Finished Model

1 Day to go!

With less than 24 hours to go my model currently looks like this

I need to finish painting the sand as it is too yellow and have bought some white paint to mix tomorrow.
Corals are the main piece missing from this model.

To do:-
Finish painting sand
Paint Corals
Apply Corals
Paint tree roots
Clad and paint rest of Styrene
Stick Upper Rock Work On
Stick water effect on
Clean Model

Deadline in 3 days!

Since my last post I have been working hard to finish my model. My water effect PVC never arrived so I have also been testing my own methods.

Currently I have finished painting the upper rock work and applied all the plants other than a few trees. The models inside parts have been finished and assembled including scale people and information boards.

The image below includes the water effect that I'm planning on using, it was made by vac forming plastasine with clear styrene sheet creating ripples.

So far everything is going well and lots of people have made good remarks about the realistic rock work and plants.

With wednesday thursday and most of friday left I need to :-

Finish painting coral rock work
Attach rock work to walls
Attach water affect
Screw walls to base
Sculpt the rest of the corals
Paint all the corals
Apply all the corals
Add sand and texture to base of Aquarium
Paint sand texture
Add a few more trees
Complete cladding
Spray final areas

Working towards the finish line

I managed to laser cut today! The result is really good the letters and shapes are easily recognisable and I managed to remove the all letters without damaging any, this will be sprayed tomorrow with everything else I can spray.

I have also tested the sea foam

The two on the left are parsley and the one on the right is small flock, neither for me really work well the parsley is to large and the small flock is too small. Though these will work as bushes, but I will try find a better flock for tree foliage.

The rock work is now undercoated.

Penultimate Week!

Work is going well I have completed most my aquarium structure, I haven't finished the rock work, but milliput has arrived today which will allow me to finish it tomorrow so I can concentrate on painting.

This is what I currently have at university. The base and tubing wall have been sprayed while all other styrene has been primed. Laser cutting the walls is still yet to be done however, I have booked the laser cutter for thursday. Once I have done the lower rock work I can start to paint . The walls of the aquarium are all joined together now and will be attached to the base once the rock work is completed and I can start to apply corals/plants etc.

I am still waiting on two final orders, the scale people and the water effect PVC both should be with me this week, but it seems the second may not have come due to complications. I have already made adjustments to my model to accommodate the plastic sheet and if time allows I may try and create my own water effect using the vac former.

While I waited for milliput, I concentrated on creating the finishing items. I started to paint the rock work arch as it was finished but am waiting to paint the rock work all together so they do not differentiate to much.

I have been assembling and painting the scale link plants I bought.

They are looking very good I have used different greens and amount of leaves to create variation that you would in the wild they have all been dry brushed to bring out the shape of the leaves and detail.

I have created a ground cover that I am happy with using different scatters, tea (from tea bags), herbs, and miniature leaves.

Again I think variation, using different colours and textures really creates a natural look, this will then have bushes and plants on top of it. Some made from using another natural product sea foam.

I bought this product after researching how to create miniature trees, this was highly recommended and from pictures looked the most realistic. The technique requires me to spray the plant with spray mount then apply scatter. I think I will use small herbs and cuttings of the sea foam to create small trees/large bushes and possibly parts of bigger trees. This technique will be tested soon!

Corals will be a very important part of my model and I have already created 100+ ready for painting. I have created a list of the types I'm creating and the amount for each, I still have plenty to go and all will need painting. Here is a few that I have made.

I'm especially happy with my brain corals that once painted should look really good. 

Lastly I'm creating trees using bent wire and milliput which will given foilage either using scale link tree leaves or sea foam. 

I am confident that I will finish my model to a good standard though with an extra week I think I could add lighting and more painting detail. 

To do :- 

Finish rock work

Paint rock work

Complete all corals

Paint all corals

Attach Corals

Laser Cut Design

Make trees/shrubs

Attach all foliage

Spray paint aquarium walls 

Attach scale people and info boards

Clad final areas

Attach walls to base

Create and paint sandy sea floor

Attach water effect PVC (pending)

Yet to Laser cut!

I've decided on my method to create the textured coral reef rockwork.

This is my test piece above. This was created by sandblasting yellow foam then adding sand, then milliput on top in certain areas. The piece was sandblasted again while the milliput was still wet, then more sand was applied over areas I wanted to hide. 

This is a part of my real model that is yet to be painted and have the final coat of sand. This is better than my previous attempts as it has more textures and big recesses.

I still haven't laser cut the designs though I tested using sheet styrene.

The words were at a size that the laser just kept melting or not cutting through properly no matter what setting I tried. So I have decided to try with acrylic here is a tester piece.

The lettering came out a lot better however I will need to spray the acrylic white which will require some skill to not over paint the lettering.

I'm still working on the rock work I have started to implement the coral reef rock work and rock work leading to above water level. I hope to have the both of these finished early next week.

I have received my scale link plants and am happy with all but one which will be exchanged for a larger scale version. My sea moss which I'm hoping to test will be hear on tuesday at which point I will have all the foliage and ground affect materials I need.

I have also decided on the corals I will be representing in my model and have started to build some.

By end of next week the Rock work must be finished and I must have started to paint and add my corals and foliage.

I have noticed that my base is too thin for the weight of all my rock work so will need to reinforce this.

Still lots to do with 3 weeks remaining.

Work Continued

My work has progressed well since my last post. Firstly I have decided on how to create the island rock.

This a second attempt at the milliput applied onto the yellow foam test. As you can see I have decided to test my painting skills as well. There are a few things I will change when doing the real piece. The rock work could have used a bit more texture in small areas and I will try to use the foil technique to create this.
The colour is to dark and I will try to implement the white earlier in the painting process to achieve this. The green stains do not work well but brown ones used correctly do seem to work.

Next I finished the top tanks rock work, I knew I had limited space and that only small parts of the rock work would be on view due to scale and the designs.

This is milliput sandblasted while wet on a textured surface made from yellow foam and styrene. The texture has worked really well, the dry bushing I have done really brings it out and replicates a good texture within the small area that I have.

As you can see in the image above yellow foam has been cut into shapes and sandblasted in the under water areas ready for sculpting which will start once I have decided how to create the under water rock work.

The reason for my indecision in the lower rock work is that my research indicates a far varied textural surface that is far more detailed than the attempts I have produced.

This is a photograph of coral from Palau you first notice the the mass of bright colors and then the varied texture. I hope to produce something along these lines and may try using technique together to get the variety of texture.

While looking through my pictures of Palau I noticed this one.

The way the ripples and light have created an effect on the sea bed have inspired me to try and create a similar effect on my model using acrylic paints and I will post the results on this blog later.

I have also started to order materials to create the Island foliage. I'm using woodland scenics and scale link due to conversations and practice while at Lazenby Design.
I have images like this to inspire me to create an environment that represents Palau.

I have also finalised the design for the other top tank.

Both designs are now ready to Laser cut out of sheet styrene and this will hopefully be done tomorrow if not as soon as possible.

With four weeks to go including this one, I need to research the corals that I will be creating and create hundreds of them, finish the rock work and paint, spray paint all the styrene white and fill in any gaps, create the foliage, create a space for Lazenby Designs logo, create scale information boards, work out way to insert the water affect pvc, apply scale people, order plants from scale link, and other finishing touches.

My main priority this week will be to get the rock work ready to paint and to start creating corals.

Wish me luck!

Rock work Testing

Over the past week I have been testing different techniques in hope of finding one that represents the rock types of Palau well.

But first i completed my sketch model.

It was very hard to make the to materials look like they were attached rather than seperate, and I think when I create the real models rock work I will make the two contrasting types out of the same material.
It also showed me the need to watch the rock attached to the walkway so that it doesn't restrict the walking space to much.

I first tested blue and yellow foams on there own to see if I could sculpt good rock work out of either.

Blue foam was easy to carve into but it was extremely hard to create detail which will be necessary as to represent the scale. The texture also did not match that of convincing rock.

Yellow was a lot better but still had the same problems just lessened by the foams denser nature.

I then went on to experiment with milliput on top of the foams surface here are my two results.

I prefer the second attempt I used foil to create a texture then used the lines to create cracks, this affect seems to suggest scale also. I didn't have as much control as I would have liked when pressing the foil probably due to the thinness of the foil, so next time i will try using the thickest foil I can find.

I then went to try and create a realistic coral reef rock structure.
From a previous project I knew spraying foam with spray paint would cause the blue foam to melt and create a texture.

This was the result, although an interesting affect it didn't to me represent the scale well and the paint formed an odd spider web pattern which didn't look like the texture I was after.

I wanted to try sandblasting milliput so I created a texture with the milliput that I thought would work when sand blasting. 

The milliput was fully hardened when I attempted to sand blast a texture into the surface. This took a long time to achieve,  but I really liked texture it created but the sand blasting didn't eat away as much as I though it would.

With this in mind I attempted to create a more already textured milliput surface to then sand blast.

I created a very textured surface in yellow foam then covered this in milliput, as you can see the milliput smoothed the surface and created a blobby affect, next time I will create an even more oddly textured shape before covering in milliput.

My last test this week was to try sand blasting the milliput while it was still soft.

The affect was far easier to achieve and looked a lot better, this texture may also be suitable for scaled brain corals and plate corals.

To do:
Continue research (start corals research)
Complete structure/ architecture
Finalise rock work techniques, and start build
Finish inside of top tanks
Laser cut top tank idea
Order Scale link plants

Tubing complete

From my last post I have started to clad the model in styrene and the acrylic tube has been cut and sand to make the underwater walkway.

The acrylic tubing looks very affective and fits well however there are a few gaps. These gaps are at the base of the tubing at the joints and will be covered up by a styrene wall that I had already planned to add.

I have also started a small sketch model for the rock work stage to see how it will fit and look.

This is a very small model but has helped me to identify areas of concern for example some gaps a way to small on this model and that the base of the rock work will need to be sculpted carefully to look realistic. This model is missing the top part of the rock work (less eroded part).

Jobs to do

- Construct back of walls
- Consolidate idea for top tanks
- Continue Research on rock work
- Add styrene to all areas necessary
- Finish sketch Model

Phase 1 Construction Complete

All walls are now constructed, a bit of adjustment is needed to get them fitting but other than that I can start preparing for the rock work stage.

I will proceed by adding styrene to the base and walkway as these will adjust the shape of the rock work,
and I still need to sand the acrylic tube to the correct size once this is done the left wall can be stuck together.

I'm happy with my progress and happy with my model at this stage, though more important stages and more testing processes are ahead in this project I'm confident that the result will be impressive.

I am lacking in research especially for the rock work stage, which is looming so this will be my priority for the coming week.

To do :
- Research (rock work)
- Sand Acrylic tube to correct sizes
- Cut out necessary pieces of styrene (walkway, base, top left hand corner)
- Sand semi-circle and clad so tube fits
- Complete left wall (stick together, add support for walkway)
- Decide on two top tanks themes (email David again)
- Cut yellow foam to correct sizes and shape

Slow Progress

Since my last post progress hasn't been as quick as I would have liked, due to inductions in the workshop which restrict me from using many machines that I need.

However I have managed to start the build here is an image of what I've accomplished so far (in terms of the physical model).

As you can see I have two walls constructed and the base has been cutout and marked. I have also cut three bits of acrylic tube out ready to be shaped. The only challenge I have is to make the left wall taller as it is 3mm to small due to the way it was constructed using a circular saw. I plan to cut a small bit of MDF and stick it on top, this sounds untidy but all will be hidden in the finishing stage once it is clad with styrene.

The piece of yellow foam is a test sample, I have never used this type of foam before and wanted to know what effects I could produce to make realistic looking rock work.

This was produced by carving out rock shapes from a block then sand blasting. I really like the weathered effect it has produced and am considering using the same technique for the rock work on my model below water level. I think I will sand blast further away from the foam next time to give me more control over the final result.

I have organised what my research should involve in the first few pages and designed the layout and done the first page:

Jobs to do: -

Continue Research Folder

Continue Model Construction
- Left Wall
- Walkway
- Acrylic Tubing
- More tested rock work samples

Start of the Project

Welcome to my blog,
                                  The purpose of this blog is for me to document my progress through my third year model making project entitled External Brief.
The project was to acquire a brief from an existing model making company and then create their design in the 10 weeks leading up to christmas (the start of my final year).

Over summer I acquired a brief from Lazenby Design Associates, a zoo, aquarium and museum designer, who I also worked for over the two and a half months of summer.

The designing of my project involved several meetings between David Lazenby and I, where the project was discussed and from this I produced sketch models of designs.

I am now at the point where I'm back at University and the design has been finalised but some areas will later be discussed with my client to ensure that the model meets industry standard and Lazenby Designs specialist requirements.

Here is the design : Palau Aquarium

This will be a 1:50 scale model this is the main architectural construction, but the physical model I build will include scale people, rock work, corals, exhibit boards, side tanks, vegetation and hopefully lighting. The environment of the tank will be that of Palau a series of islands in the pacific.


David Lazenby has created a model based on Palau :

This gives me an idea of what he expects.


So far i have some research on corals and palau but nothing structured.


Jobs to do:
Organise Research, what do I need to research?
Build basic structure?
Produce designs for the wall tanks to be discussed with David


Pictures of my work will be uploaded hopefully daily as I work hard to complete this project efficiently and to the best of my ability