Saturday was a joy! We had a dozen people show up for hte improv class (which was a lot of fun), and a couple more folks doing construction.
The Basin constructed an artificial crisis for us, which I refused to play along with. They all of a sudden HAD to have our storage corner cleared of our stuff! Now! Or soon!
That was OUR storage corner. They said so.
I didn't have the muscle available to do it, and I wasn't going to disrupt the improv class... so Chris, our liason, did it all himself. He wasn't happy.
In addition to that fun, we got word back from our parking area that we can NOT use that space for stations. So now we cut the whole first chunk out of the storyline and condense it into the van ride to the site. Bastards.
About a quarter of the tunnel section was assembled on Saturday. There were challenges and difficulties, as expected, but it's going together well enough. Strong!
I did a walkthrough with a group, including someone writing an article on Haunted Houses for the local newspaper. I'm beginning to see the potential in our plot... I always knew it was there, but I could feel the buildup better this time.
Sunday, I spent the whole day finishing the leg sculpture (yeah, I know, pictures...). It's not bad, maybe a bit overdone, or underdone, or something. I've never sculpted anything before, so I'm pretty happy with it.
But Saturday cooked my goose... I was all crispy by Sunday. So I took Monday off and rested. Mostly. Between resting, I slopped rubber all over the leg, making the mold. Today at lunch I may start the shell. Or I'll make some faces. Something.
Of course, in my hazy daze, I forgot to put on mold release... how the hell I keep forgetting this is beyond me. It's an important step. It shouldn't matter to the bits over the clay, since if worst comes to worst I can dissolve that out with solvent. It will, however, be a pain separating the mold rubber from the table and the bones supporting the sculpture.
Oh well.
I got a paper catalog from Smooth On. It's neat, and it appears to have a product or two that I never noticed on the website. A super-soft silicon, that I'm just going to have to try out. I'm going to look extra hard on the website to find it now.
The countdown clock says 18 days, 10 hours, 59 minutes, and 38 seconds until First Run.
It will be a miracle if we get it all together by then.
Peeling the arm from the back of the mold uncovered a qualified success. There appears to be one major bubble under a fingernail, and a minor bubble in the wrist under the skin. But overall, it's lovely! Better than any bone-filled cast I've done before.
Trimming the flashing was a bit nerve wracking. And there was a problem with alignment at the finger tips, less than I normally get, but more than I expected. I guess some material got trapped between the mold halves, fiddling with the closure.
In the future, I need to plan appendages without the included bones... they would be so much easier!
Anyway, trimmed and tidy, the arm is perfect in dim light. Up close and in the glare you can see the seams and the flaws in the finger tips. But since when do you get good lighting in a haunt?
I'll post pictures, really I will. Soon.
I made the stump a bloody, scabby mess, and the protruding bone got a disgusting patina of read, black, and yellow... people will think twice before grabbing it.
Next, and final, I will create acrylic fingernails and make sure they get glued into place firmly... somehow.
For final placement, dose in blood and stand back!
Now I need to work on more of the more mundane organs.
And I must finish the leg sculpture, so I can start putting the mold on it this Sunday.
So much to do! At least I'm getting some nice successes.
I was restless at work today, couldn't sit and focus, so I went home to an early lunch. I needed to see how my arm casting went.
Last night I decided that, even if it was horrible, even if the skin didn't stick and the fingers were full of bubbles and flaws, I could use this arm.
Paint red and white under the skin, turning the flaps into scalded blisters. Inject holes and bubbles with read or pus-yellow silicon, turning defects into purposeful wounds. All failings could be converted into gore... and these are things I'll be doing with the previously horribly failed version.
When I got home, I was instead overwhelmed with the urge to nap. So I did. Then I ate. I was about to go back to work, the time being late, when I decided that I had to pry open the mold.
I lugged the dusty, heavy mold into the living room and photographed it for posterity.
I laid it flat and pried on it a bit. No budge. I flipped and turned it a bit, no success. Ooooh... I really don't want to break this mold.
So I turned it on edge and my gently yet firm attempts at prying were rewarded with motion. Ahh! By not fighting gravity, everything got easier.
The mold slowly separated smoothly.
I laid the top down. Looking at the inside of the arm; the palm, the crook of the elbow... it was beautiful. Perfect. The vein colorings were just what I wanted. The translucent white skin. The flesh coloring tending toward purple at the stump. Everything.
I poked the fingers a bit; I think I found one air bubble. There is a flaw in the mold where the halves didn't separate right, so I'll have to cut that bump off a finger. But mostly... perfect.
I didn't remove the arm from the back of the mold, since I didn't want to disturb my joy. Will the bones be too close to the skin? Will there be bubbles and flaws? I'll know tonight...
In speech class last night, I gave my pointless speech. I was not brilliant at first, boring even, but it picked up. I hope to make the next version come on fire, though.
I wish we actualy did more *speaking* in speech class. That would make sense, somehow.
During lunch, I tried a new experiment in casting bones in the arm.
Like the previous one, I made up a silicon paste to set the bones into. But I did this in two passes, hoping to get a better skin depth above the bone. I put in a layer in the mold and then, while this firmed up, a second layer on the bones and then set those into the mold. We'll see if it helped.
Then I made a batch of fluid silicon, to try and fill in gaps around the bones.
Then I made another paste to fill to the top of the mold, on both sides! Then a final fluid silicon which I poured into the palm area and around a bit.
A quick flick of the wrist and the top of the mold is in place, and I'm duct-taping them together. My handy tie-down straps for the truck ratchet the mold together tight.
Later, such as tomorrow, I'll make more silicon and fill up the rest of the arm. Then I'll see how good/bad the result is.
If this one sucks, I'll make a solid silicon arm without bones and paint the outside. I *know* that will work; it just won't be as nice.
As for the school, I just learned that there was mis-communication between me and Park University, that may cost me 30 credits (ten terms, over a year) of time in my degree... mostly because they have a drop-dead deadline (one time only) that I thought was a cyclic deadline (like all OTHER deadlines, e.g. testing and registration, at the school).
So I'm a bit pissed off right now.
So the first arm casting was a total failure... the skin in the mold, which sets the basic coloring of the arm, didn't set! I think there is a problem with the Dragon Skin silicon sitting in a Brush-On polyurethane mold for a week. The exact same skin in the plaster mold seems firm and strong...
The disastrous results actually look kind of cool, so I'll color *those* from the outside and try to stabilize the tattered skin chunks.
In addition to the possible chemical problems, the two-piece poly molds have a nasty tendency to curl their edges in, making a horribly seam line. The one mold I have that is one-piece but split up one side, however, works beautifully. I'm learning. It's damned expensive, but I'm learning.
I'll be casting the next arm, in plaster, soon. Maybe today.
I'll have pictures of everything, which I may or may not post here. I do promise to put it all on the website when I'm done, plus last year's photos (what few I have).
I've done some airbrushing with colored silicon thinned with orange oil, and that seems to work mostly. It takes several days, though, for it to set up properly. Calling Smooth-On, they recommend Toluene as a thinner, which is an evil evil chemical that will blow my ass to kingdom come if I use it wrong (as mentioned in my previous post).
So I'll pick up some of that evil soon soon at a store. And test it, probably on the nasty arm.
Finger nail polish also seems to stick to silicon, but of course it cracks when flexed.
The leg sculpture got started in earnest yesterday, all of the muscles have been roughed in. It actually looks pretty good! If I can get the textures and veins and fascia and stuff finished this week, I'll make the mold next Sunday.
I'm running out of time on these projects! Just shy of four weeks to run, which is a long time unless you consider all of the !@#$% classes I'm taking.
Today I was on the radio! Woo! The Dudley and Bob show, or something, 8:40am, talking up Haunted Trails with co-conspirator Jeff J.
We, Andy and I, have also had a couple of ideas to punch-up the script some. Make it more intense, more scary. Hopefully we (all of us) will continue to refine things until the end, and achieve maximum fear on our guests.
This weekend we may be able to do significant amounts of work -- even putting together some of the crawl tunnels, if we are lucky! Sunday, I'll have help (I hope!) on the dissected leg, and I'll be casting two disembodied arms (one each of two mold styles).
I never get e-mail back from Smooth-On, so I called 'em just now. They say that Toluene is a good solvent to make their silicon Dragon Skin into a paint... but it's as volatile as gasoline and will blow me to hell and back if misused. I'm going to try orange oil again first, I think.
Woot!
Someone (who shall remain nameless, to protect the guilty) had the intriguing idea of doing a haunt next year for Pioneer Farms instead of Wild Basin... less restrictions, more freedom, a new environment. If Basin doesn't want us, move to greener pastures.
Heh. An intriguing idea. Next year, though, I need a break... not a new challenge!
I apparently need coffee to maintain a positive mental attitude at work... otherwise depression sets in, and that's just no fun. Time to talk to the shrink about upping the meds, I guess.
Tuesday and Wednesday were good work nights at the Trails, it would seem. Got a few doors built, got some stuff painted, got some stuff fastened together... if things go well, the significant construction will be DONE soon and we can get on to the important things, such as decoration and ACTING.
I'm about a Sunday behind in my prop making, but I may be able to catch up this Sunday because I found a co-conspirator in sculpting... let's hope she can make it over and we can build the leg!
I've also done some good work on the disembodied arm. I had painted on a skin of translucent white/gray silicon and then I airbrushed in some coloring and veins and stuff. Now I need to seal this coloring (perhaps with a thin layer of clear silicon, I have e-mail in to the company), lay the bones in (I fastened the bones together yesterday), and do the final cast. And pray the seamlines don't show up too much.
I'm almost finished with John Taylor Gatto's online book (www.johntaylorgatto.com). And while he *is* a bit of a kook, he also provides a detailed and well-documented look at why our school system is the way it is, and what it's purpose is. Note that the purpose of the school system is NOT education, but "schooling"... a different beast. Anyway, I may rant more on this later. Or go read the book, there is a lot of information in there.
Ever since coming into NI, I've been raising a stink over design and architecture, long term interests of mine. I won't say what aspects or why, but I saw room for improvement.
So finally, tired of hearing me complain, the powers that be asked me to work up a proposal. So I did! A huge proposal, too, ambitious, grand, impractical.
A first step in the negotiating process, so I wasn't surprised when I was asked to tone it down a bit. But, in the process, I have the go-ahead to work up the details some more.
And so the dance of compromise begins. As long as it keeps me in the game, though, I'm happy.
Grand dreams are not going to get approved at the get go, and I never expected them to. We now have motion on the project, and I'm happy.
This job of managing Haunted Trails isn't doing my health much good ... I keep waking up at 3:00 or 4:00 am with my stomach churning, worrying about how we are going to make it all work.
I've got about four people capable of doing construction and another ten who can do other types of work like painting.
I not only need more builders, I need builders with tools!
And most importantly, I need actors. We only have a fraction (a SMALL fraction) of the warm bodies needed to make the trail run.
Of course, people stream into the show as time goes on -- and it always seems to work out in the end -- but I want to train my actors this year. I want to put on a good show.
And, umm, I still need to be able to build the sets.
I hope it all works out. But my stomach fears that it won't.
There is a lot of rhetoric floating around about America, our fabled freedom, and bringing that freedom and democracy to the poor, beleaguered souls of the miserable desert countries.
But are we really all that free? We have the appearance of freedom, sure, and a voice in government and the direction of our lives. True.
But freedom begins in the mind, is guided by our early experiences and our expectations of life. Do you think that the average American thinks about things? Does Joe Sixpack contemplate the impact of environmental or deficit-spending policies on his children's future?
I have the knee-jerk response, more often than not, that the average American is an idiot -- only really interested in life at an animal level of intellect. Food. Sex. Money. What affects them now, or tomorrow, but with little mind to next year or a hundred years from now.
After all, just look at the level of discourse in politics to see the level people are expected to think at. Issues? What's an issue? Instead, let's rant about irrelevencies! Let's lie and distort and deceive! And not nearly enough people seem to notice, or to care.
I also know that this sells people short. Are we the pathetic, self-centered, shallow-minded creatures that we are because of inherent biological structure? I don't think so. People are amazing creations, and all of us start out with huge potentials.
It is just possible that everyone has a lot more potential, a lot more ability, than I think. Than even they think. But for some reason, by some means, most of us have been convinced that we are much less than we are.
We have been shackled in our minds.
One man, John Gatto, lays the blame for our sheeplike behavior, and our internal rebellion and frustration with this behavior, firmly on the doorstep of the school system.
He has a book, published on paper but also free online, discussing his ideas. Sure, he has a huge axe to grind (and after thirty years teaching in New York, who wouldn't?). Sure, his rhetoric is pretty heavy. But he also references a bunch of documentation -- it would be interesting to do the research and see how close to reality his perception is.
Check it out yourself at:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
Two aggravating incidents yesterday.
On my side, my speech class teacher is very scattered... not organized, not providing a very clear direction. For the first few days, we were travelling under the direction of creating a major speech for the end of class.
It turns out, yesterday, she realized that we were supposed to be doing TWO major speeches, one for next week, and another for the end of class.
Thanks, Miss Teacher. That sure helped my time management.
On the Haunted Trails front, the Wild Basin people have been messing with our storage area, making a mess, and costing us time. And then Marla broke a key of in the gate lock, causing her no end of unhappiness.
The Basin needs to get their story straight within their ranks, of what we can and can not use for our build. As it is, we don't have enough room to do it right... and if they start messing with that, we are pretty much screwed. I have to wonder how committed they actually are to this project.
I make progress the hard way. The hard way is the way you take when you do everything wrong, which provides lots of interesting opportunities to learn... which way not to do it.
Strangely enough, there seem to be more wrong ways than right ways.
Finished splitting the arm/hand at lunch. The split is nice, and the two halves fit nicely into the mother mold. However, while the mold is plenty thick at the fingers, it is too thing at the arm. And, because the hand is in a difficult semi-closed position, the two halves really don't want to mesh together.
So I'm going to glue the rubber parts into the mother mold, probably using a polyurethane rubber (since that stuff grips so amazingly well).
I think, as a backup plan, I'm also going to make another stab at a plaster mold... so tomorrow at lunch I zip out and pick up another 100lbs of hydrostone. I'm betting that my wonderful, special liquid sculpy release will work for this. Of course, this means another hour or two of setting up the clay barrier, carefully modeling the difficult undercut area in the grip of the hand.
Anyway, the slow and difficult progress in my mold-making skills has been frustrating. I sometimes wonder if I'll EVER get it down right.
Oooh, and I need to order mold release now, too. Heck, I would make a solid rubber mold instead of plaster (rubber is SO much more durable), but it takes something like five gallons for this large mold. Way too spendy.
Three day weekends are good -- I get to catch up a bit on projects.
Saturday, of course, was a Trail build day... and we got a handful of newcomers, which is good. I gave a nice speech and we got some construction and painting accomplished.
Tonight is a weeknight build, and Marla and Jazz will be overseeing it. I hope it goes smoothly for them!
On Sunday and Monday (mostly Monday) I was making mother molds and experimenting with mold releases. I now have mother molds for the heart, brain, and the big arm. I've also split the heart and brain, using differrnt approaches, and am in the process of splitting the arm.
Sunday was divided up by a party at noon, followed by my putting the edit notes into my manuscript and sending it to England via electronic means.
There are two alternative mold releases that have been working for the plasti-paste to polyurethane interface. One is a clear acrylic spray followed by a layer of graphite, sealed in place with a second layer of acrylic. Topped off by silicon release for good luck. This works okay.
The really AWESOME release is made out of sculpey dissolved in orange oil. This gets painted on in a thing layer, and is only good if you don't care to keep the surface texture. But it releases amazingly well. Definitely a keeper.
Today I'll be ordering some more of the proper release agent, so when I cast poly into the poly molds, they will pop out again.
As to the cutting of the molds, the brain was cut transverse to the mother mold, to see how that works. I think it will work, but just barely. The heart I cut in a more traditional manner, parallel to the mother mold seam, but offset by about a quarter inch. This looks like it will work better.
Both the brain and heart mold could have been a bit thicker in places. I fear they won't hold their shape as well as I would like in the thin bits. I thought I had put on five layers, but I only count four. Ah well.
Today I need to whip up an outline and locate some references for my class's speech assignment. Ugh.
Now to find some more coffee.
There are two things you MUST do when creating molds and castings. The first is to mix your two-part product thoroughly... really really mix it a lot, while at the same time trying not to introduce bubbles.
The second thing is to use the correct release agent. Liberaly, and according to instructions.
Yesterday I tested a plastic mother-mold material (a plastic paste) on my poly mold... using a silicon release agent (it's what I have) instead of a general-purpose release.
Needless to say, it stuck. Doesn't matter in this mold.
I have one more mold where I can allow stickage... so I'm going to try acrylic fixative to see what it does. I really want a local supply of release agent! I don't want to order more of the "official" stuff, because I don't want to pay shipping...
So, at lunch, I'll try experiment #2.
Failing that... I guess I'll be making an order.
At work, I've actually been productive lately. My stress goes way down when work is going well. Which is good, because a number of things are going down the crapper for the Haunted Trails -- all outside events, of course, so now we get to see how well we can adjust and adapt to a hostile universe bent on our destruction.
Ooh, I just today realized that six weeks is NOT VERY MUCH FREAKIN TIME!
That is, I need to get off my ass and finish my props before something bad happens and we have to run without them.
So I scheduled may activities. I should have a week or more to spare!
The faces and organs are easy. The leg sculpting has me worried, but I'm sure I can do something in a long day if I put my mind to it... unless I can find a real sculptor to take it off my hands.
The face casts have the most uncertainty -- need to get people over, do the molding, then make the faces. Too many external dependencies.
Today I am tired... I just want to curl up under my desk and sleep.
I wish all the work would just go away for a week. I think I need a vacation.