Moving Model Books: Vikings

 
This is the best paper automaton I have made to date!

This kit is actually a book with some simple text about vikings and a central section with pre-cut model pieces. The last few pages show how to assemble the model. It was straightforward to put together, but the final effect is very dramatic.

Process photos after the cut.

The Zoo of Tranquility: The Horse

I have just realised that I have been spelling the title of this book incorrectly all this time. It is "The Zoo of Tranquillity", not "The Zoo of Tranquility"!

The Horse has been the best automaton so far - both in terms of making it and its success, although the horse's galloping motion was definitely better before the riders were added. The sticks holding them in place go through the mechanism that transfers movement to the horse's legs and appear to be preventing it from moving as easily as it was prior to adding them.

The whole process of building it was made a lot more enjoyable by the purchase of this hole punch for making all the holes for the sticks. Part of the reason the last one worked so badly was that the holes I cut were too small so nothing pivoted properly. This hole punch solved that problem completely and I loved using it. Process photos after the cut.

The Zoo of Tranquility: The Lawnmowers

This one was a huge disappointment, which I will only take half the blame for! Part of the problem is that the instructions for the models in this book are very complicated and need much more space; the instructions for this model could easily take up twice as many pages. They would also benefit from more diagrams so you can see how things are supposed to fit together. On this model, I made several mistakes fitting the base together as the three layers that form the base are never shown together. The whole thing was completely maddening to build.

Sadly, my execution of the instructions was also a bit lacking. There are numerous holes in the car washing figures that act as pivot points. (The model uses 18 sticks, each one tinier than the last, as pivots.) I should have made all of these holes before I cut the pieces out! Then I could have widened them without worrying about damaging the pieces. As it is, all of the holes are too small and the figures don't really move. I also cut the lawnmowers' legs too short, so they don't catch properly on the ridged surface inside the base. (Although the instructions suggested that it would be a problem if the legs were too long so I focused on avoiding that, not understanding that too long would have been fixable!)

With all of that out of the way, here is a very underwhelming video:

Process photos after the cut. The instructions had just eight steps so that's what the photos reflect!

Xmas Robbin'

The Zoo of Tranquillity: The Woodpecker

This was so fiddly and the result is kind of disappointing. The mechanism makes the tree move back and forth, which in turn causes the woodpecker to move. The idea is that this creates the illusion that the woodpecker's motion is shaking the tree. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to build up the right rhythm to make this convincing. It mainly looks as though the tree is moving and the woodpecker is hanging on for dear life.

The Zoo of Tranquillity

While clearing our his grandparents' attic, a friend of mine unearthed a copy of "Spooner's Moving Animals" and passed it on to me.

This 1986 book is out of print now, although there seem to be plenty of reasonably-priced secondhand copies online. The book contains instructions – and pieces – to make seven automata. The book also delves into why each automaton works the way it does and Paul Spooner has designed the models with different mechanisms in order to teach the reader a range of automaton techniques.

The copy I have is missing pieces for three of the models (the Goat, the Lion and the Wedding Cake), but I intend to try to make the other four over the coming months. They are:

• the Woodpecker
• the Lawnmowers
• the Horse
• the Anteater

Tower Bridge

Based on a true story!

This is from the same series as the Battling Knights and the Executioner. The pieces for this required cutting out by hand, but a lot of it uses a relatively thin card so cutting them was fairly easy. It took me a while to figure out how the mechanism fitted together though.

Process photos after the cut.

T.Rex

This is going to be the last automata for the forseeable future! This one comes Flying Pig Ltd, the same company that made the Skiing Sheep. I didn't take any construction photographs this time, but it was very easy to put together.

Battling Knights

A superior product to the Executioner! The pieces for the Executioner had to be cut out by hand, while the pieces for this are pre-cut and just need to be pressed out of the sheets of card. Also, a thicker card is used for the horses and the mechanism, while a thinner card is used for the knights, making them much easier to bend into position. Construction photographs after the cut.

Executioner

This took a long time to put together! (After the cut are some photos from its month-long construction.)

Black knight

He's about 5 foot 2 inches tall.

Breastplates

I have been doing and making things lately, but I haven't really felt like writing about any of it. Unlike other bloggers, I make no excuses and offer no apologies!

I'm back at college after the Easter break and making breastplate-like forms from paper, pelmet vilene and heat transfer paper.

Armour part 3

I'm still working on the felt armour mentioned in previous posts. It now has a backplate, a paper helmet and some embroidery, but is currently missing its left arm piece, which was broken off somehow. I'm planning on reattaching that and creating a breastplate after the Easter break.

Paper stencils

The following three images were cut from single sheets of A4 folded in half. They're all loosely based on drawings of armour I've made over the last few months.




I also combined the helmet stencil with heat transfer paper in the heat press to print onto acrylic fabric.


One last stencil - a full suit of armour cut from an A2 sheet of paper. Hopefully, the ruler gives a sense of scale.

Screen-printing onto handmade paper

I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory... Screen-printing onto paper is a bit different to printing onto cloth; it requires a hard, flat surface underneath. My screen-printing tutor also advised that I tape the paper down and put some card on the frame of the screen to create a slight gap between the screen and the paper. The results were pretty good so it looks like it was sound advice.

Paper-making

I made some more paper this week - a lovely light pink paper that I later set about turning into rather serial killer-esque Valentine's Day cards. My original intention was to make a stencil, but the more-or-less anatomically correct heart I'd drawn proved too complicated for this. In the end I photocopied the drawing several times and then cut the hearts out and painted them.

Paper-making

I'm back at college and we started off the term with some paper-making. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I've got no work in progress shots, only the end results. The pulp from these sheets was made by recycling scrap paper. The brown and black speckles in some of the sheets come from uncoated paper bags (from The Body Shop and Ann Summers respectively), while the pink sheet of paper incorporated red envelopes left over from Christmas cards. The sheets with coloured smudges on had coloured confetti added to them while they were still wet. The dye from the confetti then bled across the wet paper.

Skiing sheep

A miscellany...

I've not posted in a while - I've been too busy carving myself a ribcage.

Skeletons

Over the last two weeks I've explored some of London's more morbid museums in search of bones. I'd recommend the Hunterian Museum for anybody interested in human anatomy, the Horniman Museum for animal anatomy and the Wellcome Collection's permanent exhibition for non-anatomical medical curiousities. I'm planning on visiting the Natural History Museum in the new year.

Yesterday I took a break from drawing in favour of a papercraft project from Skull-A-Day.



The lower jaw can be opened and closed, but unfortunately it doesn't quite move smoothly enough.

I'm actually a bit bored of human skulls; they're everywhere at the moment. I'd like to see more spines and rib cages!