Previously on Little village Life: Design
Cladding by definition is when you place a different material over another to provide the outer skin. Often used as a building term, It’s purpose is insulation or aesthetic. Simple enough yes?
or is it? Around here you’ll hear the term as “insanity begins!” when we run into a project that requires it. What’s it like? Well have you ever done those 1000 piece puzzle? 
Imagine each puzzle pieces needing special attention. Each has to be inspected for flaws, then carefully trimmed, scrubbed with a brush in warm soapy water (this should be done a couple of times), laid out and dried before it’s ready for fitting.
I actually am ahead of myself. I should tell you the process we go through to even have the pieces. One of Runt’s definite talents and expertise is sculpting and having what seems to be a bottomless well of patience that makes him the proper candidate to sculpt something like a wall. It’s not just sculpting brick or rows of stone though. He has to cut it in a way that it fits together on all sides. This is so there wouldn’t be any discernible repeating pattern or unsightly seams when we start cladding. After sculpting and applying texture it is then ready to bake. After hardening it is then ready to be made into a silicone mold.
Fast forward to a couple days and we have a wall section set that can be cast into resin over and over. We must have done this process at least 30 times. After the necessary preparation we were then ready to do some muscle work. Using super gold + cyanoacrylate (super glue for Styrofoam at about $20.00 per 2oz) and a small bottle of accelerator, we had what seemed to be an endless gluing, fitting and cutting session that took almost four days just cladding the whole wall.
Thank goodness for the help!
Here is a picture after the walls and cobbles/pavers were glued in and in the process of getting spackled.
There are inevitably gaps or uneven spots that need to be touched up, which we treated like real tiles and either grouted with spackle, or sculpted in details with Milliput.
Time to do some sketches !
We had about 5 structures planned, and found that good drawings will help keep us focused and make sure we’re all visualizing the same thing. Basically it prevents arguments.
The mansion design and early construction.
Here I am cutting and gluing shingles on the mansion roof. I’m using 1/16 of an inch thickness balsa wood ,cut and textured and individually glued using PVA glue. I find it a highly therapeutic process and I liken it to meditating. There’s also that reward when you step back and see the finish product.
Some of the cottages in different levels of completion.
Runt is the only one who can make that airbrush work, he literally takes an hour cleaning the parts and twiddling with the little dials inside for a total of 5 min painting. Airbrushing is a good way to assure complete coverage on heavily textured areas, especially on foam and other materials that you cannot use spray paint primer on. The spray of the airbrush can reach deep into crevices and cracks where a regular brush can’t reach, or would take forever to cover.
Terraformer’s Tip Of The Day: Delta acrylic is widely used for airbrushing because of the deep, dark and super-flat finish it leaves. Dillute with about 5 – 10 parts water for a nice, spray on wash that flows into texture and provides deep shading. Dillute with 90% or higher isopropyl for a coat that dries faster with better coverage on flatter or raised surfaces. Use one technique after the other for complete coverage.
I started sculpting the center-piece tree that would be in the middle of the board.
The tree was made by fashioning an armature out of florist wire and then applying “Pronto,” a type of lightweight air-drying mache/clay that has minimal shrinkage. Pronto tends to be a little clumpy for fine-scale sculpting but dries with tiny fissures, cracks and a knobby look that’s perfect for a grand old tree like this.
Enhancing the texture of the tree with a piece of real tree bark.Yes, I painted it while it was still a bit soft.
I temporarily attached the tree to its designated spot with pins
I used three different color tones of clump foliage, attached to the limbs with super-glue. I left the root parts bare still, to blend in later.
Thank you for your time! Your stuff is amazing and I love your project logs.
That is quite profound actually. You are prone to snippets of genius philosophy between shingles and bricks.
So if I have red and blue spots on my underwear the universe will return to 2d around my crotch area?
Now with that space theme *eyes shine with a twinkle in them*
As individuals, we’ve had a lot of work over the years come and go, sometimes thrown out, some lost to disasters. There is a picture of one of my early works, maybe the last surviving record of the half-finished pieces that decorated my first gaming table. Check the background building building in this picture. We used it as a prop for a little while before it fell apart with age.
As for the space concept, wow, I never looked at it that way.
I actually love laying lots of resin cast bricks. It really is a huge improvement over some of my old techniques, which involved cutting and sculpting each brick or paver by hand. It’s still tedious, but now I can take on much larger projects for the same amount of work.
Also, Mismuse’s constant string of obscenities while she makes shingles is pretty amusing and helps pass the time.
As for Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, not many people know that it’s actually a companion piece to Neptunes Great Blue Spot, and all consciousness in the solar system is simply the universe’s way of seeing itself… in 3D.
A:Go out the desert and rock hunt and use it to make impressions into sculpting medium.
Q: How do you stay focused when making a few hundred mini shingles?
A: I curse a lot.
Q: MisMuse, where did you get the idea for pronto?
A: Playing with Runt’s stash of art supplies back in the day when we played warhammer in his garage/studio/rec room. Actually I just watched them play. I was more fascinated with his home made terrain.
Q: Is there some local craft emporium run by a 130 year old craft wizard with endless knowledge?
A: Yes it’s called Michaels
Q: Or is it merely trial and error? Google? Life knowledge as a level 70 artist?
A: Sometimes, No, Yes
Q:Are there any failure pictures that can be used as examples?
A: I never fail.
Final question, MisMuse again, how is angry thumb? We haven’t seen him/her in a while.
How about some work station photos? I’m fascinated by all the nick nacks in the background.
How did you get the rough brick texture?
MisMuse, how do you stay focused when making a few hundred mini shingles?
Runt, how in the world do you stay sane when making a thousand mini bricks? Well, I guess the whole not being alive anymore helps a bit.
MisMuse, where did you get the idea for pronto? Is there some local craft emporium run by a 130 year old craft wizard with endless knowledge? Or is it merely trial and error? Google? Life knowledge as a level 70 artist? Are there any failure pictures that can be used as examples?
Final question, MisMuse again, how is angry thumb? We haven’t seen him/her in a while.
Bonus question up for grabs, is the red spot on Jupiter the same hue as the crimson eye of Cerberus?