Covering A Lot of Ground
Paul: "How'd you get that cool grass like texture there?" Me: "Um, I used a towel." Paul: "A what?" Me: "A towel." Paul: "A towel?! As in one of our towels, a towel from the house?" Me: "Yeah, and I think I'm going to need some more." Only a few, duh. Actually, Paul is so supportive of the Halflanding that he's be ok if I used anything for it, bless 'em.
Yesterday began the surface texturing, course up close fine further one gets away. Below you can see the texture hierarchy (left to right); washed sand, polyester batting, The Towel, railroad diorama meadow fabric, and painted synthetic lawn. The later of which will be cut into small tufts and crammed into rocky outcroppings. Woo.
This is The Towel painted with just a flat base color, edged with polyester, plaster, and sand. When I hit those sweet sweet blades with an vivid apple green highlight--Look Out!
Lookin' AWESOME!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou ought to shave parts of it down, or cover with some plaster or something, to create some bare patches of dirt (so it doesn't look like a too-clean dollhouse lawn kinda thing, ya know?)
Did you use enough paint to stiffen up that nap? Otherwise you can get that suede moving-when-you-don't -want-it-to kind of look (like King Kong had all over his body... that Berry Purves took for giant prehistoric fleas). Or maybe burn patches out here and there, or cut them. Anything to help achieve a more natural, uneven look. Unless there's a golf course out there in Halfland? Hey, could be loads of fun.....
Towels, what a great idea! I was wondering about the stiffness too. Did you soak it in paint or glue or is it to remain flexible?
ReplyDeleteOoooooooo Yeeeahhhhhh, thanks Mikeee, I'm all about the non-lawn. Believe you me, the grass is only in stategerie patches and blended into the less grassed ground with D I R T. Details coming... Annnnnnnnnnn'd don't forget foliage efffects!
ReplyDeleteThe nap is as stiff as a [insert any number of rude similes here] stuck down with both Elmer's clear gel sticky art paste and flat acrylic paint, ain't no chance of the flea effect, unless I want it from a gentle breeze on the tall grasses :)
HI Grant! (I'm following you on Twitter now!) I didn't soak the towel, but the art paste is so thick and lusciously grabby one need only to slather on surface and press The Towel onto it, later painting over top with dilute acrylic. I'm also highlighting nap with hot apple green for depth(s)! woo.
DO IT! Recommended!
(^ yay. no gorilla glue.
ReplyDelete(^ sometimes children's non toxic stuff is actually designed better than industrial strength liquid nails.
A paradox... You throw in the towel, and get even more done! Some great textures happening there.
ReplyDeleteYou could add some tufts of longer grass with small patches of fur fabric, like about 1/2 inch circles. (I think I put some sandy coloured fur in the box with the quadropi that works well for this, either sprayed greenish or left as it is.)
(^ oop! .. hmmn.. burn patches of lawn? hold yer nose..
ReplyDeletewait.. bleach and mash down ,adding some sand to make molehills and maybe add some dandylion fakies and othe typical CRABgrass patches, like my REAL lawn?
(^ tsk. back to toxic shock.
(^ EGGSHELLS!
ReplyDelete(^ one MUST use eggshells all crunched to a powedr along the sany beachpit!
(^ yikes this thing's gonna get heavy enough you might want to install some industrial strength casters with kick breaks to the table legs so you can lock off or move these suckers around..
pangea is write right rite!
continental drifts to reach areas to aniomate then clamps suckers back together?!
(^ heh. little streams and celophane feigned trickles along some seams where the and breaks away to get under water..
hmmmnn. brain tickling whisker scratching.
(^... yikes. I guess I need more sleep, less stimulants packaging.
(^ wHelp: back to lung cancer victim sculpture fer me.
(^ thanks for the image break.
Hi Edwound and Mr. Nick!!!
ReplyDelete"Throw in the towel, get further ahead" HA! Good one!
Hadn't thought of using fur for grass, Nick, that's very very good.
Ed, There's no crabgrass in Halfland! HA! (unless it literally is half crab/half grass!!) :8} and yay hooray for no tox-ay. I try to keep things around here harmless because the shop is in the middle of where we and three cats live and eat, etc. Even then, the natural stuff can be trouble. I generally wear a respirator, even when I'm not doing anything. hee.
As for heavy legs on the set, right now the pieces are screwed into wooden doors underneath the main cottage and propped up on the other ends with cardboard cores from the fabric trimming factory next door. So far, ugly but very sturdy PLUS--I bought an ingenious (I hope) ground cover today--light, light weight and cheap as dirt.
It cost me $4.45 for a giant bag, seriously giant, at least 30 lbs, of pulverized redwood/cedar bark (normally used for ground cover in landscaping, wait--that's what I am using it for. Somehow I don't think they had this in mind...
Thanks, Y'all!
Wow - that's what I call a big project!
ReplyDeleteHappy you found the progress bars. :)
Hey, Turvid! Yeah! Your html code for Progress Bars were the absolute best of any I found online.
ReplyDeleteIt was incredible of you to not only share the tables you'd made but to actually instruct all of us on what each line of code did so w could customize them ourselves!? So helpful of you to do that. (I don't understand how I got third bar to appear out of alignment, but it still works great.)
I absolutely love having them! Thank you again!
cool progress bars!!!
ReplyDeleteThats a cool little motivater!
and the grass looks great herself!
keep it up.
jriggity
Thanks, Justin!! Here I go!!.....
ReplyDeleteI love the textures and realism of the sets (I would never have thought to use a TOWEL!) You're going to give Suzie Templton a run for her money with this project.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if you need help with anything :D
Thanks, Pramsters, don't forget FUR like Mr. Nick said! kewl. I just added soil (mulch and vermiculite) to a goodly portion, looking very real-ground like now.
ReplyDeleteI'm not hiring, I even LOST my INTERN! OY! yep, I lost dear Sophie (the 14 year old beauty on her summer break from school, taking trips to Oregon and Hawaii!) So sad for me and stop motion!
Welp, maybeeee she'll work her way back when her schedule settles back down. I'm not counting on it though. %:{
Buuuuuut, if you get a minute.... Fish me?! The more the merrier I say.
(^ crackers. pramster, as you call him, has an open invitation to come up here and spend a little time makin' stuff up here north of Seattle.
ReplyDelete(^ who knows. maybe we could make some seasnails and crabcakes while eating jell-0-fish sandwiches together.
(^ how about a catgotyer tongluefish?
(^ made with cateyed marbles,elmer the cow's white pasty milk tongue, pierced with bamboo twigs and the fins made from bamboo leaves glued onto a bubblewrap body?
(^ i've always wanted to make a banana slug masquerading as a snail by wearing a pop up water bottlecap like a toupee.
(^ like a.. a slug trying to impress a snail who has a crush on a hermit crab because the hermit always has a better home built round him every time she the snail sees him down my the shore.
(^ slugger, welll. uh.. long story. one i wrote and tell from time to time.
(^ sissy snail drops slugardly slug for being too hard to pin down.
(^ crusher, the hermit, has Sissiphussy fauning after him and his hard body let alone elaborate domicile(s)
(^ but crusher has far mor in common with the slug .
(6 so? crusher moves into a REALLY BIG.. i mean BIG seashell:
(^ one big enough for a banana slug AND a hermit crab to shack up together with room to spare!
(^ and he teaches slugger the fine art..
of scrounging off others unwanted abandoned homes.
(6 next thing y'know, the slug's up an attatched a squirt bottle's flip top cap to himself, claiming it to be a tite fit, but has a skylight vent in it to let the breeze in.
(^ yikes that's a lot to spit achoo. all that just to set up a one panel site gag of a snail staring at a banana slug, who sits atop the conch home of a hermit crab while wearing a bottle cap.
(^ oh, c'mon, pram. it'd be FUN!
we could swing by Archy McFees for spare parts.
Man, Bryend, that snail/hermit story would be a film on its own! Really good stuff in that. Wouldn't the crab be the crusheeee? :)
ReplyDeleteDid you see the photo from Cuteoverload.com of the frog wearing the snail as a chapeau? (upper right here: http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/search?q=snail+hat)
But still.... what are you making?
ReplyDeleteHi Turvid! Right--it must seem odd the goings on here without an explanation, here goes:
ReplyDeleteThe ground cover you see in this post is the beginning surface of a GIANT model landscape for a stop motion film I'm making essentially by myself, essentially for myself, although I believe some others may also enjoy it.
There's a 6' tree with a rustic woodland cottage, surrounded by land, hills, and a 17' long stream running next to it.
It's the setting of an original folktale story with all the characters in the film being half human/half animal, hence the name, Halfland.
Thanks for asking as I can see I should post this comment somewhere visible to visitors who otherwise wouldn't know what I'm making.
Also, I've changed the subtitle for the blog again, as I go through waves of realizations about what it is.
Here's the new one:
"A Handmade Storybook Film"
yay, I love it.
(^ better yet, shelly?
ReplyDelete"A halfHanded handbook on filming Storymakery"
(^..tsk. too long.
"Halfland: the rest is about yOUR links to it"
(^ ?...grrr. darn knit. no better.
(^ WAIT!
(^ halfland: a fully halfatemptied seeing.
(^ A hand filmed Storymade bloglet
ReplyDeleteOK! Yours are better than Originalumstorybookusfolktalityanimationous!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I have to continue to check in, to follow the progress :)
ReplyDelete