the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 5

I never want to paint another book in my life... sadly I have some more to do for the table... if I can bring myself to do them... sigh... oddly, the photos make it look much brighter than it is, but the basic room is done, just the corridor side walls to finish and to put in the windows to have a playable room... everything else, including the table is just gravy at this point as I'm quite sick to death of the bloody thing...

and in a desperate attempt to add a bit of Mythos to it all, a Mi-Go brain jar on the shelves:

the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 4

the library walls/shelfs are painted, the massive table is as well, but still deliberating over the floor. While I ponder that, Salute gets closer and I need books... lots and lots of books for the library walls...

I'm using bought metal books for those out on the table and strewn about the room, but all I need for the shelves are spines. Now there are essentially two different sizes of book shelf in the room, the mid-wall case and the corner case (which is slightly narrower) and after some quick playing with 3mm pvcfoam, I need 15 books to fill a shelf in mid-wall case and 12 books for a shelf in the corner case... and there are 5 shelves to a case... that should be around 1750 books. No way was I making those by hand.

I made some blocks of books out of foam pvc, 8 different 5 book blocks and 2 different 7 book blocks (henceforth refered to as bb)... that meant 140 x 5bb and 50 x 7bb to fill the walls... much more manageable, so out came the Siligum and the Alumilite Super Plastic:

I did a few molds to optimise the resin when mixed, but was bricking the actual resin bit. This is chemistry. This is chemistry with warning labels. Scary chemistry. Only it turns out it isn't...

Some deliberation over the need for well ventilated and room temperature while being a very cold March, I ditched the garden, turned up the heating and opened all the windows... it's not exactly room temperatue, but warmer than the garden, this has had the downside of slowing down the curing time a smidge (3 minutes normally), but this means I have slightly longer to pour. I've had to limit my mixing to a quarter of a fluid ounce, as any more caused problems with the tin foil cake cups I planned on using for the mixing pot... large amounts caused the foil cups to buckle, making pouring a pig. I will get some plastic cups later, but it means for now I do half the molds at a time, one lot is curing while I mix the next lot which seems to be working so far. I've also got some spare for the Timelord wall sconce when needed.

Now, I have a new found respect for mold makers, it turns out the hardest part of the entire process is getting a decent mold in the first place... I must confess I've had to ditch a couple of my earlier molds, simply because of flaws, I'm getting better at it though, but it was an expensive (if fun) learning curve... what I have now still have some flaws, but all I need are good spines, the rest of the books will not be seen...

the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 3

nothing like a Sunday for putting up some shelves...

even managed to do my planned secret door...

which meant I had a lasercut door going spare, and seeing as I'd made too big a hole for the other door, I got creative and continued the general Gothic theme that seems to have happened by making the door a large double door instead...

(and now I look at it, I forgot to emphasise the join in the middle - so not quite done yet)

now all I need are books... lots and lots of books... I've plenty of bought 28mm books which will be 'hero' books and very visible out in the room, but for the walls I've tinkered with some faux spines... these will be made longer and with Siligum and some casting resin reproduced at a cracking rate hopefully...

but I'm kind of ready to paint... not sure what colour to do the floor... or what (or who) to hang from the very necessary beam...

EDIT: anyone keeping track will notice that there aren't 42 units of shelves there... originally I had plans for freestanding shelves within the room, but once the table was included, the other shelves didn't really help any...

and finally found a pic online of what has been nibbling at the back of my mind the whole time I've been building this... the Hammer version of Dracula...

of course it looks nothing like that, but with the table and the 'hero' books scattered about you never know...

Frothers' Charity Thingy final chance!

From the ebay listing:

"LIMITED EDITION OF JUST ONE!
Cast by the talented and incredibly generous guys at
GREY MATTER FIGURES
This is a one off set of three Master Castings produced in
Funky Purple Resin

Original Sculpts by
Andrew Rae (Statuesque Miniatures)
Kevin White (Hasslefree Miniatures)
Seb Archer (Guild of Harmony)

Sold in aid of the MS Society via the
FROTHERS' CHARITY THINGY 2010"

All the other castings are spoken for so this is the last chance to get these figure. And you'd be doing a bit for charity too. And they're purple! Nearly £6000 raised so far!

Go here to bid: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270702418929

more knobrot iDaleks...

I can't imagine anyone following this doesn't already know about these... but this weeks Doctor Who Adventures magazine has yet more iDalek figures as a freebie.... 17 of the buggers this time, as opposed to 5 previously...

you get 5 orange (although a strange orange) Scientists, 5 red Drones, 1 white Supreme, 1 yellow Eternal and 5 blue Strategists (the Supreme and Eternal being unique amongst Daleks)... as you can see there are some gaps, so like before will need popping apart and realigning, but that shouldn't be a problem...

and of course, they are a perfect match again, the older release (orange again, just not a strange orange) has a rounder dome which matches the prop better, the new releases have a lower tommy helmet shaped dome which is odd as otherwise the models are identical... the new release also seems to have slightly crisper detail as well... not sure why the dome change, perhaps it signals a slight redesign for the 2012 series and they are getting in the change early... dunno...

oh and while I remember, they are too big for 25mm slottas... as they were before and should be with that massive bumper... you can however get 30mm slottas from EM4 which do the job nicely...

next weeks issue is Cybermen and Sontarans, but they look crap...

the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 2

the basic shell is up and running... there were a few teething problems with the prototype walls (as the room kits are planned to be available for sale at some point I believe) which I had to tweak with foampvc the same thickness of the plywood... but even that was nothing too big...

the window bay has had some plasticard put over the windows, there will be detail there and I should be able to work more easily on the plasticard (hopefully), I'm also thinking of giving that area a ceiling for some atmosphere and just to reinforce the structure as a whole... the other walls should be book cases... I've had to change my original plan a little bit, which had book cases within the room as well as around the walls, but the sheer scale of building those as well is a bit daunting... it may yet happen, we will see... there will be at least one massive table covered in books though (think end of the Hammer Dracula)...