#53, #54, #55. Project Country Road & Display Stand
Dumpsters
This piece was largely inspired by the industrial bins at my workplace, both Homebush and Sydenham. I was sure that I could use the bins to invoke a bit of Australiana industrial, so I dug up some Thingiverse files and printed three. For some months these languished on my desk while I played with placement and waited for inspiration to strike. But however I placed the three bins they essentially ended up in a space inefficient horseshoe shape that was just boring.
Eventually, I hit on the idea of tipping the center bin over forwards, this narrowed the footprint of the piece and stopped it from being an impenetrable wall. It also started telling a story, what if it was the cardboard bin that had been pushed over and used for shelter by someone? It would be the most comfortable, and easiest to tip. Plus the zig-zag of the bins now allowed approach and cover from either direction. Some scraps of plastic card on my desk could be used as the concrete slabs they were on … I still wasn’t thrilled, and the project continued to languish until I decided to bite the bullet and start gluing shit down. I filled the general waste bin with general resin print fails, plus an entire ceramic toilet (designed for Barbie but scaled to fit) as suggested by Jack. There’s a lot of leftover robot parts, post fittings from the cyclone fencing project, superglue lids, a skeleton, barbed wire offcuts. The more I committed and added to this piece, the more it grew on me. I added some hints at destroyed fencing, a concrete curb, some PVA-soaked paper to represent the boxes, and damaged the lids.
Painting was achieved using my new "untidy" style and worked really well, though recreating the green on the bins was harder than I expected and I haven't quite nailed it perfectly. Even so this piece actually sparks the joy seeing it finished more than the idea of it ever had.
Windpump
I spent a lot of time looking for digital models of windpumps, because what could be more iconic of the Aussie outback? There are not many models of this sort of thing out there, despite their ubiquity in Oz and the U.S. I scaled what I did find to match the height of the smallest model on sale in the 50's, and it just doesn't look right. The first couple of prints were fails due to the thinness of the parts, and I rebuilt so much of this model in Tinkercad so many times to thicken it up enough to get it to print, but it still doesn't look quite right. Too many sail blades, I think.
I printed out barrels to go with it, maybe telling the story that water had been gathered here at some point. But the quality of the barrel prints wasn't great and I can't see past the flaws. I threw some gravel on it to add some visual interest. Made a fire barrel, a water trough half barrel. Painted it up, did some of the Fallout 4 rad barrel scheme because I couldn't think of anything else. This whole piece seemed cursed, on the way to spray varnish table it was dropped and the tower broke into 5 pieces, and many of the struts snapped. Resin is not good for this sort of structure.
I'm totally over this piece and am just happy it's finished. It does not spark joy as every part is so very flawed, but eh, it still works as intended.
Photography Display Base
This idea occured quite soon after finishing the Teslabot gang and the trouble I had spacing them equally on the turntable. I designed a shape in Tinkercad that slips over the top of the turntable and has circles for 25mm circular bases, one in the center and eight around the circumference. It was a matter of designing recesses and plugs, and basing everything in my standard Outback manner. Really chuffed, the results speak for themselves:
These projects bring my "miniature completely finished" (as counted by bases) tally to more than one per week for this year.
This piece was largely inspired by the industrial bins at my workplace, both Homebush and Sydenham. I was sure that I could use the bins to invoke a bit of Australiana industrial, so I dug up some Thingiverse files and printed three. For some months these languished on my desk while I played with placement and waited for inspiration to strike. But however I placed the three bins they essentially ended up in a space inefficient horseshoe shape that was just boring.
Eventually, I hit on the idea of tipping the center bin over forwards, this narrowed the footprint of the piece and stopped it from being an impenetrable wall. It also started telling a story, what if it was the cardboard bin that had been pushed over and used for shelter by someone? It would be the most comfortable, and easiest to tip. Plus the zig-zag of the bins now allowed approach and cover from either direction. Some scraps of plastic card on my desk could be used as the concrete slabs they were on … I still wasn’t thrilled, and the project continued to languish until I decided to bite the bullet and start gluing shit down. I filled the general waste bin with general resin print fails, plus an entire ceramic toilet (designed for Barbie but scaled to fit) as suggested by Jack. There’s a lot of leftover robot parts, post fittings from the cyclone fencing project, superglue lids, a skeleton, barbed wire offcuts. The more I committed and added to this piece, the more it grew on me. I added some hints at destroyed fencing, a concrete curb, some PVA-soaked paper to represent the boxes, and damaged the lids.
Painting was achieved using my new "untidy" style and worked really well, though recreating the green on the bins was harder than I expected and I haven't quite nailed it perfectly. Even so this piece actually sparks the joy seeing it finished more than the idea of it ever had.
Windpump
I spent a lot of time looking for digital models of windpumps, because what could be more iconic of the Aussie outback? There are not many models of this sort of thing out there, despite their ubiquity in Oz and the U.S. I scaled what I did find to match the height of the smallest model on sale in the 50's, and it just doesn't look right. The first couple of prints were fails due to the thinness of the parts, and I rebuilt so much of this model in Tinkercad so many times to thicken it up enough to get it to print, but it still doesn't look quite right. Too many sail blades, I think.
I printed out barrels to go with it, maybe telling the story that water had been gathered here at some point. But the quality of the barrel prints wasn't great and I can't see past the flaws. I threw some gravel on it to add some visual interest. Made a fire barrel, a water trough half barrel. Painted it up, did some of the Fallout 4 rad barrel scheme because I couldn't think of anything else. This whole piece seemed cursed, on the way to spray varnish table it was dropped and the tower broke into 5 pieces, and many of the struts snapped. Resin is not good for this sort of structure.
I'm totally over this piece and am just happy it's finished. It does not spark joy as every part is so very flawed, but eh, it still works as intended.
Photography Display Base
This idea occured quite soon after finishing the Teslabot gang and the trouble I had spacing them equally on the turntable. I designed a shape in Tinkercad that slips over the top of the turntable and has circles for 25mm circular bases, one in the center and eight around the circumference. It was a matter of designing recesses and plugs, and basing everything in my standard Outback manner. Really chuffed, the results speak for themselves:
These projects bring my "miniature completely finished" (as counted by bases) tally to more than one per week for this year.