off the tip and hot glued on a marble. looks really deco now, which suits me fine.
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That is gorgeous.
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When I was about 14, I went to a model train shop, and saw a wonderful haunted house kit:
There was a built-up version of the kit sitting on a shelf, rather like this:
I just fell in love with it. I asked the proprietor about it but an elderly (to my eyes) customer also in the shop said, “Oh that’s much too complicated for a youngster like you. I wouldn’t attempt it myself.” I suppose because the kit consisted of wood that had to be cut by hand.
So I didn’t buy it. I can still visualize that stupid older guy, who knew nothing of my (even then) skills with making things.
About 30 years later, I got back in to model railroading, and the first thing I built was this:
It’s built totally from scratch, but with scratch-building parts I could buy – plastic windows, doors, and fish-scale roofing, milled wood siding and parts, etc. I had the help of plans I bought for 2 bucks from the by-then semi-retired manufacturer of the kit. (The kit was no longer available, and eBay didn’t exist back then). It’s based partly on the kit, partly on some of Charles Addams cartoons, which I’ve loved since a child:
Recently I decided I also wanted some stone steps like in the Psycho house:
I’m making a 3D design to order through a 3D-printing service. I’ve made it much more in disrepair to better match my haunted house:
It’s not quite finished. It’s been a LOT more challenging than I thought, which explains why I haven’t been around here much. I’m using practically all my computer time working on this. But it’s been so much fun.
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Great story and great modeling.
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I’m making another stool out of ye olde cheap and boring construction pine:
…which, fortunately, becomes much more visually interesting as soon as you hit it with a bit of boiled linseed oil:
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Y’know, I always thought it was rather strange that my father worked with wood, as my mother was a Carpenter…
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Progress…
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Love it!
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All done and varnished:
Despite the lack of stretchers or other bracing, it’s still a very solid-feeling stool. Those wedged tenons through the thick top provide a lot of stiffness.
The thick top also provides the depth to carve the seat into something more comfortable than a flat plank. It doesn’t show much in photos, but the top is substantially dished.
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Thanks!
BTW, the slate walls started with a photo I found online:
With a lot of processing, I managed to get it down to a gray scale image:
This was suitable for converting to a 3D file by the 3DBuilder app in Windows 10:
Each shade of gray (all 50 of them ha ha ha) becomes a height or distance above the mortar. This can be saved as a 3D file (.STL), which I read into my 3D manipulation program, Blender. After some fixing up (especially scaling the heights way down), this is what the original photo became:
Then I could slice and dice it into the walls you see in my previous comment.
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@kxkvi, this started out as interior packaging in which the vacuum cleaner my brother gave me for Christmas came.
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That’s really neat – what’s the foundation made of?
I’ve noticed your works use a palette that is uniquely yours.
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It’s that pasteboard packing material. I don’t know what it’s from, my brother gave it to me.
Thank you so much! I’ve always taken pride in my sense and use of colors. You know how there’s the old saw about folks viewing art - “I know what I like.”? Well, I paint what I like, lol. What I’d like to look at on my shelves or walls.
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Asimov said something like “I like to read what I write. It would be terrible if I didn’t.”
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My footstool was (a) much too heavy, (b) not quite tall enough, and © somewhat crooked (leading to dangerous instability).
So I hacked the stair planks off the underlying structure:
…and reconstructed it in revised form:
Quick and rough, but it does the job.
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“Checkpoint Charlie”, completed.
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