AVALANCHE! -- Fun-A-Day 2017 Days 4-8

Day 4

Introducing Fipó (pronounced Fee-paw), my felted proxy diorama adventure protagonist! Day 4 (and part of day 5) was spent felting and sewing tiny tiny space pyjamas for her that I wish I had for myself.

 

Day 5

Finished her pyjama bottoms, made her some glasses and even gave her a face!

 

Day 6

Worked on the snowscape elements. The trees are made out of tissue paper that I origami folded, the snow is pulled apart cotton balls and the igloo is made out of big bubble wrap.

 

Day 7

I made some tiny props and other set pieces.

 



Day 8

Needle felted a Yeti and a tiny Mandrake!

 

 

Here's everything put together!


 

Going to take more pictures in the morning tomorrow when the lighting is better :)

Hot Glue Guns make Dreams Come True -- Fun-A-Day 2017, Day 4

Today's mission was to assemble all the diorama bases! With my trusty glue gun in hand, I've gone from 2D flat painted cardboard to 3D flat painted cardboard ;D

When the time comes to display the final project, I plan on arranging the diorama scenes in a star-shape like this: 

Here are some close up pictures with a friend in each so you can get an idea of the dimensions: 

If I wasn't pumped enough to get working on all the actual individual props and creatures before, I definitely am now. Having the bases made is making this feel really real and I can't wait for things to start coming together even more :3 

I think tomorrow I'll start on some needle felting!

Paint, paint and more paint -- Fun-A-Day 2017, Day 3

With only 10 minutes left to the day, I finally finished painting all of the cardboard pieces for the dioramas! Below are all five scenes in order:

I think they'll look really cool once I've assembled them, which will be tomorrow's task!

 Some close ups:

Snowy Tundra

Desert

Stalagmite and stalactite filled cave

Volcano lava pool

Forest

I haven't ever painted much, so this mostly just a lot of experimenting and play with the paint until I got what I wanted. I used acrylic paints which mixed really nicely and were messy and fun to work with. I kept the bottom pieces as flat colors because I plan to have very textured bottoms, like with layers of felt and props and other things. They were painted mostly so I wouldn't feel like I had to cover the whole cardboard piece with felt, giving me more options and flexibility down the line. I might add to the landscape backdrops-- like gluing cotton balls to the snow banks, green tissue paper to the trees, glittery sand to the desert etc-- to give them more texture and make them pop more too. Oh, I also painted all the backs of the cardboard black so the dioramas will look nice from all angles!

Good night,

Filipa

(Darn, took me a bit over 10 minutes to write all this up haha I was hoping to post before midnight. Oh well :D)

Mythical Creatures Ramp Boxes -- Fun-A-Day 2017 Inspiration

As I mentioned in my first post about my current diorama project, last year I worked on a project at the Providence Children's Museum with a partner, Rachel, making ramp "window" boxes. The ramp boxes are serving as a large source of inspiration for this month's project and I wanted to share (and show off ;D) all the hard work that Rachel and I did as a preview of what my dioramas might look like. 

Here are the photos of all 17 boxes for your admiration <3 

Royal Tea Party! A forest Dryad Princess visits her Dragon friend at their castle.

Under the Sea Concerto, a Mermaid and a Hippocamp have a jam session!

Centaur Polo... speaks for itself I think..

Nori the Chinese Dragon (the museum's mascot!) checks on the Monkey King as he lazily drifts down river

Rainbow RACE!!!!! (FYI: the Gouldian Finch Harpy waving the flag was my favourite needle felted creature to make! She's a rainbow!!)

Gnome Home and Garden <3 So sweet and cozy <3

Rainy Rainforest Day!

Canyon Cookout. Big Foot and his buddy jackalope enjoying a campfire cookout.

Yeti and Ice Troll doing some ice fishing!

Reading Mother Griffin Nursery Rhymes is certain to help your eggs hatch faster!

Laundry Day at the Swamp! 

Mining Mischief! Goblins sneaking away some gems mined by a hardworking Dwarf.

Peek-a-Bamboo... bamboo forests may not be the place to play hide and seek...

Viking Fishing Trip!

Volcano Sauna!

Pixie Picnic <3

Desert Garden. Cacti flourish when they have a devoted family (Mama Basilik, Mama Chicken, and their Cockatrice son) looking after it. 

BTW, if you'd like to read about the creation of this project, check out this blog post about it over at the Providence Children's Museum's blog: Creating Mythical Creatures Ramp Boxes

Cutting (Out) Corners-- Fun-A-Day 2017, Day 2

Today was cardboard cutting day. I cut out 9x9 in squares which took a while because I needed 15 pieces and I don't often work with cardboard. It was tricky getting a clean straight cut and to be honest I'm sure some of the pieces came out kind of wonky. I hope once they're all assembled, painted, and covered by all the landscape pieces that any wonky edges won't be noticeable.

I taped together 3 pieces to illustrate how the shape of the dioramas I'll be making. Once I've painted the cardboard I'll be gluing them with a hot glue gun which will be much sturdier than a few strips of tape! 

 The size looks like it will work okay as I can fit a lot of felted creatures in the space, but I will have to be very purposeful as to how I size the props and landscape items and where I place them in order to maximize the use of space. 

My plan for tomorrow is to start painting! 

Cheers,

Filipa