Blogs
Dragon Continued…
It’s time for all of the final details – I’m really trying to make this guy old and weathered – I’ve applied my last layer of magic sculpt – I’ve carved scales into his chest and given some texture to the soft tissue areas – I’ll let this harden then I’m ready for primer.
Whistle Punk Hollow Adventure Golf project done!
Yesterday, we put the finishing touches to Whistle Punk Hollow Adventure Golf. It was a good sized project that kept us busy for a little better than five months. Many of the components were designed in EnRoute, and machined from 30lb Precision Board on our MultiCam. This allowed us to produce a better product, and much faster than if we had done it all by hand. Here’s a virtual tour of the finished project.
More lights!
I’ve been busy for the last while on other projects but tonight I managed to squeeze in a few minutes on the mechanical fish project. Todays task was to hollow out the eye sockets, inside the hatch, gill and mouth areas of the fish. In each of these areas I inserted LED lights that would add a magical glow. Ping pong balls cut in half proved to be perfect solution for the eye balls as the blue lights glow through beautifully and with just the right intensity. I still have to design and route the ramp from the door to submarine hatch but other than that the upper portions of piece are now ready for hand sculpting of the details and then paint.
Dragon Wings, Steel and Scales – KDF Studio Sign
Our little studio “sign” project has been on hold for awhile but we decided to finish it up at night – our special projects folder is getting a little too big! Now alot of cool things have transpired since we last posted on this project.
The Competition is On – A Fish Tale
Our mentor from the North, Dan Sawatsky, has been posting a super cool project that he has been working on at http://imaginationcorporation.com/journal/ . We saw that he was involved in a friendly competition with some other superstar sign makers and we wanted in. The rules of the competition – create a sign for the “The Institute for the Study of Mechanical Marine Life”. The only requirement is that the sign has the text on it and that it includes a mechanical fish of some sort. We have until September 2nd to make this a good one – we’ll have to do the work at night as we are extremely busy – but it will be a fun! Game on! So Brian and I did a little brainstorming.
Announcing Our New Translator Tool!
After feedback from several of our international customers, Coastal Enterprises is proud to announce the addition of a translator to the top of each page on our website. Switch languages at the click of a button and enjoy all our content in multiple languages for your...
Fishing derby for all
Our little mechanical fish sign ‘competition’ is getting lots of interest. And I’m geting lots of emails and messages asking if others can play and if so what the rules are. The answer is YES! It all started as a dare of sorts. Jamie Oxenham built a nice little sign for his own studio. Doug Haffner and I were sitting with Jamie at the workshop in Indiana and we commented how we liked his fish.
How to hang a fish
The mechanical fish needed some substantial hangers to look convincing. I decided some hefty I-beams were the order of the day but they needed to be a little fancy of course. Some swoopy curves and some drilled holes would do the trick nicely in a steampunk, victorian sort of fashion.
More fishing adventure
Every submarine needs a dock and the Mechanical fish sub is no different. In fact this dock will be as imaginative as the fish itself. The mechanical fish and dock use just about every trick in the book. As always, the vectors were first. Everything except the letters were created in EnRoute