First Construct The Moment Project

A Section Of The Waverly Building

Poppy's Design:

In my final project for the year, we got the opportunity to collaborate with the year two's that are doing the same course. In my group of 6, we blended with the year two's group of 5. This meant we were able to learn teamwork skills by working towards a common goal, and to be able to mix all of our practical skills together to achieve the outcome.

The year two's started the project off when they each created a model of their chosen part of the Waverly building. Us year one's were then given the chance to anonymously choose our favourite. The most popular design was Poppy's. Here is her design, alongside the section of Waverly she chose it from.

Next, with Sarah, we learnt how to make realistic looking surfaces, like wood, stone and skirting boards. The one tool we used to create the wood like effect, is this little block that has semi circle grains etched into it.

You cover it slightly in paint, and you drag it along a slab of material, meanwhile rocking it back and forth to create the grain effect.

With this one, you can see I used masking tape to section off each bit so as to create a nice neat boundary for each section.

We then Learnt how to make realistic skirting boards.

This is the final product of my skirting board. Over the skirting board you will see another cobble stone. I used the last exercise technique to add to this technique, as I wanted a realistic looking wall, rather than just a painted plain white wall.

Again, the trick was to use light and dark lines to create the illusion of shadow and depth.

WINDING BACK A LITTLE BIT:

Before we started the project, we had a few sessions on lighting and working at heights with Adam Davis and Neil Dixon, and painting realistically with Sarah Richards. This was to introduce us for the project ahead.

In the lighting session, this was of a quick scenario we did in a little group of three where we created an atmosphere with five different lights to project onto an object. We chose to use this scaffold tower and our helmets to portray a harsh building site enviroment.

We then Learnt how to make realistic looking cobble stone bricks.

I started off with a plain grey slab of MDF, then used a wet paintbrush, just splattered black watered down paint onto the MDF. After that was dry, I went over with a damp cloth with big holes in, and dabbed the MDF that had grey and black paint on. Over this, I finally used a round sponge, ripped chunks out of it so it looks like a large cheese, dabbed it in watered down grey/black paint and dabbed this everywhere on the MDF too.

All of these layered added subtle details that helped to bring it to life.

Next, I filled in the basic black lines that were to be the shape and size of my overall cobble stones.

The light and semi dark lines are what made it come to life. These acted as the highlight/ light part of each brick, and the dark acted as the shadow cast from the light onto the brick. Each white line I made was on the top left hand side, as if the sun was coming from that direction. The semi dark lines were on the bottom and bottom right of each brick. These tones made the bricks seems as if there was depth to each of them.

NOW BACK TO BUILDING OUR PROJECT:

We first assigned each of ourselves in our team our roles, I chose to be a props and dressing person. I chose this because I love to decorate things and I love the challenge of making things look realistic once all the woodwork is put together- so that it jumps from being wood, to something unrecognisable yet relatable.

Saying that, everyone was all hands on with every aspect of the job. Although I was props, I helped out a lot with the structural building of the base and the wall.

Below is the base flat done, made from 2x3 planks of wood, and sheets of MDF on top. The middle section was left alone, as this is where the wooden grate needed to be.

Next, we made the flat that were to be the wall, in the same manner.

The bottom image shows the wall flat that were to have a top and a bottom window. We covered this flat with MDF but obviously left the gaps where the windows were. Importantly, we also left the gaps of where the brick columns were to be and the very bottom strip of nothing as well. This was so we didn't waste MDF, and those areas wouldn't have been visible because of the columns and the base floor covering them anyway.

In the first photo you see the first floor flat built. We needed to make the 'concrete' bit for the grate to sit on (Refer back to the image of the actual part of Waverly)

To create it, we made a raised bit of frame made from wood for it to protrude up, so that later we could create the grass that gradually lowered down to that bottom level.

Here is a photo of me laying down underneath the grate we had previously made. The gap between the floor and the height of this new raised level was surprisingly snug enough for a person to lay in it.

Also, In this photo you can see that the grate is much darker, with a white-ish distressed finish to it. After the layer of brown was added, we felt it was too 'new' looking, so we mixed up some grey-white thick paint and dry brushed it onto bits to make it looks aged and older.

The bottom window was then made from a simple frame, the painting was the part that made the window look more realistic.

We painted the whole frame white, put a load of PVA glue on and then added some the grey on top. It lied for a minute or two, and then we exposed it to a hot gun and it created the cracked like effect.

These two things are the two columns right at the top beside the upper window. These too are supposed to be the stone bits, that meet with the window frame. The materials used was polystyrene and strips of MDF.

They have been put together with masking tape to hold whilst the glue dries.

All that needed adding was the bottom window frame, the top window's perspex, the 'bath' (middle section), and the top stone details beside the upper window. Everything had a touch up of paint detailing so as to add more of a realistic effect. I also went outside and grabbed a bucket full of mud, crunchy leaves, sticks and stones to throw all along the floor.

With all the last minute things being pulled together, this meant that it got wrapped up pretty quickly. We were left with an impressive structure that looked so realistic that I almost forgot we had been building it from wood and polystyrene for the past 4 weeks. The above photo is with the lights dimmed and direct overhead lighting, giving the structure more depth.

Meanwhile, while we were building the flats, the team was also building the two brick columns that stood side by side the entire thing.

The bricks were made from polystyrene and in the middle from polyfiller. When they were complete, these columns then had multiple layers of paint to look realistic.

The 'concrete' tops were then created out of layers of polystyrene and moulded into shape. Once done, these were then painted to look aged and mossy, and stuck to the top of the columns.

Whilst these were being created, the wooden grate needed to be made for the middle section on the floor. We created a basic structure, and staple gunned chicken wire to the top of it.

To age and dishevel it, we took hammers, chisels and graters to it to rough it up.

Multiple layers of a brown watered down stain were then added to gradually darken the wood, but allowing the wood grain to still come through.

Next to be made was the 'bath' as we called it, the middle part of the structure that was a real life made from layers of stone that added detail between the bottom and top window.

We made ours from layers of polystyrene and painted a stone sandy colour for the realistic effect.

We created the base colour of a sand, alongside a darker and a lighter 'sand'. We put the lighter colour on the bottom of the inner/ deepest part, and the darker colour on the top inner/deepest part. (Above and below that dark brown colour) Finally, the lines were added, because in real life, the lines are the joins of the stone sections. Like the painting exercise before the project started, to make the joins seem realistic, I added a dark and semi-dark colour tone to add definition.

As you can see in this photo, we raised the wall flat and connected it to the base platform, we secured it there with drilling in screws, adding brackets to the bottom of the wall, and using a platform to stand directly behind it- this also helped with concealing what was behind it and essentially creating a makeshift 'black curtain'.

The base, from the last process, we added artificial grass, muddied it up and textured the 'concrete' bit.

Here we added the two brick columns, added more paint to them to make them more realistic and made the concrete ledge that connects the two columns

The building taken within the 3 minute drama scene:

Thank you for reading along my journey!