Tutorial - Building Lamps on Frutti di Mare

posted by Roman, Jarhead, kong

This article is again something different.
Me, Roman will write it up and all the stuff I show and talk about is done by Robert aka muhani.
He is still alive but busy with life and after i found the photos on my computer I have asked him if I could write this article up to have it in the jungle collection of useful articles.

If you like what is up here in the jungle and want to say thanks in form of support do a jungle donation or check the For Sale offers.

Explanation
Robert is such a genius when it comes to scratchbuild that i am sure this will bring a lot of inspiration to everyone. In fact it does to me that is why i want to write it up. He is a genius and a madmen and if you want to try this at home make sure you have time, much of it :D

This might really get something pretty funny as I am just guessing what Robert has done by looking at the photos. To you readers a warning that if there might appear something that you don't get or don't understand please feel free to hit the comments. Let's get it on.

Genius Scratchbuild Lamps by Robert aka muhani
write up and translatation from the photos by roman

Robert's projects are always like great adventures, neither they are big or small. His biggest project so far "Frutti di Mare" is one of my personal all time favourites, because there is a lot of friendship between us Apes in this project. This little article will bring you close to the progress Robert did during building up the lamps on the back of the ship from nothing - scratchbuild.

First Robert did cut off some round plastic fence parts in the size he planned and glued them in shape. You can see on his well prepared sketch how he worked and checked for the perfect size. Robert made 12 of this pieces and glued them together.

 

Robert used some plastic card he cutted in form of a hexagon, used the size he found from glueing the pieces he did before together. Robert did build up many of them. 2 on the top of the lamps and 2 for the lower part of the lamps - some more small ones will follow later on.

He used one small hexagon to glue together the pieces he did before, for sure there was some planning ahead.

Now a blob of Milliput was used to build up material on the lower lamp hexagon, he pressed the end of a fork into the Milliput to achieve the form he wanted. Might not work with all forks available - you always got to check the back first. At this point Robert really scares me :D

 more, already thinking about form

 more, forgetting about the form

 using the back of a fork to press in the form, while the Milliput is still fresh

 progress

In the enxt step he did build up the upper lamp hexagon, same procedure but less milliput as the final form would be different. He also did this on the smallest ones - i guess the photos say more than my words. He did not went completly to the end of the plastic card hexagon. He left a little space free. After the Milliput was dry he used a rasp to make the edges sharp and worked down the plastic card until it was at the same height with the Milliput.

blob

I would guess he used a knife blade here to gently stroke in the form

small ones

rasping

The work with the rasp went further and brought a 45° ankle to the hexagons edges. A hole was drilled and filled with punched sheet. Now he used tool that can produce different sized bails. He used it on thin plastic card to get 8 side pieces for the upper lamp construction. Thin bars of plastic card have been glued in place to get the + in the holse. At this point I would have tried to convince Robert to go to Rehab, but check the photos which explain everything themself:

It now comes together finally. Parts were prepared to get together. Robert used the upper part of  an ink cartridge to make small big candles at the inner bottom of the lamps. Vallejo Putty 401 was used to fill up absorbtions in the pieces. Robert is such a gringo!

 Ink Cartridge

Now he started painting the pieces. Making sure he is able to really hit every place he painted them single. I have no idea what colour he used up here, i see he works with light and shadows in the colour hue but i just can't guess what colour this is - maybe he himself does this later on in the comments.

Parts were now glued together and the clear basic painting was weathered with some brownish washes. The candles have been painted too and a self sculpted seagull was brought in place.

Micro Kristal Clear, which you can also use for real lenticulars was used together with a toothpick to bring up the glas to the lamps. I guess he did this in several runs as i can still spot some open "windows" which have to be filled up. Maybe he went through them all in one run, whatever he has done i would expect some care and detail working moments with much of checking for the correct applyment.

This takes a while to dry. It was about time concentrating on the colour of bird poo with some additional plastic putty in it to make it look like real material and not painted poo. Apply it in place and try to make it realistic - check inspiration here!

After the lamps glass was finallly dried out the lamps have been applied to the ship by using the pinning method. They are still removable for the further on painting process.

The final project of Frutti di Mare can be found behind the following links, if you like to vote or drop a comment you can do this here:

Frutti di Mare I
Frutti di Mare II
Frutti di Mare III
Frutti di Mare IV

Final words
Thanks to Robert again for giving me the oppourtunity to write this down. Hope it could inspire and motivate to build your own lamps now. If you got any questions left feel invited to ask them in the comments.

Happy Painting and Scratchbuilding!
Best Wishes
Roman