H.P Lovecraft

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Currently reading H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness so I will be working on some related projects, props and books.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Grail Diary

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Indy’s Dad sends him his grail diary, his chronicles of his search for the Holy Grail. The diary is full of illustrations and inserts of Indy’s Dad’s adventures. There are whole websites and forums and tutorial sites dedicated to this movie prop, some people have spent years researching and making copies of this prop. There are the “Hero” diary which is the same block of pages repeated throughout the book and is the same as the prop used in the movie, the other version is a story diary and written as a regular diary would be.

Prop as seen in shot from movie

I decided to make a story version of the diary and collected the same source text the movie prop makers used as well as the illustration and text available online. I found a suitable journal and decided to hand write and draw the diary. I modified my handwriting to better match the movie prop text. But it is still far from how the movie version looks and I would like to try again one day and get the writing nearer the movie prop.

I actual wrote the diary twice, once in pencil until I was happy with it then I went over the pencil in ink and erased the pencil lines. After several months of work and severe hand cramps I managed to get the diary completed. I made a lot of the inserts, there are bank notes, a cigarette packet, train tickets and other paper inserts jammed within the pages. I also made some original pages and inserts that don’t appear anywhere else to further make this diary mine.

I am pleased with the results after all the hard work and all I have to do is weather the pages which I have been loathe to do in case I ruined it, one day I will get it done. I do plan on making another diary at some point and trying to get the diary closer to the movie version.

More pictures after the jump

Western outlaw 12-inch figure & base

I had the Sideshow Toys outfit from their Billy the Kid figure, nice looking shirt and sweater but I didn’t have the figure or hat. A friend made me the custom hat from felt for me, and I used a DML head on one of their bodies, I used a younger looking headsculpt.

I made a leather belt to put the custom Bowie knife on that I made and used the Sideshow holster and six-gun. I used some scrap t-shirt material and made a Wells Fargo cash bag and another piece of the material for the bandana around the figure’s face. The figure was sold on eBay and I didn’t weather the figure so he does look very clean.

The base started off as a decorative plaque and I added some plaster of paris for the dusty street and built up a sidewalk from craft sticks. A wooden section of a building was built up from the base, plastic was cut and grimed up for the window. I used acrylic paints and dry-brushed heavily. I printed some real signs and posters to scale and attached these to the building, in a book about the west there was a picture of a hand painted general/gun store and I copied part of their sign for the building. When I build these bases I usually make it up as I go along, craft sticks, bits of balsa wood and white glue everywhere.

Floor section (with gunfighter figure).

I need a bigger work area

I need a bigger work area!

Getting cluttered so going to have work on some space-saving solutions to keep all the supplies tidy and give me room to work without knocking stuff all over the place.

I get through a lot of craft sticks and balsa wood

Western saloon bar 1/6th scale

I wanted to have a western saloon bar to display several 12-inch figures, but I didn’t really have the space for a large bar, so I decided on a small section for displaying one figure. I had a small beveled base from a craft store and thought I’d use that for the base. Popsicle sticks would be hand-cut and used as floorboards, I added nail holes in each board. Once glued to the base I hit them with some stain, dry-brushed them and sealed them with matte varnish.

The bar section was composed of balsa wood and craft sticks glued on top of half of one of those boxes AOL used to send their discs in, the front was painted black and the rear  brown and I wanted shelves back there. I made a box from balsa wood and affixed a small label of a period label I found online. I also printed some period books, paperwork and old photos. A Sideshow Toys shotgun was cut down to make a sawn-off shotgun and painted. DML shotgun shells were gluedd to a shelf. The beer glass was found online and a friend cast me some bottles in resin that I painted. The spittoon is a turned knob from a hardware store.

The figure is a DID body with a head from one of their custom sets. Clothes are from the Sideshow Wyatt Earl figure, DML cavalry boots were dry-brushed and I made the spurs from some metal and leather scraps. As shown in my earlier post the belt and holsters were custom-made as was the Stetson hat that was made by a friend.

This is the same figure on a different base.

 

WWI Trench Periscope 1/6th Scale

After making the WWI trench section diorama I figured there should be some way for soldiers to see over the trench without exposing themselves to enemy fire. I did a search and came up with some images of a real WWI trench periscope. I got together some balsa wood, silver foil, little plastic hinges, wire and some acrylic paint and attempted to make a scaled version, I didn’t know the dimensions of the original so I had to guess on the size.

I realize I should have weathered the label and moved it down!

Knight’s shield 1/6th scale

Several manufacturers have produced some 1/6th scale knight figures and I put some together from various spare parts, in the shot below one figure is sporting a custom-made shield I did on commission. The original DML shield was plastic with an elastic band on the rear to hold it to the figure. Customer wanted something more akin to an original shield. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it but I checked some images of real shields and collected together some wood, leather, canvas and small tacks to use as nails.

I used the plastic shield as a template and cut some wood to the correct shape, I needed to bend the wood so I soaked it in some water for a while, I then bent it across the plastic shield and used some clamps to hold it in place. I kept wetting it and clamping it and left it to dry. To my surprise it dried in the correct bent shape of the plastic shield. I scored lines on the back of the shield to make the one piece of wood look like it had been constructed from several planks of wood.

Applying some glue I stretched some canvas over the front of the wooden shield, folded the ends over and glued those down. I cut the heads off some small tacks and glued these along the edges of the canvas for nails. Using some leather I made the wrist straps with working buckles, a shoulder strap to match and canvas painted arm pad  I had seen on pictures of original shields.

The customer wished to paint his own design on the front of the shield so it was left as it. While I was at it I took the plastic scabbard of the sword and covered it in some black leather and added some brown leather strapping to it to make it look realistic.

Western belt & holsters 1/6th scale

I made some western 1/6th scale dioramas and put together a couple of gunfighter figures made from parts from various manufacturers like Sideshow Toys, DID, DML as well as some custom pieces. I wasn’t too happy with the plastic belt and holsters that came with the weapons from a Sideshow figure.

The spurs and bar were hand-made by myself.

So I used some leather from an old well used wallet and made a belt, I then made some templates from paper for the holsters. I used these templates to cut some of the wallet leather and stuck them together with some Super Glue.

I got some brass wire and fashioned a buckle for the belt, I think the side holster and cross draw holster look a lot better in leather than the original plastic.

Rorschach’s New York ID

I am a big fan of the movie Watchmen and have made several paper props from the film. I came across an image of an old 80′s New York drivers license and decided to make an ID for Rorschach, this doesn’t appear in the movie.

I used a picture of Rorschach and a picture of Jackie Earl Haley, the actor who played Rorschach, and used PSP to create an ID picture by merging the two together, removing the black eye from the movie image. I Googled an image of the shape of New York state and used it as a template for the ID card front. I create several layers in PSP with each detail on it.  I then created what I thought would make a suitable back of the card.

So far I haven’t put together a finished ID card from these files, but to do so I would print the front and back. These are glued to some thin card to give the correct weight and feel of an ID, the ID then gets laminated and then the thing will get grubbed up and weathered to look as if Rorschach had it in his pocket,  the edges then get rounded with a tool from a scrap booking store for that purpose .

Bowie knife 1/6th scale

I made some 1/6th scale Western accessories, belts, spurs and holsters and dioramas. I needed a knife for a figure commission so decided to make my own scaled version. I found a suitable picture of a bowie-knife and printed it at about 1/6th scale and used it as a template. I cut the blade out of metal from a soda can careful not to cut myself with it. I made the tang out of a little piece of brass and used balsa wood to make the handle. Some small tack heads were used on the handle, everything was painted in acrylics.

A scabbard was made from offcuts of leather from an old wallet.