20 янв 2018 01:24:58
So, I am currently working on completing my first ever Garage Kit of Psycho-Pass' . It is currently a WIP which I should have completed in the next couple of weeks, but I wanted to do a separate blog to just capture the making-of for the custom base I'm creating for him.
The garage kit doesn't come with a base, so I wracked my brain for the longest trying to think of what I could do for Makishima. I wanted something a little more exciting than just a plain wood/plastic base, but also didn't want it to look cheap or cheesy (LOL...and with me you just never know). :D
So...luckily my better half just purchased a pretty sweet CNC router, so there was my opportunity to try to create a custom base! Yay!!
To start with I worked out the design in Photoshop. I wanted something that looked like wood plank flooring, but with the logo and such as well, so it would be specific to him.... So I played around with some textures, drew in some wooden planks, adjusted coloring, added a logo and here is what I came up with for the rough design:
Next I figured I should probably test it out to see how it actually looked after it was carved into the wood (since I figured there was a really high chance it might looks sloppy or be too hard to read,etc..). So the first step in doing that was to load into the CNC machine's supported software, that would convert my photoshop image into the right format for the router to read and work from. Did some tracing and learning there and finally got it ready to go!
(sorry for some of these pics being total crap, I literally used my phone to take a pic of my monitor....total lazy way to capture that, but you get the idea)
Next was time to start the cutting!!! I'll skip forward some here too, as needless to say the cut was great..so luckily didn't have to go back to rework anything!
Board loaded up, clamped and ready to go:
And the cutting begins!!!
Most of the above pics are of the router cutting this in a piece of plywood. After that turned out successful I went back and did he same thing in a nice piece of maple.
Next it was time to sand the edges, top and bottom...to make sure it's all really smooth. I also ran a toothpic and toothbrush through the smaller grooves, just to clean out any dust and loose wood. For outer edges, I used an electric hand sander, then finished off the entire piece by hand.
Next it was time to stain/paint it. I decided to I liked the look of the stained gray wood planks...and luckily it just so happens that I already had some gray stain laying around the house. So I painted a good bit of the gray stain all over the base (top, bottom, sides...just really saturated it) and let it sit for about 20-30 minutes. At that point I wiped away any excess stain with a paper towel, then let it sit for another 15-20 minutes in a warm room to finish drying out.
Next, I went in with some watery black acrylic paint and carefully brushed the paint into all the grooves a few times, letting it run through and saturate just the cut-out areas. I wanted to further give the appearance of planks with grout lines and to help the writing stand out a little more.
Here's a shot of the upper portion after the black acrylic has been painted in...still need to do a few coats in the bottom areas where the writing is though:
I then, just did a few shots of Makishima's lower half standing on the base, just to make sure I thought the color looked ok with the figure, and I was happy with how it turned out:
To make it a little less plain though, I will be adding some books to the base as well. Seeing how Makishima is a lover of literature and pretty much quotes various books throughout the anime, I figured that would be appropriate (not to mention his figure is holding a book). The books also add some color and "pop" to the base:
When I finish the figure itself, I'll add some pegs to hold Makishima up and will also permanently attach the books. All I have to do before that is just put some final coats of clear lacquer on the base though (just for added protection).
I'll add another post once I have the figure finished as well, so will add pics of the entire set up then.
For now though, hope you enjoyed reading through my nonsense here, even just half as much as I've enjoyed working on this project!
Thanks for reading!!!!
***UPDATE***
The garage kit doesn't come with a base, so I wracked my brain for the longest trying to think of what I could do for Makishima. I wanted something a little more exciting than just a plain wood/plastic base, but also didn't want it to look cheap or cheesy (LOL...and with me you just never know). :D
So...luckily my better half just purchased a pretty sweet CNC router, so there was my opportunity to try to create a custom base! Yay!!
To start with I worked out the design in Photoshop. I wanted something that looked like wood plank flooring, but with the logo and such as well, so it would be specific to him.... So I played around with some textures, drew in some wooden planks, adjusted coloring, added a logo and here is what I came up with for the rough design:
Next I figured I should probably test it out to see how it actually looked after it was carved into the wood (since I figured there was a really high chance it might looks sloppy or be too hard to read,etc..). So the first step in doing that was to load into the CNC machine's supported software, that would convert my photoshop image into the right format for the router to read and work from. Did some tracing and learning there and finally got it ready to go!
(sorry for some of these pics being total crap, I literally used my phone to take a pic of my monitor....total lazy way to capture that, but you get the idea)
Next was time to start the cutting!!! I'll skip forward some here too, as needless to say the cut was great..so luckily didn't have to go back to rework anything!
Board loaded up, clamped and ready to go:
And the cutting begins!!!
Most of the above pics are of the router cutting this in a piece of plywood. After that turned out successful I went back and did he same thing in a nice piece of maple.
Next it was time to sand the edges, top and bottom...to make sure it's all really smooth. I also ran a toothpic and toothbrush through the smaller grooves, just to clean out any dust and loose wood. For outer edges, I used an electric hand sander, then finished off the entire piece by hand.
Next it was time to stain/paint it. I decided to I liked the look of the stained gray wood planks...and luckily it just so happens that I already had some gray stain laying around the house. So I painted a good bit of the gray stain all over the base (top, bottom, sides...just really saturated it) and let it sit for about 20-30 minutes. At that point I wiped away any excess stain with a paper towel, then let it sit for another 15-20 minutes in a warm room to finish drying out.
Next, I went in with some watery black acrylic paint and carefully brushed the paint into all the grooves a few times, letting it run through and saturate just the cut-out areas. I wanted to further give the appearance of planks with grout lines and to help the writing stand out a little more.
Here's a shot of the upper portion after the black acrylic has been painted in...still need to do a few coats in the bottom areas where the writing is though:
I then, just did a few shots of Makishima's lower half standing on the base, just to make sure I thought the color looked ok with the figure, and I was happy with how it turned out:
To make it a little less plain though, I will be adding some books to the base as well. Seeing how Makishima is a lover of literature and pretty much quotes various books throughout the anime, I figured that would be appropriate (not to mention his figure is holding a book). The books also add some color and "pop" to the base:
When I finish the figure itself, I'll add some pegs to hold Makishima up and will also permanently attach the books. All I have to do before that is just put some final coats of clear lacquer on the base though (just for added protection).
I'll add another post once I have the figure finished as well, so will add pics of the entire set up then.
For now though, hope you enjoyed reading through my nonsense here, even just half as much as I've enjoyed working on this project!
Thanks for reading!!!!
***UPDATE***
