A behind the scenes look at film and television Prop making peppered with everything else creative we do!
When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIREsoftware, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.
Monday 8 April 2013
Ferrari red always looks good!
Saturday became the official shop cleanup day! I know when some people clean their shops, they get inspired to create something right away. I, however, get inspired to not create anything and enjoy the fact that everything is in its place, and the space looks huge.
That was pretty short lived, because Sunday was all about the toon racecar. I got the final color on it. They wanted it red, so I chose Ferrari red. The perfect color for a speedy little racer!
I used an acrylic lacquer for the quick dry time. This let me get the clear on about an hour later. I used an automotive 2 stage clear for it's high shine and durability.
The color is a little pale in the photo, but in real life it almost hurts my eyes!
I also got the 4 rims machined on Sunday as well. I went with rigid pvc. It's super tough, generally machines well, and you can coat it with VC-1 and smooth it out a little. I ended up machining them with a 1/16" tapered ball nose for the detail. But I think that it actually made the cleanup a little more involved due to the bottom of the ballnose spinning so quickly it may have melted the bottom of the model. Soaking it with VC-1 helped with the cleanup. A few coats of primer will solve most of the problems!
The little styrene rings fit perfectly! They even had a little "click" sound as they snapped into place.
The tires got their final coat of black, again, an acrylic lacquer for dry time. They're gonna look pretty hot on the bright red car.
The vent opening behind the drivers head got whipped out pretty quick also. A few slabs of styrene glued together, then a clean-up. I love the fact that this will look like a separate piece when it's done.
I added a ridge out of .060" to allow for the thickness of the urethane automotive tape that will be holding it onto the car.
Today was a bit of a shop bust as we spent all day getting materials for a few upcoming jobs. Tomorrow we'll be cutting a ton of styrofoam letters for an upcoming print and television ad. We will be painting these with latex, but not installing them. They're going to handle that.
We also got final approval on the NDA prototype we dropped off for the new series we're working on. These will keep us hopping until we deliver next Thursday. I've actually cleared out 3 Home Depots getting the right hardware for it!
8)
JWO
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