Quick Refurbishment

Now that I have more time than I did when I finished the project, the last few days I went back to fix a few things and make them better.

"Plus-ing" the sign

When I originally installed the sign for my project, I did it in a rush. The party that I was trying to get the project done and open for was only in a few hours and I simply didn't have the time to put it in properly. I simply took the fluorescent fixture that would backlight it and screwed it directly into the plywood below. I hot-glued the plexiglas sign to the edges of the fixture and masked the light leaks around it with black electrical tape. I later painted the plywood with a blue to try to mask the texture, but it didn't do much.

The sign looked alright when I did it, but I wanted to clean it up and make it better this time around. And for safety reasons, I want it to be as close to the plywood as possible, so that it doesn't snag any clothing or for the sign's safety, not get broken. To do this, I cut a hole directly into the plywood for the light and into the scene behind it (the one with the blacklight Nautilus cruising). To ease the installment of the light fixture, I removed the scene so I can access the wall. That scene also had developed a leak in the  bubble water box so the removing of that temporarily for maintenance made putting the sign in easier.

Here's the plywood wall on the outside with the light fixture now recessed into it. You can see the blue painted around it for a quick (and unsuccessful) fix for the plywood texture.

From there, I smoothed out the plywood and areas around the light fixture with joint compound, and when it was dry I gave it a sanding.

At that point, the entire outside of the table was different colors and different materials. The entire thing was given a coat of paint to make it monochromatic with a neutral color. It looks a lot more streamlined.

Around the light fixture I airbrushed a sort of "glowing Nautilus"; this is to give the sign a glowing look even when the sign isn't on, and when it is, help accentuate the lighting. Since the shot below was taken, I redid it so it was a little more subtle.

Then I drilled some holes in the plywood and bolted the sign on (it has bolts epoxy-ed to it from the back). 

Here's the finished sign installed during normal daytime lighting. It just got polished and cleaned so it's reflecting all the clutter on my desk!

With the fluorescent bulb turned on...

And at night:

Now the sign only sticks out about 3/8", rather than 1 1/2" which makes it less susceptible to damage. And it looks much cleaner than before.

I hoping for the final video through the table to be done by Saturday.

Sign

A look at the sign mounted on the outside of the table. It was lasercut by an anonymous source out of black plexiglas and is backlit with a fluorescent bulb. Eventually I am going to cut into the plywood that it's mounted on and recess the sign so it won't protrude out as much without creating chances for clothing snags and damage. The plywood will also get a better treatment, the painted look was a temporary finish.

Above the sign is the "control panel"; this is where I can turn on all the power for the show and also control the work lights (it's a 3-way switch, so I can turn them on and off while I'm inside too).

A "ride-through" video is being worked on at the moment. I'm trying to get all the edits right so it'll be a while until it's posted. For all the shots of the scenes and in the interior, I usually take many shots from different angles and then stitch them together in Photoshop for a large picture (cheap wide angle effect), but since it's so dark, the Photomerge feature in Photoshop can't align the pictures so I have to composite them by hand. Because of that, the finished photos and the video won't be showing up too soon, but they will eventually.

Merry Christmas!

I had an extra diver that didn't make it into the Burial scene. So, I decided to make him into an ornament for the tree to commemorate the project.

Interior Shots

A couple shots of what the interior of the table looks like, with the viewing windows, caption books, and everything else blacked out.

The very beginning scene, which is a "woodcut" print of the "Whale of A Tale" scene in the movie with the caption below. This one basically sets up the characters and the story.

Looking at the first two physical scenes, the "Monster attacks" and "Discovering the monster".

On the left is the Burial scene, in the very back is the last scene (which is a print of Ned, Aronnax, and Conseil in Nemo's boat), in the middle is the Shark attack scene, then the Nautilus cruising scene next to it, and finally the Dinner scene on the right.

The Dinner Scene with it's "caption book"

The "Nautilus Cruising" scene

Looking towards the squid fight scene. The Nemo playing the organ is on the left, a print of the Nautilus approaching Vulcania is in the middle, and out of frame right next to the camera is the shark attack scene. Also, around the corner across from the Vulcania print is the finale scene.

A shot of the Squid fight window at the moment of lightning. Also shown is it's caption below. The organ scene, while out of frame, is right on the left.

On the right is the finale scene and on the back wall on the left is the very end with the main three in the skiff marking the end of the movie and this "crawl-thru". The sign at the very top in the middle just tells the viewer to pull the cord to open the exit door.

12/14/09 Update--Finished and the End of Weekly Updates.

As of last Saturday, I'm proud to say that the 20k project is finally finished after nearly a year of work and construction. The last few days and hours leading up to our annual Christmas party consisted of frantic working and stuff being rushed in order to meet the deadline (the next party won't be for 2 years!). But, as the paint finally dried, the relatives who squeezed their way through and approved delightfully. So in the end, the work paid off even though I nearly broke my back doing it!

At some point during the week I'll be documenting the finished product showing every little thing I did as well as with a "ride-through" video showing exactly what it's like to move through the table. Also included will be some really nice "press shots" that I'll be taking of each scene. That will take a while to do since I want to do it right, so don't expect anything popping up here too soon.

Since construction has come to an end, so will the weekly update of this blog. It was a tedious task to document everything for this project, but I don't regret doing it all; this blog provides a very valuable insight into how such a complicated project gets down and all the steps involved. I've never documented something this extensively ever.

Just because I won't be doing weekly posts doesn't mean I'll never do another update; planned for the future is "Phase 2" of the project which is essentially all the stuff I never got to do on the first go-around. This might include the extensive Nautilus themed interior, new props for the sets, upgrades and improvements of scenes, or even a whole new scene. But that's the future at this point. Right now I want to get back to my very neglected projects that includes my Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland model above the 20k project as well as some smaller projects. When "Phase 2" begins, I don't know. I really want to get away from anything 20,000 Leagues under the Sea for awhile!

Thanks to those who have followed and commented on here and the YouTube videos, and Happy crawling!

12/10/09 Update--Still almost finished.

Well, it's December 10th, guess what still isn't finished? Luckily I have a few extra days to get it done before Saturday (that's when it needs to be done) so I'll get some major work in. I've been extremely busy working on other stuff besides the 20k project, but now that some school finals are done and out of the way, I can get back to the project.

Because I was so busy the last week or so, not much was done unfortunately. I did get the entrance door completely finished and the burial scene given it's water effect back. I've also started on the "caption books", which explain what's going on in the scene as well as give extra info to transition from the scene before or to the next. Here's an example, which will go below the Discovery scene.

I kind of did it like a book of the period. The illustrations are filtered screen shots from the movie, since I have no time to actually draw them out myself. Even then, they look pretty good. Although color probably wasn't used at the time in books, but it adds that much more in my situation. These caption books are going below every single scene. Here's another which goes below the Burial scene.

These work pretty well since I have no more room for what's being depicted in the caption books!

I'm working on the sign, which is going to be very similar to the Submarine Voyage sign I did a few years ago with the backlit letters. The overall shape is being lasercut at the moment, but here's a concept art I did of it to kind of show what it might look like:

As of Friday night, pretty much all of the caption books are installed. All the lights for the captions are lit by 12V lights along my new 12V line that I installed through-out the table. Now I can just tap into the line if I need power for a set (if it runs of 12V).

 Now it's a matter of doing touch-ups and cleaning everything up. Almost finished.

I'm also happy to say that the squid fight is finally done. The characters were added today and now the squid has something to battle now. The characters are very rough sculpts of crew members. I was able to get away with not sculpting any faces, by either turing the head away, or wrapping it with a tentacle.

Not the best shots, but here's what it looks like with the lightning going off.

Since I am working on the project the over the next two days, I will be constantly updating this post with more stuff, so check back often! 

12/1/09 Update: Getting closer...

I'm getting closer to finishing the project as all the paneling is complete for the entire attraction. I started out with cutting heavy cardboard or matte-board for all the main paneling. They're all screwed in, so they can be removed for heavy maintenance. On these boards, I cut holes for quick access panels, so I don't have to take out a bunch of screws if I need to do any quick adjustments. I made these quick access panels out of masonite and they fasten on with wire hooks into holes on the panel boards. All of the viewing windows were done the same way. The windows were cut in a way so that the scene is cleanly cropped and makes the scene look nicer and more convincing (especially for all the underwater scenes where you can't see all the equipment).

Here are some pano shots of the paneling:

This shot shows the quick access panels installed:

Once all the paneling was installed, the entire project was given a coat of flat black paint. It's really hard to believe it, but I can't believe how much darker the paint makes the project. (For some odd reason, it actually makes it look larger too. Seeing everything one shade of color really makes it look slick and clean, and it's really cool only being able to see the scenes only. I don't have any time for adding Nautilus motif around the walls, but I like being able to see nothing; it allows me to hide all of my flaws too.

The next step is to get all the caption books done, which I'll probably discuss next update. I'm also going to get the squid fight finally finished (hopefully!) and some other neat stuff like signs and rope lights. Then from there it'll be adding last minute details and testing and adjusting.

Next week will probably be my last scheduled update! By December 10th, I'm calling the project done! Although some elements were put aside, I may pick them up later on when I have more time. Since I've been ultra busy with school finals and stuff, don't be too surprised if I delay next weeks update for a week.

11/23/09 Update

Work has been progressing furiously on the project, though I really don't think I can finish it the way I want it to; there's simply too much to do to create a totally detailed and immersive project that I've had in mind. I'm trying to get this thing done as soon as possible, or by around December 10th--but since I don't think I can do that, I've decided to scale back the project. I'm trying to get this done by our family Christmas party, which will be the largest audience this project will ever see. But since I'm trying to meet a deadline for that, some stuff will be left out for now. But that means they'll never get put in eventually. I also want to get some work done on my Nature's Wonderland model before the party and I want to make room for overflow work time for my college final projects.

The current scaled back plan is this:

• The main focus will be to get all the scenes done and perfect; they're the main part of the show.

• Around the scenes will be streamlined and cleaned up with paneling, at this point to be painted flat black. My original plan was to completely theme the entire paneling like the Nautilus interior with rivets, pipes, and gauges. But since I don't have time for that, that aspect has been eliminated in favor of a clean dark surface. If I do have time, I may add patches of theming that will be only seen under lighting conditions that light up only those areas. (Otherwise, the entire area outside of the scenes will be totally dark, to focus the viewers attention on the scenes).

• As part of the scenes, a faux book in front of them will have a small caption and a black/white woodcut like illustration to give more information on the scene and to help blend the transitions between them. These will look like books from the time period, and will take a while to do, especially the illustrations (which I am doing half by hand and half by computer filtering of movie screen-shots. )

• I'm also going to make a sign for the front of the attractions, which will be a fun little project, as well as paint and streamline the outside of it, which is a mixed media of different materials at the moment.

So, if I can do what's on this list, I'll be in good shape; despite the compromises that were painful to make.

Anyways, this week I worked on the paneling of the project; essentially putting the matte on the canvas. This will give a very nice look to the project and will hid any unwanted areas.

Before I started the major framework, I did a quick video showing the inside and how all the scenes are laid out.



I started out with a wooden frame and then I screwed in walls of either Masonite, cardstock, heavy matte board, and heavy cardboard.

Here's a shot of the wood framing for the first part of the attraction:

And the areas paneled. The holes cut allow for windows for the scenes as well as quick access panels. (Technically, all the panels are being designed so the whole section comes out easily for any heavy maintenance or troubleshooting).

(That's the sign for my old Submarine Voyage project; it's kind of a nod to a former project that you have to look at a certain angle in order to see it.)

I should have pretty much all the paneling done (Luckily I have a few more free days because of Thanksgiving). I would also like to get the Squid fight done also, but we'll see.

11/16/09 Update

Brief update this week. Now that I have about 2 weeks to finish this entire project up, I really have to kick up the progress being done each day. This last week was mainly the construction of the new squid, which is almost done except for a few details. Pretty much all the electrical work is complete for the entire attraction, which was a major task (and expensive!). I'm also working towards getting the two first scene totally completed and signed off, and hopefully, they'll be the first scenes to get covered and cleaned up. The main big undertaking that I need to do is get the squid fight completed. Other than that, it's mainly walls, pipes, and rivets. From there I'll do sound and additional interior lighting, as well as the captions for each scene which will consist of a faux book with a page of brief writing and an illustration. I'll get into those later.

For now, let's look at the squid. The new squid is done out paper mache, mainly to keep the weight down significantly.

When I was getting into figuring out how to do the "suckers" on the tentacles, I wasn't sure how to do them. I really didn't want to sculpt every one of them out of sculpey. I found my answer while eating my breakfast one morning...

Yes, that's right, Cheerios! (Fruity Cheerios to be exact). Although they are the wrong scale, they do translate quite well once painted and sealed.

I painted the entire squid in a sort of red color, since I tend to associate squids with being a red color, like the infamous "sunset squid" scene. I didn't make it purple this time, but the color didn't seem to matter to me. I then coated the entire thing in Mod Podge gloss medium to give it that wet, slimy look. It looks really disgusting and hideous-- just the right effect!

Here it is in the scene with the viewing window on the left.

This isn't the best shot, but here's the perspective of the scene, awaiting crew members to fight the squid.

I can't wait for this scene to be done and out of the way, it was such a pain to redo. But hey, I need to make this project a spectacle, so everything had to be scaled up and done right. 

Ironically, Disney redid their squid too!

As mentioned, I'm going back to the first two scenes and getting them totally completed. The discovery scene got it's plastic window, basically finishing that scene. I sprayed it with Testor's dullcote so it gave it that foggy look and makes the Nautilus or the "monster" somewhat hard to see. I'd use fog from a fog machine, but that is such a hassle to control consistently under these conditions. 

Here's a shot of the first two scenes. Note the framing that has gone in. 

11/9/09 Update--New Squid, Finale scene, work lights, + more

The week of Halloween, I didn't get anything done. I had taken a break from the 20k project and worked on something little fun for Halloween. I built a pop-up ghost head that took nearly a week to construct, using up my time for the 20k project. But the pop-up was worth the time so I didn't mind using up that week. Then it was November 1st... That was a date that I did not want to hear at all. That meant I had just over a month to finish the entire project; and I'm behind schedule. I had to kick into high gear and finish the squid scene, finale scene, entire interior, small parts and pieces for the other scenes, power grid, the second door, and about a hundred other little things. To top it off, I had a problem that would set me back quite a bit...the squid.

When I was getting back to project after Halloween, my first thing to tackle was the characters to battle the giant squid. No problem, just need to figure out the scale. But when I was figuring out the scale of the scene with the completed squid in the scene, I noticed something was wrong--the deck was out of scale, too big. But then I realized that maybe the squid is too small instead. If that were the case, I really didn't want to redo it and make it larger;  that would delay the entire project. Not knowing what to do with the set, I decided to shift gears and get the finale scene done and out of the way, then I can worry about the squid scene.

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The finale scene is the last physical scene in the show. (By physical I mean actual models; some scenes will be layered illustrations, which I'll give more detail on later). I call it the "finale" scene because it's much easier to write and say repeatedly than "Nautilus sinking and Vulcania exploding". The scene marks the end of Nemo, the Nautilus, and Vulcania, and basically the end of the movie. The set is a hybrid between these two shot:

It is a rather easy set to build so I was able to get it done quickly. I started off with a circular base and backdrop (the backdrop came out really well surprisingly). To give the appearance of waves crashing on the Nautilus, I paper mache-ed the base with crumpled aluminum foil and paper towels.

The perspective for this scene will be really low, which means the set will be mounted very high, in order to achieve that horizon line effect with the ocean (trying to do that in miniature isn't easy, especially with the space allotted for this set!).

This shot shows the perspective of the scene, with the crumpled aluminum form in the back representing Vulcania, framed by the waves.

For the Nautilus I used another resin casting that I painted up and mounted in the set in the "sinking position".

Here's a panorama of the  entire "show building" at this point, showing the new set being built in it's place and the soon to be revised set in the foreground. I should also note that I have installed all of my work lights, fluorescent fixtures that will aid construction when I start putting up more walls and such.

Once the paper towel had dried, I painted the ocean with a dark blue and fabricated the mushroom cloud from the exploding Vulcania. I made it out of the fake spider web material that is for sale just about everywhere around Halloween time. I mounted this stuff to a piece of card and lightly spray painted it with dark gray. At the bottom, I rigged some flashing LED's from a really cheaply made "strobe" light. I put a red and yellow gel in front of the lights for that fiery look.

At this point I did a light test with the LED's only, and it looks really cool (I'm going to add more lights to give it a dusk feeling). Here's an "artsy" shot that I did entitled "Death of the Nautilus and Vulcania", or something to that effect.

I added some wave highlights and gave everything a glossy coat of Mod Podge which completed the entire scene. The set turned out way better than I thought, considering it was a pretty rushed scene. I anxious to see it under proper show conditions!

Now that I got the Finale scene out of the way, it was back to the squid fight.
When looking over what I had built already, I noticed that there was almost too much wasted space in the set around the squid and I felt that all the space should be filled up, considering this is suppose to be a spectacular scene. The size of the current squid makes the scene feel a little underwhelming for such a dramatic scene in the show.  I decided that I really should make a new squid, one that fills up the entire scene. So thats what I did, I took out my now de-commissioned old squid and set to work on the new one.

Here's the old squid soon to be replaced; note the amount of wasted space around the squid which prompted me to build a bigger squid.

The new squid will be approximately twice the size as the old one, which is HUGE! To keep down the cost and weight, I made the entire new squid out of paper mache. I started with a rough crumpled paper form and gave it an aluminum foil skin. Once the foil was on, I covered with with paper dipped in a 50:50 water glue solution. Luckily I have a model to work off of this time!

The tentacles, still in production, are rigid popsicle stick structures with a layer of aluminum to bulk out the tentacles and a layer of paper or paper towel for the skin (haven't decided which material; I'm trying out to see what goes on the fastest and smoothest with out the need for lots of layers). The squid tentacles are so long that they will appear to extend past the viewing window! This size increase makes the viewer feel like they're right in the action of the scene. The scene now seems very chaotic and when the crew members are eventually put in to fight, the scene will be very dramatic and shocking, especially when the viewer only sees it at a couple second at a time with the strobe lights. Here's a shot of the squid at this point, which looks huge when compared to the old squid above. (It's so big that the entire thing has to be built in place right on the set!)

The squid will take a while to complete, since the paper mache technique requires dry time between layers. So, I've adjusted my schedule. The squid scene will probably be the last thing to be completed, simple as that. While layers are drying on the squid, I'm going ahead on finishing up the rest of the scenes and then once I'm all signed off on each one, the walls for the interior will start going up. I'll get into that in a future update.

As for today, since I have the day off, I will be laying the power grid for the entire attraction. This took some planning since I need to get power to about 40 electrical sockets and I want to do it in a safe and organized way. There won't be any piggy-backing extension cords like in my previous shows!

11/2/09--No Update!

There will not be an update this week simply because nothing was done this last week. I had a last minute Halloween effect that I decided to fast-track and that took all my time up for the 20k project that week. 

Next week I'll get into the home-stretch of the project and the massive to-do list as, as well as working on the final scene and problems with the scale of the squid. 

10/26/09--Squid Construction, doors

Brief update this week. The squid is complete, just as I had hoped. I didn't get around to the crew members battling it, but that that will be the focus this week as well as finishing up the entire scene.

Last week I showed the first tentacle made for the squid and soon after that, 6 more were made. I'm only going for 7 tentacles out of 10 at this point, though I might add more later on. The reason for that is that I wasn't sure if you were going to see them all during the flashes of lightning. After a few tests, it turns out that you can!

Once the tentacles were baked and hardened, all the joints and gaps were filled with self-hardening clay. Forgetting that is has that quality, the clay cracked like crazy when it dried because of the rigid structure. So I filled in the cracked and joints with epoxy putty. (Which results in the different shades in the picture below).

Once the joints hardened, more details like the eye and mouth were made out of sculpey and glued on. Below is a shot of the squid just before painting. The rough texture was achieved by torching the surface of the putty, which actually works in this situation.

The color of the squid in the movie is really hard to determine. After some studying of the dark film footage, and some consideration of my own preference, I decided to paint the squid a dark purple. I've always associated the squid with being a red color, after seeing the "sunset squid" lost footage. I compromised that image by darkening it and I got purple. The reason also having it purple is so the viewer can distinguish the squid from the backdrop a tad easier because of the difference in hues. Just for fun, I also painted the eye with glow-in-the-dark paint!

The squid is currently being installed and at some point I should get started on the characters. After that installation of the effects will go in and some "Mod Podge Water" will be drenched all over the set.

Since the entire scene is static, I've come up with a way of giving the illusion of movement during the lightning flashes. In a couple of tests that I did, I rigged two strobe lights, turned on and off by a motorized cam, on two opposite sides of the squid. I set them at different flash speeds and the results create a striking look (no pun intended). The rapid change between the light sources looks incredible and it gives it the slight illusion of movement.

In addition to working on the squid, I've also finally finished my first door to the attraction. My original entrances to the table attractions have always been strips of trashbag. While they worked for their time, they don't seem to last that long and aren't the most stremlined and slick looking "doors". This time I've devised operation sliding doors (I was originally going to employ a set of double doors, only to find that they take up a lot of room). Once I had a smooth working door, I figured out how to make it run on it's own. The goal was to have the door open at the push of a button, stay open at time interval, and close all automatically on it's own. However, the propulsion of the door was the hardest part. I went through 3-4 versions of a motor set up and the best one was loud, noisy, jerky, and broke really easily. That doesn't help when I need smooth and quiet operating doors. Basically I had the sliding door on a track being pulled by fishing line by two motors. A timer relay would turn either motor on, opening or closing the door.

I later compromised and not have the entire door motorized. To put it in simpler terms, the sliding door is on a counterweight, push the door open and the weight pulls it closed. However, I added a little more to it. Once the door is open via a line pulled by the viewer entering or exiting, the cable operating the door has a catch that comes in contact with a latch, like a zip-tie. A motor allows this contact to happen because the latch was lowered by the motor once a reed switch triggered the relay powering the motor. Once the timer expires, the motor power is cut allowing a lever to drop, raising the latch and releasing the cable catch allowing the door to close via gravity on the counterweight. It sounds pretty confusing without and visual reference, but I might do a video demonstrating the door since it is a clever piece of mechanics that I've done.

This kind of operation is virtually silent and it's actually safer since the door can be stopped from closing easily because it's only on a counterweight; while if I had the old motorized door, the door would close whether or not someone was in the doorway.