I finally cast the last cement piece for the mid section of the temple and the assembly continues!
To see previous videos of my “Ta Prohm” style miniature temple, click on the playlist here…
I’m going to be doing lots of cement casting i won’t show you the casting because i’ve shown it before so i’m going to work away all morning i’m going to cast my pillars i’m going to cast my sprites this one and my center blocks for the temple base here or the mid section so i’ll get to work casting cement and we’ll come back and see how it turned out i’ve been casting away i have four columns cast i’ve got one sprite cast here and one sprite cast in the rectangular base the carbonite so i think i’m going to scrap these other two figures over here i was looking at the cement and it’s still really brittle and if you use your fingernail you can scrape it away so i think it just didn’t harden very well i think it’s just too soft and so i’m not going to use those so i need to cast lots more sprites so i’ll see how this one comes out and then i’ll continue it’s after lunch now and hopefully my cement has hardened so i’ll start taking it out of the molds and see how it turned out i’m going to start with my block here just because it’s easy i just have to take the top strip off the side strips and the bottom strip and there it is the cement looks good and hard so that’ll be good for the temple now the next i think i’m going to open up some columns i’m trying to think which ones i cast first um i think it was these ones so i’ll open them up very carefully hopefully not breaking them in half i’ve been having some not so good luck with my casting lately everything break it in half maybe it was just my cement was too runny or i added water to it after so far it’s coming out nicely there we are there is cement column number one i don’t know if that’ll focus on that but there it is so that’s great that’s fantastic i’ll put that right over here put my plaster scene over here let’s open up the next one this is very encouraging so far i’m having good luck nothing’s broken now these pieces will need a bit of cleanup of course but okay this one is coming out now there it is okay there’s column number two that looks good now do i dare open up my sprite here i think i will all right here i go this is the test so i made this cement kind of not real runny not real thick i mixed it up thoroughly poured it in quickly so i’m hoping it doesn’t break i’m hoping it doesn’t break please don’t break i’ll move the end cap here that’s where the legs are tucked under oh i don’t know i hope this works i wasn’t having too much good luck with casting these sprites i had some initial success with my first one my second one came out okay and then not so good i don’t know if this is gonna work i don’t want to break it what do you want kitty the mold is coming off so far it’s still in one piece there we go okay well that’s that’s a pretty good casting actually the excess needs we’re moving around the edges but yeah that’s that’s not too bad that’s a good sprite so now i have one two three four four that’s not very good i have to make a lot more okay so i’ve got two more columns to remove from the molds here so i’ll have enough columns i’ve got two of these center pieces cast so i have columns for each side of them so i can put that together today which will be kind of cool and hopefully it looks good if it doesn’t you know i’ll treat this as a learning experience and if i ever make another temple i’ll learn from my mistakes i’ll probably mold it more accurately maybe sculpt more okay this is coming out so far it’s looking good come on there it is that one turned out nice too so there’s another good column yeah they look pretty good i’m quite happy with the columns one more to go okay so there’s my last column there it’s not too bad i wouldn’t say that’s the best one it’s got a bit of a void here but it’s okay yeah i’m happy with that i’ve got four good columns here my sprites there’s a close-up look at my castings for today yeah the details fairly good in the columns all right i’m going to start mocking one up and seeing how it looks i’ll you know file down my edges on the columns to make them a little more square taking some of this flashing off you can chip some of some of it off with your hands it’s just really thin yeah i’ll clean them up and then maybe i’ll even cement them you know against the temple face here today maybe one each side here let’s see how it looks let me just see what they look like now i don’t know which is the top and bottom we’ll put put this at the top i just want to see how it’s looking here there’s a really rough look at kind of what it’ll look like i think it’s looking good whoops be careful nigel be careful all right i’ll do some cleanup work and then we’ll get to cementing i’ve got all the pieces filed up and finished so now i’m ready to cement some of it together here’s an idea of what the temple will look like or at the moment anyway yeah it’s getting pretty fancy i’ve got my second middle block cemented in place so now i’m going to put the columns each side i’ve got the pillars cemented in place on two sides now so it’s looking good so i’ve got to do some more casting i need more pillars i need four more pillars two more center pieces and a whole bunch of sprites so i’ve got i’ve got a sprite for each corner here but i need one two three four more so i’ll get get to work casting those i’m really happy with the base so far i think it’s going to look awesome with a ficus tree growing over top of the temple with the roots coming down and it should look pretty cool in the future i’ve cast three more sprites here it kind of looks like invasion of the body snatchers out of these pods will come a human so i’ll let those dry i uh i was gonna cast my last one but i ran out of cement so i’ll have to go and get some more so i’ll be back in a while once again we have a nice sunny day today so i’ve got all my trees down on the floor here getting sunshine so i’m going to come back i’m still waiting for the sprites to dry so i’m just letting them dry and then after the sun goes down i’ll come back and take them out of the molds and i’ve still got to cast one more sprite and four more pillars so i’ll be doing some more casting tonight i’ve got two of the sprites out of the molds now so this was my which one was my first one this was my first one and it came out quite nice this is my second one yeah they’re both both good castings so i’ve got one more to open up now so we’ll start taking the bottom piece off like that and these castings i tried to make them a little deeper so it wraps around the figure a little more so you can see compared to this one how the casting’s a little deeper it’s it doesn’t look this one looks kind of like it’s cut off at the back these ones kind of wrap around a little more so now where was i here here i am i think part of the problem i had was when i was casting them before i would mix my cement up and then it’s run over and start the camera and point it and i think just that time starting the camera up and the cement would kind of harden a bit so i think by not videoing it i think my castings improved i think they got better and i made sure i got the cement to the right consistency too not too runny not too firm and it seems to work out really well yeah once you get that cement mixed up you don’t get much time to put it in the mold okay so that one turned out okay the legs kind of got squished together for some reason however it’s good i mean it makes every sprite a little different from each other so they don’t all look exactly the same yeah so there’s there’s another good one so i have three new sprites a fourth one here and i need one more one more to go so i’ll cast that tonight i’ve been busy casting pieces for the midsection of the temple and i have all the pieces cast now i have four columns one more sprite and two of these uh center platform so that’s every piece i need to put it all together so i just have to wait for these to dry and i might have to do it overnight i i just poured it now so i think i’ll do all the assembly tomorrow morning putting the ones in the corners finishing all the way around the temple the mid part of it and that’ll be that’ll be a good chunk of this project done i’m really happy with all the detail in the midsection i think it’s going to bring the whole temple to life i didn’t get everything done that i was hoping to get done today but i think i made a lot of progress i cast a lot apart successfully i started assembling the mid part of the temple and i i’m happy with the progress so that’s all for tonight i’m nigel saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone
