Pilot Projects

Hello everyone and we're at the end of February and summer will draw to a close. Or on the northern hemisphere, winter will end. That aside, I might show this.

What you're seeing here is the head of a Styracosaurus made out of cardboard pieces. And why did I tackle this project? Back in May last year, SECAN who are the local arts hub situated in the outer south east of Melbourne have the routine to bring up words for each month until December and our objectives for us members is to create a piece of art to match the words.

This one is based on 3d paper. Earlier, I hadn't had any ideas until I came up with a completely new idea cutting cardboard pieces into 3 dimensional models but it's been a decent task (includes measuring to create dimensions, cutting and creating tabs in order to attach pieces, creating templates and analysing the finished product). It does get tedious and frustrating but once you'll work out what things don't work, the project will work out in the end.

And with my mock up models made and displayed at June's SECAN gathering, this whole idea has been highly acclaimed. The month after, I have made the Styracosaurus and also the Triceratops head bearing in mind they're both made out of used cereal boxes and so fourth which would otherwise be recycled. Better still, the new idea has been brought up and that is the prospect of selling these as assembly kits.

This ladies and gentlemen is possibly the pilot project that I have initiated which is what this post will be all about. There have been many things I have done on my recent years of my life that are firsts and hadn't even thought about but I guess also I've been opening up to the world, well communities rather.

In that sense, the idea for the likes of these dinosaur heads pop up and once displayed to the public, the next stage is what to do further down the track? With this case, creating assembly kits for anyone else to assemble and even paint theirs. And now comes the new stage of working on the instructions, pieces and an appropriate sized envelope. Here it goes.

The instructions will be divided into 3 sections. Pieces, assembly and the fully assembled page.

The first task is drawing out the pages showing the pieces as part of the instructions. I drew pieces with my greylead pencil on the pieces of paper to establish where to place them. Next, I use my black pen to draw over which they'll be scanned as greylead drawings can hardly be shown. I have also labelled tabs to make the assembling processes possible. Next came the pages for the assembling process.

So first, I drew the visual instructions with my greylead pencil. I then added numbers, folding in and out tabs with specific labelled tabs, gluing symbols along with hatched areas to attach the pieces and arrows to guide them. And as you can see, the greylead drawings are a little faint at that stage.

But by using my black pen to draw over them, they become more visual along with the shading.

And with all of the mock instructions completed. I grabbed some of my A4 pockets to slide the instructions in with the labels for the correct dinosaur. Each of the pages got scanned as they'll get printed for each assembly kit to be produced. Here's a little piece of trivia. The pages I've made were a total of 11 but when I manually set my printer to print both sides, I've managed to yield 7 pages worth of instructions. The next and fun bit is cutting the pieces.

Keeping with the theme of using used cereal boxes, I've saved them in the mean time and I went to work.

With one box cut up, this provides the opportunity to work out where to place the templates to trace over and take up as much of the cardboard as possible. This helps reduce wastage.

And by looking at my workspace, this has been a great task. The worst bit is the potential clutter with the series of cutting, the pieces have been more manageable.

Next up are 2 items that'll help me complete the assembly kits. Earlier, I have bought myself a detailing knife and little plastic sachets. And these will help me cut smaller pieces particular for the nasal horn for the Triceratops.

With those items, they've been put to good use. Once the small pieces have been cut and bagged into those sachets. This has been a success. Another use for the detailing knife is lightly scoring the lines from the tabs in order to fold them out. I had the problems with tabs rebounding that made bonding with other pieces difficult in the course of assembly. And it's a good idea to make mock ups first so if anything goes wrong, it can get rectified later.

And using this pocket with the mock up instructions earlier, I've placed the pieces I've cut into the pocket as well. That way, I can work out what sized envelope to use. This has been looking so far so good.

Finding the right envelop is a challenging task as it's all new to me. However, I made good use of this diagram to help me choose the right one. I went with the C4 envelope as it's adequate enough to fold the instructions and the pieces which leaves us to the final part. Printing the display label for completion.

Firstly, these complete head models I drew by hand allowing me to work on the rendering.

With my had rendering done, I went about creating these models on Paint 3D.

And along with the printable labels, my next task is to rearrange the pictures and the names, then print them to make sure they're all in their correct positions. When everything else is all satisfactory, I've printed the labels to then be attached to the assembly kits, sealed up.

So then, these assembly kits have been completed. I have completed 6 of these assembly kits (3 Styracosaurus and 3 Triceratops) as I've assigned 6 of the SECAN members to assemble the models. This'll be the biggest test to see how well the models can be assembled and hopefully keep the idea of selling these assembly kits alive.

With that, any creative ideas can turn into products that can potentially sell.

Everything else is a learning curve for myself especially SECAN where members can even sell their products such as these cards. On my end, here's something cool.

This is one card I made myself believe it or not. This birthday Pikachu card has been especially made for my sister's 33rd birthday. That got me thinking for when my creative juices keep growing, I could make greeting cards. Like have my own range plus other products but unfortunately, I won't sell these cards as Nintendo own the rights to the Pokemon franchise and doing so will result in copyright infringements.

There is another project I have initiated. Earlier, I bought a model assembly kit for the Subaru Impreza WRX STI and during the whole assembly process, I didn't want it to be a typical Impreza WRX. I insisted to make it like my idea of doing my AU Falcon project and I found this car to be the closest model possible especially in a form of a sedan.

I went to work starting with the underside. The biggest trouble I had was the brake calipers and the wheels were pre-painted gold which is the stock colour. Despite that, I've painted the calipers red and the wheels white after some light sanding.

This kind of model building provides a good chance to work out any colours you have in mind use on any aspect of a car. Any you wish to work on.

Inside and outside, you can work out and decide what works and what doesn't without having a lot of money and an area to work on a car. So far with the addition of red seats, my design and colour schemes are working in my favour. What's handy is with the Unique Rides car group providing chats through the Facebook messenger, I post the updates and let other members be their own judges. There hadn't been any objections which I'm pleased about.

And there you have it. There have been a few developments before we'll end here.

One SECAN member reached out to me showing her assembled dinosaur head which has been successful and the instructions have been good according to her. That leaves the other 5. On the next Saturday, SECAN will open up but has also been revamped with the new giftshop.

All this will have to wait. See you next time!