Akita Mountain

[gavino200]

Tom, what kind of putty do you use? And what do you use to carve it?

[cteno4]

Tom, 

 

curious if you have ever tried using wire future to start with. I’ve done that scratch building birds and putty up from there and it went well and have been meaning to try it with people. I’ve also been tempted to try to putty up some of the cheap Chinese architectural figures after bending/cutting them up some.

 

what figures are you starting with?

 

jeff

[Tom C]

@gavino200  @cteno4

 

Here's a photo that shows my people modifying kit. This is all I use. Feast your eyes on those lovely pink tweezers 😵 No, I don't care how much you offer me, I'm not selling them 😂

 

The people I use are a mix of Chinese 1000 for 1 cent junk and Preiser 100 for $30. You can see how different theiy look to my mini Kiki's Shows how much effort goes into each of my people creations.

 

I have tried using wire but found that the putty did not adhere to it very well and would fall off when I started carving it. Also, the thought of carving an n scale face doesn't fill me with excitement. The little fairy I made was carved from a solid piece of plastic as she is only 2mm tall. I did try making her with wire but..................I did make loads of alians out of wire but that's a story for another time 🙂

 

The putty is very hard to work with as it is very sticky and goes off  in about 40 seconds. So I end up gooping it on fast and then carving huge amounts off when it has set hard. It takes about 12h to really harden. Does anyone know of a better putty out there ? What I do like with the Tamiya putty is that it slightly melts itself to the plastic figures creating a really good strong joint. 

[Martijn Meerts]

Where's your anaesthetic? You can't possible be operation on those people without it right? 😄

 

I had the some putty actually, but nothing decent ever came out of it. I blamed the putty and when it finally went bad, I bought a different brand... Maybe the putty wasn't the issue after all  o.O

 

 

Of course, I only ever use putty to fill holes, not to play god and create humans 😉

 

[cteno4]

36 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Where's your anaesthetic? You can't possible be operation on those people without it right?

I can just hear all the tiny screams coming from Tom’s workbench and hear tom screaming “Life! Life! Give my creature LIFE!” when the figure starts to come together.
 

@Tom C so I assume you have a little bottle now of extra body parts to play with (appropriately labeled body parts and on the shelf next to fairy dust bottle)!
 

I’m going to have to look at my couple of boxes of preiser figures, I got them long ago before tomytec figures started to come out with the idea of modifying them into more Japanese figures and dress, they look like good fodder for slicing and dicing. I’ve bent up the Chinese architectural figures a bit with the heat gun to just give some more figure variety when populating a platform with them. Was thinking to trying further manipulation besides the little dabs of paint or marker I’ve done to them, but there is so little to start with it’s sort of going to using them as just a skeleton to do they whole rework like you do.

 

yes the putty does not hold really well to the wire, but most of the putty in the cranes were on the main body where I had done a couple of loops so there was a lot of structure for the putty to lock onto. Carved well without coming apart. Rest I just used repeated coats of thick craft paint to slowly build up to what I needed, reverse carving. Thought that might work on the human arms and legs as w.o carving the paint doesn’t have to stick all that hard. Thought it would be fun to just try posing the wire figures. Always been a thought in my head with human figures, just never got to trying it. You are stimulating me to get back at this more.

 

jeff

[Tom C]

9 hours ago, cteno4 said:

the cranes

Photos photos photos 🙂

[cteno4]

Ok, ok. Some here in this topic. Damn that was 10 years ago…

 

jeff

 

 

[cteno4]

Two brothers for ki&ki

 

jeff

 

 

[Tom C]

@cteno4

Ah yes, wonderful chaps. As much as I like their music, the thought of creating them could not compete with KiKi 😍

 I'm happy you've been inspired to hunt out shamisen music. 👍 

 

To share our insperation with others is one of the greatest rewards of modeling/life. I see Akita mountain as a kind of sounding platform for thoughts and discovery 🙂

 

Work on the model is advancing but nothing worth photographing yet. 

[Tom C]

In space, before time. Nuclear reaction set Earth on the move.

Land and water perfectly warmed gave birth to a million of little creatures.

This multitude entered into a cycle of life and death.

Their corpses laid down to rest in great depth on the sea floor.

Over many millennia their layers compacted and fused together. 

The perpetually restless Earth jousted these beds skyward to form beautiful mountains.

These mountains are cut down by ice.

When the ice melts it carry's the mountains to the sea.

From home, back to home.

 

 

One of the most striking features on Akita mountain is the exposed uniform limestone strata. It is, to within a degree or two, horizontal. This gives it a kind of Lego block look that is not entirely unattractive. It's of a relatively soft composition that makes it prone to erosion, especially during the winter months. The water that impregnates between the layers expands as it freezes and causes great chunks to break away and cascade groundward in a most alarming manner. The locals can ascertain to this.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's all the ground work done. Now the monumental task of painting before it snows. Heavy snow is forecast in the region. Trees are also starting to grow and people are building houses.

 

[cteno4]

Beautiful rockwork! Nice attention to the real geology.

 

ohh the little people are coming!

 

jeff

[Tom C]

On 6/24/2021 at 8:13 PM, cteno4 said:

Beautiful rockwork! Nice attention to the real geology

 Thank you.

 

I wanted to write more of a poam but my literacy skills let me down so you just got some ramballings instead. Also, I have no idea how the Earth was created ? I just made that bit up as it sounded good !!! 🤪

[Tom C]

 Er, what have we got here

 

Buddha earings !!!

 

Nope, not my look 👎

 

Ah, that's better, now we're talking.

 

"What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create."

[shadowtiger25]

Man I need to read more Buddhist sayings...

Even such a simple one is really making me think about how I'm acting lately

[Tom C]

41 minutes ago, shadowtiger25 said:

Man I need to read more Buddhist sayings...

Even such a simple one is really making me think about how I'm acting lately

Other people can give us a much needed kick, but the real work is how sincere we can be with our selves. Once we use reason and justifying as a means, we fall off the wagon. I don't believe there are any exceptions to this rule and often give myself a good talking to when I (often) notice myself using them 🙃 

 

 

I don't really understand the relevance of the photo here, but somethimes things just can't be explaned 🤪

 

 

[cteno4]

Love them. I’m always looking on ebay for little charms for things like this!

 

life is a long journey that’s always about continually learning how to live it better and wiser.

 

my new thing this year is to treat a friend to a nice long lunch every week. Not traveled much in the last few years so I’ll just spend that vacation money having lots of little vacations with my friends and try to slow down the rush rush culture of today as it just pushes off spending much quality time with others. I’m sure the Buddha said take a friend to lunch, it’s just good.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Tom C]

11 hours ago, cteno4 said:

my new thing this year is to treat a friend to a nice long lunch every week

I'm putting in a request for a vertual beer 👍PM sent.

[cteno4]

You got it. Nothing would make me more happy to do one in person tom, just the trip to lunch would be a pain. Someday I’ll get over the pond here.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Tom C]

Here's a video that I hope will give a little insight into the madness that is Akita Mountain. 
I would 'like' to say that I'm on my side in the video because I've had too much to drink But the truth is that I was unable to rotate the video due to useless computer skills. The same applies as to why it's shot in one take and is compleatly unedited 
I trip over my words a bit as this is a first for me (and quite possably a last !!)

I would seriously recomend not clicking on the link but if you are so foolishly curious enough to do so, poor yourself a stiff drink in advance preparation 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTBv62oJ0RA&t

Thanks for watching

Edited July 26, 2021 by Tom C

[gavino200]

I love how the layout is framed!!!

[Kamome442]

22 hours ago, gavino200 said:

I love how the layout is framed!!!

 

I couldn't agree more, clean, elegant and perfectly framed. Just beautiful, I hope that someday you get the chance to visit Japan!!

 

[cteno4]

Nice framing and nice framing of your ideas in the video.

 

I did some 3D contour models when young using cut out pieces of corrugated cardboard that made quite nice display contours of some intertidal transects I did with critter counts over time. Everyone was so Impressed by them, they were dirt simple to do. It was great for people to visualize the transects than from pictures or contour maps and they then focused on the data more in relation to the elevations and not getting hung up trying to visualize the contours (some basically say they don’t even attempt to do that so kind of zone out when contours are presented). 
 

Paper mache works great as well then skin with some plaster for final textures. Even can just do the paper mache over balled up newspaper.

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

[MeTheSwede]

On 7/26/2021 at 8:25 PM, Tom C said:

I would 'like' to say that I'm on my side in the video because I've had too much to drink But the truth is that I was unable to rotate the video due to useless computer skills. The same applies as to why it's shot in one take and is compleatly unedited 

 

Next time rotate your phone 90 degrees before pressing record. Then you've got all the tech skills you need!

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in the video.

 

 

[Tom C]

After going on and on and on about presentation in my video, I thought I better pull the stops out and get my cabinet finished.



And with the doors open;



The doors are made of teak and the frame ? that I reclamed from an old cupboard that someone had thrown out. At first glance I thought it was tacky veneered plywood but on close inspection it turned out to be solid wood. In the back of the car it went. Most of it was beyond saving but I managed to salvage just enough to build this little cabinet 

It's loosly styled on a torii gate, so it should bring good luck to Akita 

I feel the bottom curve is a little strong but I'm not going to pull it apart now to change it. Overall I'm happy and it keeps the dust and spiders off the lovely white snow.

I'll have to get the backscene painted up as it's looking all a little white !!

[Tom C]

I would really like to write Akita mountain in Japanese vertically on the inside of each door along with an appropriate crest. Is there anybody who can help me with getting this right as Google tranlate comes up with this; 秋田山

 

First, I don't know if it's correct ? and second, which caricature would go at the top when written vertically ?

 

Any help much appreceated.