The Office- Throwing A Garden Party

I made up a copy of Jim’s fake book from the Office Episode ‘Garden Party’.  Feel free to print it off and keep it with your Dundee Certificate.  Just don’t sell it.

Garden Party

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LEGO™ Tom Baker & TARDIS.

LEGO 4th Doctor with TARDIS.

Brady Bunch Tiki – NEH NE NEHHHH

Latest prop replica is none other than the Brady Bunch “Cursed Tiki” from the three episode arc where the family visited Hawaii.

While away on vacation, the Brady boys were exploring a construction site when Bobby found a small carved statue, or tiki, half buried in the dirt.  He cleaned it up and wore it on a leather necklace as a good luck charm.  Little did he know that from that moment, the bearer of the Tiki was cursed!

That night, while sitting on the bed, Bobby was almost crushed by a heavy falling shield.  Later, Peter was attacked by a giant deadly tarantula.   Later, Alice hurt her back and Greg was almost drowned while surfing!

Hilariously, every time someone was hit with the bad luck effect, the camera would zoom into the Tiki and a particular sound would play.  “NEH NE NEHHH!”

My replica is a really nice resin cast, which I painted with a black undercoat.  Over time I dry brushed it with a light ivory colour to build up the detail.  I gave it a few brown washes along the way to simulate dirt in the grooves after it had been buried.  Once it was done I attached a leather cord so it could be worn.

Also, the TV show Scrubs had an episode called “My Soul On Fire“  where two of the cast got Tikis and wore them throughout.   The Tiki on that episode is not the same as the proper Brady Tiki featured in that series.  Sorry Scrubs Fans.

Click the links in the text for the Scrubs Tiki and part of the Brady Bunch episodes.  You can watch the full episodes on Youtube if you like.

The day I finished my Tiki I found my car has a leak in the radiator.  NEH NE NEHHH!

Construction Site	Brady Tiki	Scrubs Version
Unpainted	Tiki	Tiki

Horga’hn

While I don’t think Picard is better than Kirk, I do much prefer Star Trek : The Next Generation to the original series.  As a sci-fi nerd and now a prop collector, I jumped at the chance to pick up one of the stranger Trek props to come onto the market.

By the third season of The Next Generation (TNG), old Captain Picard was getting a little frazzled, having zipped around the universe saving humanity time and again.  In the episode “Captain’s Holiday”, Commander Riker suggested Picard visit the resort planet called Risa.   Risa is basically a paradise world, full of sexy women and the perfect climate for some R&R.  Secretly poking a little fun at his Captain, Riker asked Picard to pick him up a souvenir while he was away.

Little did Picard know that the item Riker requested was a Risan fertility idol, known as a Horga’hn, displayed by people requesting jamaharon, a sexual act performed by the beautiful Risans.

Later, in the follow-up series Deep Space Nine, some of the members of that show also visit Risa and again the Horga’hn featured in the episode. It showed up in various other TNG episodes and also in the Enterprise series at the end of Star Trek’s run.

My Horga’hn arrived unpainted, made from resin and I spent quite a while preparing it and painting it up as best I could. As a finishing touch I added some gold around the top of the head as displayed on Picard’s version of the idol. In the pictures below it shows up a little more red than in person, and the details aren’t as strong.

Picard on Risa, with large Horga'hn	Picard's Horga'hn	Quark on Risa from DS9
Resin Cast	My Finished Horga'hn	Large Statue

LEGO™ Men!

When I was a kid, I used to play with Lego all the time.  I would spread it out all over the floor and build a lot of the usual stuff, picking through the blocks, building and rebuilding loads of awesome things.  At one point, I was given an old wooden briefcase in which to keep the blocks, and it was great.  My parents hated it, of course.  They’d constantly be stepping on sharp bits or stepping over the sprawling castle I’d build right in front of the tv.  Best of all, the rattle of my sorting through the blocks looking for the right part would drive them nuts.

Well, I’m older now and haven’t played with Lego in years.  I still have the briefcase filled with the stuff in the bottom of my wardrobe, but it has sat there for a long time without being opened.

I do, however, play computer games and I am also a fan of Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  You’d know this if you’ve read any of my previous posts.

Both of those titles have been represented in Lego before and I’ve played (and enjoyed) the computer games of both Indy and Star Wars.  You might think they’re for kids, and you’re probably right, but they’re still mad fun and I enjoyed every last minute.  They also got me thinking about Lego again, after all these years.

While poking around various shops, I was seeing boxes of Star Wars Lego and Indiana Jones sets, but they were all had pretty high prices and I didn’t take the bait.  I really only wanted to pick up a little figure or something to stick up on the top of the computer.  I wasn’t going to buy a $40 dollar set to get just the one item, so I let it lie for a while.

Then one day I discovered a website called Bricklink.  They’re an online community of Lego enthusiasts who also trade in single pieces.  I held off for a while, thinking it was pretty stupid and childish for me to go and buy some Lego at my age.  But screw it.  I broke.

I blame Stig.

If you don’t know, the Stig is the tame racing driver from tv’s Top Gear.  Clad in a white racing suit and white helmet, he test drives all the cars they review on the show.  He also never speaks.  Needless to say, he’s utterly cool and has a fan following all of his own.

Anyway, to me, putting Stig in Lego made obvious sense, and since I was going to plunge back into my childhood in a big way, I’d have to go overboard.

I also picked out the parts for the Indiana Jones figure I’d been playing with in the computer game, and added a familiar pair of TV characters.  Because I was going overboard, I also added the Ghost Busters and in my warped mind, making a badass war hero out of Lego was just hilarious, I also picked parts for Lego Rambo.

Using Brinklink to pick out the parts was a much bigger process than I had first anticipated.  Brinklink is made up of many, many stores all over the world, and none of them have every single part.  I spent hours browsing through plastic faces and body parts to find just the right ones for the characters I was making and laid each brick out in a spreadsheet.

Then I went through the stores and totaled up the stores with most parts, for least amount of purchases and price.  Even though it took a long time, it was fun to do.  In the end I think I got about 9 different packets through the post over a course of two weeks.  Some parts came from Hong Kong and some from France, the USA and the UK.  I later added a set of black flat plates I could stick to the top of my monitor as a stand.

Once the parts were here, and after many strange looks from my Postie, I put the characters together.  Stig is my favourite for sure, followed by Rambo.

Digging through the old suitcase full of Lego I also salvaged parts for Captain Kirk.  I prefer the new style flesh coloured faces rather than the old school yellow, but you take what you get.  There’s something to be said for old school. I made the uniform by printing it onto some mailing labels, carefully cutting it out and sticking it on.  If you look closely you can see it’s a sticker, but that’s how they did it in the old days.  Old School!

I’ve pretty much kicked the Lego habit now, and did what I set out to do. The old wooden box is back in the cupboard again where it will likely stay for another few decades.  Although… A Lego Jack Bauer might be on the cards.  Maybe.

LEGO™ Stig	LEGO™ Indiana Jones
LEGO™ Rambo	LEGO™ Captain Kirk
LEGO™ Mythbusters	LEGO™ Ghost Busters

Myth Busted!

While I was working on my bolter (see last entry) and waiting for it to dry, I started another small project which will eventually test my painting skills in preparation for the bolter paint job.   I found a decent font at www.dafont.com called “Alias” and printed off a template, then cut it out of foam core left over from the bolter build.

Mythbusters sign!

I’m not sure how it will turn out, but I’m going to try it anyway.  It’s only about 50cms long, which is fine for my display purposes.   As I said, it’s mostly so I can test my painting skills and attempt a realistic looking rusted and damaged metal finish on something that isn’t actually metal.  I eventually want to play around with resin casting, so this might end up coming out in resin.  Once again, I’m just messing around and having fun with it. I haven’t really thought about it long term.

Here’s a progress picture-

M.Y.T...

Actual Logo

Space Marine Bolter – Pt3

Previously I’ve posted about my attempt to make a model of a Space Marine bolt gun from the Warhammer 40,000 universe.  I got an opportunity yesterday to work on it some more, using foam core as the modeling material.  I had previously built up the main body of the gun, but decided that the outer shell was a little too short.  I don’t really have any proper measurements or anything, so I’m making it up as I go.  Rather than being extremely accurate about the whole thing, I’m pretty much learning the tools and working out some techniques.  I’ve not attempted any of this stuff before, so I have plenty of expectations of mistakes.

So yesterday I continued the build, sneaking into work and using the big tables as a workbench.  I managed to re-build the outer shell and also put together the main part of the magazine.  I also started working on the handle and trigger, but I’m not 100% sure I am happy with my method, so I’m not showing you that yet.  If only I could get a decent toy gun to use as a base.  Alas, buying life-like toy guns in Australia is next to impossible.  Thanks bank robbers! Bastards.

Another problem, apart from the handle, is the slide on the base of the gun. I have NO idea how I’m going to do that.  I started it yesterday, but it turned out pretty badly.  I’ll have to re-think it.  Anyway, I’ll no doubt let you know how it turned out, next time.

Bolter Build Progress

Magazine

Caf-Pow!

Not sure if you watch NCIS, but if you do you’ll be very familiar with the rather unusual forensic specialist Abby Sciuto.  Abby has a strong personality, dresses in a Gothic style and Pauley Perrette plays her well.   A month or so past, 8 perf from the RPF came up with the idea of a label for a cup of Caf-Pow, the fake energy drink often seen in the show.   After some combination of label printing and cup gathering, I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of labels. Sticking them onto the cups provided by another RPF member; Rebelscum, and some careful positioning allowed me to have a pair of these 64oz. beauties in my collection.

Check back in a few weeks and you’ll see a partner of the Caf-Pow cup, Abby’s plush hippo side-kick, Bert the farting hippo.

Caf!	Pow!
Abby Sciuto

Space Marine Bolter – Pt2

Got up early this morning and went to Officeworks to buy the gear to make most of my Bolt Gun. The shell is foam core, a double sheet of plastic with a layer of Styrofoam pressed in between. It’s strong, but easy to shape. They had single sheets for $9.50, but I find on a high shelf a couple of 5 packs. I had the guy check the price and they were $9.50. Naturally I bought the 5 pack. I’m not sure what was going on with that, but I got a good deal.

I headed into work and started planning and cutting, eventually turning out the main components. Some of the cuts are a bit unsteady, but its my first time working with the foam core, and this type of thing in general. I dare say I’ll have a lot of patching up to do, but the main body is looking OK. I have no idea when I will get to do some more work on it. Maybe a couple of nights at work. I can’t do it at home, I just don’t have the necessary table space. Anyway, here’s the story so far:

Stage Two

Space Marine Bolter – Pt1

I got the idea to make a Space Marine bolter.  Space Marines are characters from the Games Workshop Warhammer 40000 universe.  Big, genetically modified humans living in the 40th millennium, the Space Marines defend humanity against the threat of aliens, and the mutated powers of Chaos.

Wearing huge suits of armour, the main weapon of the Space Marine is the bolt gun, or bolter.  A machine gun that fires rocket powered bullets, the Bolter is a powerful force on the futuristic battlefield.

Creating a Bolter will be a massive challenge for me.  I haven’t done anything like it before.  The idea is to create it from foam core, which is a light piece of foam sheeting layered with card.  It should be easy to cut and shape, and yet strong enough to hold its form.  I’ll tape it together and glue it with epoxy, then hopefully fill the insides with expanding foam or something.   Maybe once it’s done I’ll cast it in resin or something.  That’s a whole other skill set I don’t have yet, and I haven’t really thought that far ahead.

I’ve drawn up some plans to cut it out by, and made a miniature paper model to see how it all fits together. The sticking point at the beginning will be the handle.  I’ll take a look in some toy shops tomorrow to see if I can find a toy gun I can butcher to make a nice handle base.   Toy guns are pretty hard to come by around here though, especially ones of a decent size.   I might have to sculpt it out of board and shape it with putty or something.  I really don’t want to do that though.   Anyway, here’s a couple of pics of the small-scale paper model.

40K Marine	Paper Bolter
Paper Bolter Assembled