Construction: Han Solo in Carbonite, part 5

After a few days of the glue not doing much, I could resist temptation no longer and decided to cover the whole thing in watered-down All Purpose Filler. And then more waiting...

This morning I then verticalised (definitely a word) the carbonite. I half expected to arrive home and find Han having detached himself and lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. But no! He's all in one piece! 

(The little black patch is where I did a bit of test painting with the remains of a tester pot of black emulsion)

Now back to Poundland for more All Purpose Filler...

Construction: Han Solo in Carbonite, part 4

I've round the edges of the bookcase to make it a bit more carbonite block-like. There's some grey paint in the picture, which serves no purpose other than giving me an idea of if you can see any joints.

I laid out a bubblewarp body shape, stiffened with some cardboard tubes. The clothes were then soaked in Poundland PVA glue and then placed over the body shape. I then poured more glue all over the top. The hope is that the clothes will turn hard but, with the weather having turned for the worse, it may be a while before the glue even thinks about drying.

A slight problem is that the carbonite is going to be blocking my garage door for the foreseeable future.

Construction: Han Solo in Carbonite, part 3

Recently we discovered that a bookcase in our house had gone a bit...well, it needed to be chucked out.

But then I had a better idea!

So Han Solo isn't going to be on a cardboard block anymore. Since I could find a piece of the appropriate size to cover the back of the bookcase, this plan is only possible due to the clear-out currently taking place at school and the resultant chucking out of (another) bookcase (bookcases are really suffering at the moment!). It's been cut to size and nailed onto the (first) bookcase. Plywood is a right s.o.b and I ended up with a mass of splinters in the fingers, but I'm sure (/hope) it was worth the pain.

Over the past couple of months I've been procuring items to help make Han's body. These (again) mostly originate from school: a pair of old wellies, a t-shit, and a pair of my old jeans.

Construction: Han Solo in Carbonite, part 2

So I've been fiddling about with the sculpting for a couple of days and now have this...

It doesn't look a huge amount like Harrison Ford, but it does look like a person, which is a big plus. It's enough, at least, to encourage me to move ahead with The Plan.

A big tip, should you want to follow my carbonite-building example, is, when you're losing hope, paint the whole thing in one colour. It really helps to show what the finished thing will look like, as opposed to the big mess of white and beige. The paint also held together the nasty, crumbly Poundland Filler.

Construction: Han Solo in Carbonite, part 1

It's the school comic con in a few months time and, ever since I went to Destination Star Trek London and was thoroughly disappointed by the lack of room decoration, I've been of the opinion that what every con needs is a bunch of large things to give the location Atmosphere.

I've had a large box sitting about for months that I've been pondering what to do with and I've finally decided: I'm making Han Solo in Carbonite.

Review: UK Games Expo '16

It's been a while since I last posted a review. I actually thought, this time last year, I'd have more time for posts, but that hasn't turned out to be the case. However I am attempting to rectify that now and, after a summer of Going Places, I thought I'd start with a few event reviews.

We begin with the UK Games Expo which took place at the NEC in Birmingham back in June.