SCARE for a CURE Blog

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Picnic of DOOM, and Project Updates



Makeup demo at IGDA picnic
Seen in the SCARE booth at the IGDA picnic

Yeah, I think my blog titles are terrible, too. We'll get over it.

Looking at the calendar it seems that a LONG TIME has passed since the last blog update, but really just a weekend and a half... and the two weeks in between.

Okay, a long time.

Last weekend, I don't even remember exactly what happened, but a new FX volunteer, Matt, came out and did diligent work on the vacuum former's oven—drilled a zillion holes in a very difficult material, and tested out a couple different configurations of heater coil with me. Initial testing gave us way too high a resistance, so we went with a bunch of shorter coils in parallel—but then we found that a coil or two had lower resistances, giving us uneven heating. A good set of experiments, and tedious, but that's science for you. He then went on to help with the shifting of materials for a bit before escaping the greater oven that is the Lab.

Yesterday I normalized the coil resistances, but that's about it on the oven so far.

Phil and Yvonne have continued their explorations in dentistry, and are getting better and going deeper into new territory every visit, I'm quite pleased. Brad (right? Darn these names) and Kyle also got to see the results of their previous tooth casting, and do a bit more in the sculpting department.

I've spent a couple of weekday sessions working on Nathan's Elmo, and have pics online now (link at the bottom). He'll be ready to mold and cast soon, which is good, because time is short! One catch is, the horns need to be roto-molded, and we haven't built the roto-molder yet. Also, I need to hook Crystal in and talk about costuming and the horn-hat (otherwise, it's a gimmee-cap with the bill cut off, and nobody really wants that).

Last weekend I spun up the remaining ring sections for the vortex and today I drilled and assembled these into rings for the vortex tunnel's outer layer. Last weekend Debra (not Deborah, as it turns out) helped with that some (if I recall correctly). Events kept her away today, but I suspect we'll see her tomorrow again and I'll put her to work drilling holes for the eye-bolts for the guy wires (unless she reads this and sensibly decides to hide).

Robert and Henry have been continuing in their Blood Pump work and I believe it's ready for mounting and powering now—though I need to buy another package of my ad-hoc O-Ring material to seal them. The original stuff has apparently been sequestered away by mice, or goblins, or something.

I'm hoping Jean brings the new burner to the Lab soon—she sent pictures, and the work in progress is lovely—so I can cook up some water and begin the color work for our custom blood formulation.

While I was waiting for Tall Matt to wrap up his work at the Lab today, so I could carpool him home, I threw together some concept skulls just to see if I could—I guess I can, so I'll be making a variety of skulls to decorate furniture and fireplaces. I'm thinking vacuum molding forms, so I can make a bunch of 'em cheap.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something or someone... I'll fill in on the next post if I remember!

I still haven't done the materials tests needed to transform the PVA powder into a nice plastic for use in skull caps and glue-on cuts. Soon, maybe? Hard to say.

I also need to do an inventory of the materials that Dr. Carpenter gave us, and make a shopping list of what we need to buy, to round them out. Wednesday tends to be my random task night, but Wednesdays have been busy lately, and NEXT Wednesday is the monthly Scare meeting at the Lodge.

The last two Wednesdays a few of us have gotten together to round out the Scare project / task list. We've filled in some estimates and cut out some projects, and generally tried to get a grip on the massive effort that is building an ambitious haunt. All of it is in the Wiki, so for those who have access, go check it out!

What I have been able to do the last week, however, is still pretty good. The Goblin programming is coming along, and I've got a basic system of lights worked out. I need to work up some of the advanced features, and get the communication network integrated still.

I built up three of the little blinky circuits (the so-called "micro-Goblin"), and I still need to build up some of the other circuits -- the bridge/power board ("Goblin Bridge"), the laptop interface and loop driver ("sigma-Goblin", also known as the Goblin Brain), and the 110VAC control version ("milli-Goblin", or just 'Grunt' for short).

Saturday I spent the morning reinforcing the weaker front mother mold on Nathan's lifecast, and extended both halves of the mold down to a square base with a nice flange. This will make it easier to hang upside down (or plug and clamp into the rotomolding machine) later.

Saturday afternoon I packed up my makeup kit and wandered out to the IGDA picnic for about four hours, doing some fun makeup (with Robin, who will have a different set of pictures) on random strangers who foolishly wandered into our tent.

After that I started heading to Paul's for a bit of party time, but never made it; overcome by heat and weariness, I diverted to home and turned into a blob.

Sunday I went to the lab a bit later than usual (10am, goodness, I'm slacking) but I did spent an hour or two prior working on the Goblin systems.

The first thing I did was clean up the INSIDE of the plaster part of Nathan's mold. I figure that cleaning up the inside of the mold once will be easier than cleaning up the two or three positive castings I expect to make later. I had hoped to cast a positive today too, but decided to let the fresh plaster cure for a day first.

Instead, I did the finish work and then heat-polished four sets of teeth; the first teeth I started when the whole dentistry project was launched months and months ago. I did some large fangs for Ian, and finally finished up Crystal's, Marla's, and this quiet girl's teeth (Niobium? Titania? Nicky? They are marked "Ni"... it could mean anything). I'll get more teeth from Sue next week and then finish them too.

Soon, I'll make molds and cast acrylic and be done with that phase of the project. Yay! I actually hope to have both a positive of Nathan and these teeth at the Kickoff / Volunteer party August 2nd (speaking of which, someone needs to make sure the online Calendar is up to date).

I also did a second pass of cleanup on these crazy saber-tooth fangs I'm experimenting with on my own teeth.

Oh, and I captured Marla's lower teeth, but didn't get Charlotte or Nathan today for some reason. Right! They must have slept in.

Coming up next: Lifecasting me, I hope I survive! Also, Nathan's first casting and the beginning of the Demon makeup in earnest.

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