Wednesday 30th April

The paint had dried from yesterday so I sprayed it once again with another coat to try and cover the parts where it hadn’t stuck properly. So I gave it another coat but it still didn’t cover some of the patches, but they weren’t that visible and that was all that I could do, so I left them and thought I could see what I could do with the details on the plane. Dewi thought that It looked fine so I left it as that.
I then worked on the details on the plane. Because I wanted to make it as accurate as possible, I looked up to see what plane it was so I could have a look at the marking that were actually used. I found out that it was a Arado Ar 196 Norwegian Seaplane circa built in 1942 & used by the Nazi’s in World War 2.
So with this research I thought maybe It wouldn’t work so well having a Nazi plane in an English based film, as well as it not making sense! I still looked at the markings and decided to kind of stick to where (On the picture below) the yellow was placed on the edge of the wings and on the propeller motor. But using a different colour scheme as he wanted the struts that held the water feet to the wings and body of the plane to be black so I stuck with the red and black theme, adding a little symbol on the rudder to make it personalised along with Dewi’s initials! A very rare plane!
I was thinking of adding a British RAF target on the side along with some more details but with the time I had to do it I didn’t want it to be or look rushed so I decided to leave it as it was. I really liked painting this plane, I found it really enjoyable and it reminded me of doing Air-fix kits with my dad when I was young!!

Picture of the actual plane markings:

(Ref- Ebay.co.uk)

Tuesday 29th April

I went in today to help paint the plane that Dewi needed doing, and that he had left because I realy wanted to do it! Whilst I was there I also took some shots of him animating!
I took the plane outside and spray painted it with some red spray paint that he had got for it. There was a bit of an issue with the paint sticking to the plane however, as it wasn’t the type of paint to be using on an air fix kit as it wasn’t holding to the plastic very well. So I left it to dry over night in hope that the paint would settle and another coat would cover it.

Friday 4th April

I finished off the Guardian sculpture today. The paint had dried so I went over it with some bronze paint by brushing it over the cracks and ruffs of the clay giving it the look as though it had been rubbed off. I put a little bit of paint onto the brush, painting off the excess on some paper before putting it onto the sculpture. I thought this effect would work best as too much of the paint would look weird and blotchy where as this looked worn and gently brushed on.

Friday 28th March

Today I helped out a bit more with the mural set, and put some more spider webs onto it as well as setting up the underneath shot, and getting the lighting sorted, trying to get rid of shadows as well as trying to not create anymore.
I also filled in the cracks on one of the guardian sculptures that had cracked once the clayed had dried. I added more clay into the big cracks but left the smaller ones as Dewi wanted these in as they added to the old worn theme. I also had to fix his belt as the clay had cracked it off, this was extremely tricky as it was very awkward to get to and very fragile so it kept breaking when I was trying to add more clay to keep it together, but I persevered and it worked!
I then left the clay to dry and painted it all over with a coat of black paint.

Heart to Heart

With doing this project with Dewi, I found it a bit difficult working with Hannah and Dan as I found they didn’t seam to listen to what Dewi wanted, or give any care, attention or pride into what they did, so me and Nicky ended up redoing a lot of the vines and sets. With making things and having the arty way to see what could be done to make this look better or how it should be done properly I find you have to have the eye for it and some people are better at things than others. With me, because its one of the things that I love and have been doing since I was a child, I felt at home and comfortable doing this and didn’t think twice about how to do something, such as the paper mache, knowing what consistency to make it at and how to make it stick to the sawdust, it didn’t cross my mind as to how to make it, it was already embedded and just came naturally. For ages and most of my life Iv been trying to find something that Iv been good at and finally I realised that It was something that Id been doing all my life It just hadn’t crossed my mind, because Id just done it. Creating things of all kinds whether it be sets, crafty things or cakes, I finally felt a sense of ease that I could do something that someone else couldn’t, and it sparked thae creativeness to do more with this skill. I know that fellow friends and lecturers say Im good at organising and sorting people out, but I want to do something practical with my life, Im not a sort of person to do paperwork all the time, although I do enjoy organising and sorting things, I would miss the creativeness and making enormously. I just need to find a middle point of combining both. Maybe one as a hobbie and another as a profession.

Its hard to do these posts and comment because were all friends but I need to be honest and I just feel some people are suited to certain things than others. Me and Nicky have continuously come in to help Dewi with his final touch ups whereas Dan and Hannah have just left him in the dark about it without telling him. I know I love doing this so its not really work for me, Id rather be doing this throughout the course instead of any of the other work, as I love the practical work and because I find our course is extremely theoretical its nice to actually have a hands on approach, but I don’t understand how you could just leave someone. You wouldn’t do that In the industry nor would you go against someones instructions.

Thursday 27th March

Dan and Hannah had attached the vines onto the second set whilst Id been helping Dewi out again with setting up the lighting and sets. I helped paint them a little but then went on to finish with the main sculpture.
With the ropes I could see they looked really rushed and didn’t look like anything from the first set. They just looked as though they had glued them in any place and no care had been taken with them, so I just left them to the vines whilst I concentrated on the sculpture.
Because the clay had cracked and come off, Nicky re-clayed it to make it stay on and once this had dried I then painted over the grey clay parts so It matched the rest of the sculpture and the green colour scheme.
Whilst Dan and Hannah worked on the vines, I was helping out Dewi. We set up the main set with the murals, where there was a bit of a problem when the holes were drilled in the wrong place so we marked them up and drilled the holes again. I also put some webs onto the sculpture on the set to give it more effect. We set up the lighting and took some still shots.

Tuesday 25th March

So I finally got round to putting the rope onto the second mural wall which I then left to dry before painting to match in with the other wall and set. This proved to be extremely tricky as although I had already done the others and used the same colours, I needed to match the same pattern and blends. So I painted the vines but then kept taking it over to the other wall and the set to see how they matched up. I finally got the colours to just about match up so there wasn’t a big difference in colour between them.
I had also painted the top and bottom strip grey as well as helping to paint the set grey as the paper mache had dried overnight.

Monday 24th March

I finished off the wall that I started yesterday, painting the rope to match in with the set and again giving it the effect of the mold spreading from the vines onto the wall itself.
After finishing the first set we then got to work on the next main set which was the throne room. We put clay onto the edges to smooth out the square angles look then paper mache over the top to give the same texture as the previous set. This time we didn’t bother using sawdust and clay outlines of the stones as we realised once the paper mache was on top it didnt really give a texture, other than the one that the tissue done already from the paper mache. This made this set a lot quicker to do as we didnt have to fiddle around with trying to make the tissue stick, and with the amount of time we had left, time was of the essence!!
I left Hannah and Dan to finish paper mache the set whilst I went up and helped Dewi with the lighting for photographing his sculptures for a still shot. I found this extremely helpful and informative as we haven’t really learnt anything about lighting, so being taught off Dewi and being shown what to do and what creates what was really helpful.

Thursday 20th March

So after completing all the vines and letting the base coat of grey dry, it was time to give them there final coat of paint. An earthy mold look using greens, browns and yellow. I wanted to make the vines have a look although they were attached to the group for a long time and had stained the floor, so instead of just the vines being painted I done some around the vine onto the floor, taking care and time to make it look as real as possible. Once Dan and Hannah had seen the effect I had given the vines, they then continued this onto the parts that they were doing so it all matched.
Once doing these vines I then worked on the one wall that I had put rope onto. Trying to get the same colours to match up was a little tricky so I kept putting the wall up against the floor and other props to see if the colours were similar.

Wednesday 19th March

We finished giving the vines there grey coat today and I also had to add some extra vines to the middle of the set as Hannah and Dan had not made them reach out into the middle enough so I was asked by Dewi If I could put some extra’s in and paint them. There was also an issue with the second laser cut wall. Hannah had gone and done the second wall when me and Dan where out filming for our DFT project but she hadn’t done it to what Dewi wanted and it was very messy with the glue and not very neat, as the rope didn’t follow the lines of the laser cut, so he asked If i could do it again and match it up to my first wall. Because I was running out of time to do this, I decided to wait until next time. I also painted the top and bottom panel of the first wall grey to match the set.