50th anniversary Moon Landing

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, I figured that I would put together this kit.

It’s the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander model by Airfix. It’s 1/72 scale so should be close in size for miniature figures. It seems to have all the parts, as well as the instructions and decals.
I had picked it up a few years ago at Value Village for $2.99. It seems to be worth a bit online, and I’m not sure I’ll do it proper justice, but I figured I would give it a go.

With plastic kits, it’s always good to give them a quick wash before starting. Using dish soap and an old toothbrush to gently scrub the mold release agent from the parts helps to prevent problems with painting later. It’s always good to wash the sprues in a tray or container instead of the sink itself. If a part becomes loose, it helps to contain it so you don’t lose a critical piece down the drain.

Make sure they are well rinsed and you can let them air dry or dry them gently with a paper towel.
Now it’s ready to start on the assembly.

Stuck in the middle?

On Canada Day, we took a short trip to the longitudinal center of Canada.

It used to be just a road sign but they have updated it for the 150th anniversary.

New-master reels?

My wife and I are of an age where we used to have Viewmaster reels. These were little white discs about the size of a coaster that you could put into a special viewer and, if you held it up to the light, you would see a 3D image. There were ones for cartoons as well as the more grown up travel ones.

We still have a number of the reels, and we have picked up some of the old ones on the secondary market. When we were still planning to go to Disney World, I had picked up a bunch of the old Disneyland reels for my wife.

She has picked up some of the new VR viewmaster reels that work with a new viewer that has a similar style as an old viewer but holds your cell for VR.

There is also a site that allows to submit images and they will print new reels for you. But the reels only hold 7 images each, so if you have a big event with more pictures, you either have to get multiple reels (like the old 3 packs with A, B, C reels) or choose your best 7 shots.

For her birthday this year, I was tempted to do a Disney set, but that would be hard to edit down to even a few reels. Instead, I was able to select 7 shots to use from her fiftieth birthday and put together a reel with those. I placed the order on May 5 and it came on May 10. It’s supposed to have a five day turnaround before shipping according to the website but I guess they were slow so they finished early and sent it out.

It was sent by UPS so that’s always a tossup. I got an email telling me that there would be duty charges and I could pay online. So I pulled out some money to leave my son in case they came while we were at work but in getting the paper this morning it seems that they just dropped it off in the mail. We were home but they didn’t even knock, they just left it in the mailbox. So I guess the $6.82 in duty wasn’t enough for them to worry about.
I got a letter from UPS about two weeks later collecting on the duty that they should have collected on delivery. So I called them and paid it over the phone.

Figure Painting Total - June 2019

Even though I have the resin version of Swampy, I prefer the metal version better. I was able to find one at a good price and picked it up.

BM/DCU – Swamp Thing - 1
June figures bought – 1, figures painted – 0

Running total 2019 – figures bought 118, figures painted 1

Make a 3D layered photo

I remember old photos and pictures where they used to take multiple copies of the same image and cut out parts of the image and layer them up so that it gives depth to the picture. We had done one of these back in art class in school.
I cannot remember what this is called. Searches for stacking and layering photos give much more results for manipulating digital pictures rather than working with physical images. I was able to find a few sites which gave enough of an overview to follow. It seems it might be 3D decoupage.

I was trying to see what was used between the layers. Using foam seems like it would be too thick for more than 4 layers so I was thinking about gluing the images to cardboard. This would also allow you to work with as low as two pictures (or even a single image but your cuts would have to be super precise).
When it came time to do it, I ended up using foam after all. I had concern about whether the multiple layers would still fit in the frame but when I put it on the first layer it was less puffy than it was on the roll.

You will need as many copies of the picture as you will have layers. I took a photo from our trip to Universal and got mine printed up at Walmart. You will also need something to give the layers depth. I went with the foam tape from Dollarama. I also got a deep frame from Dollarama.

In addition, you will some thing to cut the pictures into the layers. You can use small scissors but I used a craft knife and a cutting board.

You need to decide which parts of the image will be on which layers. It helps to write these out to help you decide how many prints you need to make for the layers. It also helps to keep track of what to cut off of each layer.

I was going to do five layers. I had a sixth layer that I was going to do using regular double sided tape but ended up using the foam tape for that as well. Starting with the full image, I stuck the next layer down on top of it. The I kept sticking down the smaller layers until I was done.

I used the double sided tape to stick it to a card for the backing to help keep it centered. I ended up using a comic backing board. I had picked up a couple of extra boards to use for the layers in case the tape was too thick.

The joy of stuff

I was able to do a bit of a sift on my desk. It took three hours to take about half the boxes off and then put them back in slightly different spots. It only cleared a small spot of table space, but it moved a whole bunch of boxes that I need to go through to the front so that I can access them easier. This should allow me to keep working away at it when I have time.

I do still have a lot of stuff, but so much of it still brings me joy. I am slowly becoming less attached to some older stuff. I have moved a lot in my life, a few times before I started school, and five times since. I am currently in the place that I have lived the longest – at over 16 years.

We still have a few years before the kids move out and we get to reclaim those rooms. Until then, I need to work with the space I have currently. I hope to finally unpack some boxes from 2 moves ago and reclaim my desktop in order to start doing stuff again.

Then I can work at reorganizing the storage locker to make it more of a living storage that I can access and get thing out of instead of an oubliette where things get put in to be forgotten. I will need to get a good shelf for the boxes of books, as well as some of those rolling shelves to allow me to move things to get to the items in the back easier.

Figure Painting Total - May 2019

I finally finished a figure! It was for my wife, for her birthday. Back when we were still dating, on the way to GenCon, we had picked up an X-Men Alert game. I had told her I would paint the figures for her. I painted up the rest of the figures in the set over twenty years ago but never got around to finishing the Cable figure.
We were never big fans of Cable, who had gone through a few costumes over the years. The costume on his card is his silver outfit and different than the costume on the figure. The internet hasn’t been much help either. I didn’t want to dig through all the back issues to find out the colors for this particular outfit.
Finally, I recently checked on BoardGameGeek, and two people had posted their versions of the outfit. Using a combination of the two, I was able to make a passable attempt at finishing him. It’s not my best job ever, but it’s not really a figure either of us care about and will probably never use.
So this now completes that game. It also puts the first figure in the painted column. Now I can work away at other figures without this one hanging over me.

Painted
X-Men Alert: Cable – 1

May figures bought – 0, figures painted – 1

Running total 2019 – figures bought 117, figures painted 1