And now for something COMPLETELY different......FINISHED!

[GreyGhost]

Wow, that is so cool ..! 

Looks like a peak inside Tolkien's mind ... 

 

-Gregg

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks much guys.  The wife and I have returned from a small end of season camping trip, and I spent yesterday winterizing the trailer as we are having some unusually cold temps here atm.

This did give me a chance to work on the wifes present a bit last night, so I attached the little "Moon Oak" I made up out of wire, clay and some pink flower flocking. I also got a chance to mount the two crystals at the peak of the model, and fill in the necessary parts with clay to make things seamless. I only got so far last night before I had to let things dry or possibly damage the work I had done. 

Pics to come and thanks again for stopping in on me! 

[Out2gtcha]

Ill take some pics tonight, as the main painting and installing of other necessary bits is done, so now I have started on adding some of the fungi I made up earlier. I will take some pics before the final phase of the landscaping takes place, then its really down to lighting up the cottage and then attaching the base/resin/waterfall ect. 

[Out2gtcha]

The addition of some of the fungi has begun...........and the Moon Oak and crystals are added. I have yet to put any of the groundwork down yet, so lots and lots of work to come.

 

 

 

 

 

In this world a Moon Oak has the shape of an Oak tree, the coloration of a large Aspen or Birch, and the budding/blooms of a Japanese cherry blossom tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not totally sure where I came up with some of the strange fungi I put in. I've seen some very interesting ones on our hikes and some nature specials. These are not all by any means, but a start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way back, I made 3 SUPER dinky owls, about 1 or 1.5mm tall. Not a lot of detail, but enough to know what they are when seen. I took the opportunity to give all 3 a different cool roosting spot:

 

#1 is high up above the cottage 

 

 

 

 

 

#2 is overlooking what will be the water fall and "sea" below.

 

 

 

 

 

#3 is roosting on one of the cottage beams

 

 

 

 

 

All for now, as its back to the grind!  Next up will be adding some soil, then varying grasses, mosses, tall grass, flowers and finally pulling the lighting through the cottage and getting it glued down on the base. That should be fun!  Thanks for looking in on me.

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

A major step taken!

 

Its not pretty on the inside, but I continued the LED camping light string inside the cottage. The string starts high up on the tree side of the garden, then wraps its way around the two crystals, then around the pool, then down underneath the upper stairs all the way down to the bottom of the base. There is a 1/4" deep space under the base for the wire and some of the aluminum strengthening tubes.

This is where I grabbed the LED string and pulled a section of it up through the hole in the base for the cottage that I made earlier in the build.

 

[Out2gtcha]

I then grabbed the short end of the run of LED lights and gave myself a 6" or so run of slack to work with and started with the closest ground level window and worked my way around the 1st level with the string hot gluing one LED light to the top of each window then coiling the excess wire as I went. I then moved on up to the second level doing the same, and eventually to the run up through the tower to the two tower windows and back down out of the cottage to the bottom of the base once more. 

 

After testing everything as I mentioned above, it isn't pretty in the end inside. It does however get the job done and with the hot glue covering the windows its really a moot point how it looks on the inside.

 

We have light!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard to capture it in any kind of decent light, but the crystals and stairs are coming along as well, and look good in the light, albeit this is on its super bright setting. Its looks a bit better when turned down a few notches.

 

 

 

 

Were on our way now!  Major step for sure. "What was sundered and undone. Shall be whole, the two made one (By Gelfling hand, or else by none).”

The cottage is now permanently part of the model, for better or for worse! You can also see I started adding some of the ground work as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Starting to look really cool now..............just a couple of areas of light bleed under the cottage that I have to fix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night I added a significant portion of the groundwork/landscaping and will continue tonight. Im hoping to get a good handle on the resin mixing, coloring and pouring this week/weekend as it remains the only significant hurdle to getting this gift done for the wife.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

[chrish]

A nice warm inviting appearance!

Although I can hear my wife saying do you need all these lights on? 

[Out2gtcha]

Fortunately even though this is in a LOTR style world, they have LEDs so the power drain is minimal!   

 

 

And.................were done with the moon garden itself!  It was HELLA fun to do all this and just go off on the thing.   Now just the base and resin to deal with!

I have a test bed Styrofoam bowl coated in the same paint and pigments that I used some clear RV sealant on as a test bed. I used the clear sealant to glue on a medicine cup to test its properties when surrounded by resin. Just need to let the sealant cure for 48 hours. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moon garden itself is now finished, and Im calling this part done. I still need to work out how to finish the lighting on the base, but I'm super happy with how this part all turned out...

To say the ground work and greenery changed the look and feel of it drastically is quite an understatement. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I let my imagination run wild when creating some of the flora....not sure what this plant is, but judging by scale, Id not want to jump in the middle of it. It ended up looking super cool though! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing how nature works, any sorta-kinda level-ish surface will get populated so I followed that here keeping in mind I had a wet/humid environment in my world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Super tough to get good night shots, but it looks SO cook with the Mk 1 eyball 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The upper pool before it gets is resin "water"

 

 

 

 

 

 

All for now, as Im off to test the resin itself and get some excess molds for any extra resin i end up with. 

 

Cheers! 

 

 

[LSP_Ray]

That turned out sweet!

[chrish]

That’s just beautiful!

[Troy Molitor]

Damn.  That is really cool.  Total imagination on your part with a 100% vision executed with only your ideas and imagination.  Liberating.  

Now can we call you back into the fold?  LOL.  Loving this totally.  Please carry on.   

[GreyGhost]

Bravo ...! 

 

-Gregg

[Alex]

WOW.  That turned out amazing.  Kudos to you for trying something out of the box and hitting a home run with it.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks all!

 

With my wife's B-Day looming in exactly one week, Ive been kicking into gear. The clear sealant test was a go after two days so the resin test got underway.

 

This was my first pour with this resin (Sevgili "Super Anti-Yellowing" crystal clear 1:1 epoxy) and all went really well. I'm not sure how exact I was or precise with the measurements but that is sort of what I wanted to see, how sensitive the resin is to ratios and what not.  

The epoxy was mixed up then blended with a bit of lighter translucent blue, which I know is harder to see with the green and purple background, but that was sort of the point. 

You can sort of tell the shade of the resin at the base of the cup. The resin dried ROCK hard and there wasn't a leak to be seen under the cup in the center. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rips in the foil was my own fault not any of the resins. There seemed to be minimal heat produced with this small pour. I just have to make sure to cover things as there were a couple hairs, but nbd, they can  be covered with ripples or surface texture. 

 

 

 

Cue the sappy section.........

 

I took care of the bottom of the base and gave my self a near un-erasable deadline written in permanent marker and transcribed her birthday on the bottom while also completely plugging the base holes with rubber plugs from Ace hardware. I ran the base wiring and on/off switch through the rear rubber plug.

 

 

 

 

 

I didnt get pics, but I used the 3M VHB tape to secure this side of the switch to the outside of the base.

 

 

 

 

 

With the resin test having went so well, I forged on with one small requirement for the pool/waterfall. That was to make a "dam" to hold the resin pool back, and to have something to attach the waterfall to later. This was just make from Woodland Scenics water effects and will dry clear/with tad of white, just like it would be at the edge of a real waterfall. Here just applied and still all white, but used a wet brush to blend down and back into the pool.

 

 

 

 

I forged on with the base lighting itself, which starts out with roughing up the inner edge of the base and making a small edge piece which will cover some/most of the lighting and direct it downward toward the base and resin.

I painted the inner side w/chrome to reflect a bit more. This will be attached and blended in later.

 

 

 

 

I continued on with the camp light string where it came out of the bottom of the moon garden, in order to wrap it around the inner upper edge of the base. There was a surprising amount of wire left to run when I got to the base, SO much so that I had to wind what felt like feet of wire around the base and coat it with primer.

Even without the inner lip I made on, a lot of the wiring is hidden at most viewing angles.

 

 

 

 

 

Even without the inner lip on yet, its starting to look really cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I roughed up the glazing on the fired base, and proceeded to glue in the lip, including cutouts for certain parts of the rear of the base.

 

 

 

 

 

I then took and slathered some Milliput on the edge of the glazed base on top of the added lip to smooth things in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I later sanded all of that down, and have added some MS 500, sanded, then added some MS 1500 black tonight. I have to work overnight tonight, but should hopefully be able to add some paint and hopefully get the base glued down tomorrow

 

Cheers! 

 

 

 

[D.B. Andrus]

What an amazing birthday gift!  Your wife is a very lucky woman, Brian.

 

Cheers,

Damian