Hi PMC!

I'm documenting my progress on the creation of the "secret" hand-made prize for the talented member who wins the Nether Build Contest.

Since it's supposed to be a secret, I won't explicitly say what it is but I don't think it will be hard to guess particularly as I continue to update my progress.

Ideally, it will be finished around the same time that the contest judging wraps up. That's my goal but I also want to make sure it's well made.




Progress Log #2 | Start carving the foam board

After finishing the base and it's outer foam board shell, I etched a grid into the sides. I'll smooth out the rough areas later. Quite time consuming to get this "right". Great thing about hand-made art, the imperfections typically end up adding to more character of the final product than you anticipated. Least that's the hope :P At certain point, you have to move on to the next step.



With the grid as my guide, I mapped out a game plan for carving as well as other planned alterations. It's getting dark out so the coloring is heavily adjusted by the camera.



The carving begins! Originally, I wasn't planning on this style of carving. It *was* going to easier. I often have ideas during the creation of something that I can't resist. I'm committed at this point to several nights of carving. It will be worth it.




Here's two sides "done" with initial carving phase. There's another phase of carving on top of this but I'll finish the other two sides first. When you're working on something you've never done before, you end up developing techniques that either speed things up or improve the result as you go. Usually it's best to complete one part of a process before moving on and losing some of the flow you had going.




Will resume tonight with experience and technique that I didn't have when I started. Already liking what it's becoming.

"Finished" Result

Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with the final result but here it is. While I could have continued to work on it, I didn't. XD This was years ago at this point but figured I'd wrap up this blog. In hindsight, I should have sanded before painting.