lyberty5
Well-Known Member
The last few days, I've been working on this little 'cosmetic' mod for a GC.
Even though I spend my energy in documenting my stuff in video form, I feel a more in-depth text based worklog might help someone. Maybe.
The idea is to have a little hardening clay figurine of Mario show through a prison window on the side of the GC, as in the opening of Mario Sunshine. The window is also made of clay and I'll try as much as possible to make it look like a barred prison window made of stone for the frame.
The clay used is called Giotto Plastiroc (in europe), it dries in more than 24h and its water based. It's the cheapest I could find. It proved to be quite easy to work with as you can add water at any time before it dries fully to correct mistakes.
The clay gets pretty hard when cured meaning detailed structures can stand on their own. But I don’t have the talent for that. Also, it can be sanded and painted.
Here are a few pics in between the boring explanations
Here are some pictures of the Mario model before drying fully. It’s fairly small and I’m having trouble getting at the fine details. You’ll notice some dents and granular structures. I’ll fix that with a nail file and sand paper afterwards. It’s better than trying to get everything perfect in one go in my opinion.
Here is that same model once sanded. The defects are mostly gone, and the surfaces look smooth enough.
Here’s the 1/3 of a nail file cut in a triangular shape I used.
And here’s the window frame. The bars are Q-tips. I’m hoping to take advantage of the ‘rock-like’ look of the hardened clay so I’m not gonna sand it. I did have tp add some bondo to fill holes where the ‘bars’ fit though.
Everything is primed in spray paint, using Montana color because it sprays really thin and doesn’t fill in the details.
Test fit in the gamecube.
The idea is to take advantage of the space normally taken by the fan : about 1.5 cm deep. The fan can fit just right on the over side.
To glue in the figurine later, I’m going to add a ‘wall’ to the frame that used to hold the fan. To allow air intake, I drilled a few small holes on that ‘wall’. Also, some air can seep from under it right to the heatsink.
When the epoxy glue has cured, the frame will ben spray-painted black so that it doesn’t show too much.
Here’s a test fit of the fan on the other side. It fits just right with a millimeter of slack. In a pull configuration it should pull hot air from the heatsink just fine but if ever it proves to be insufficient, I have a variety of smaller 12V fans that will do the trick.
Next :
- painting with modeling paint (citadel)
- spraypainting the frame
- assembly
I hope this won't take too long ^^
Even though I spend my energy in documenting my stuff in video form, I feel a more in-depth text based worklog might help someone. Maybe.
The idea is to have a little hardening clay figurine of Mario show through a prison window on the side of the GC, as in the opening of Mario Sunshine. The window is also made of clay and I'll try as much as possible to make it look like a barred prison window made of stone for the frame.
The clay used is called Giotto Plastiroc (in europe), it dries in more than 24h and its water based. It's the cheapest I could find. It proved to be quite easy to work with as you can add water at any time before it dries fully to correct mistakes.
The clay gets pretty hard when cured meaning detailed structures can stand on their own. But I don’t have the talent for that. Also, it can be sanded and painted.
Here are a few pics in between the boring explanations
Here are some pictures of the Mario model before drying fully. It’s fairly small and I’m having trouble getting at the fine details. You’ll notice some dents and granular structures. I’ll fix that with a nail file and sand paper afterwards. It’s better than trying to get everything perfect in one go in my opinion.
Here is that same model once sanded. The defects are mostly gone, and the surfaces look smooth enough.
Here’s the 1/3 of a nail file cut in a triangular shape I used.
And here’s the window frame. The bars are Q-tips. I’m hoping to take advantage of the ‘rock-like’ look of the hardened clay so I’m not gonna sand it. I did have tp add some bondo to fill holes where the ‘bars’ fit though.
Everything is primed in spray paint, using Montana color because it sprays really thin and doesn’t fill in the details.
Test fit in the gamecube.
The idea is to take advantage of the space normally taken by the fan : about 1.5 cm deep. The fan can fit just right on the over side.
To glue in the figurine later, I’m going to add a ‘wall’ to the frame that used to hold the fan. To allow air intake, I drilled a few small holes on that ‘wall’. Also, some air can seep from under it right to the heatsink.
When the epoxy glue has cured, the frame will ben spray-painted black so that it doesn’t show too much.
Here’s a test fit of the fan on the other side. It fits just right with a millimeter of slack. In a pull configuration it should pull hot air from the heatsink just fine but if ever it proves to be insufficient, I have a variety of smaller 12V fans that will do the trick.
Next :
- painting with modeling paint (citadel)
- spraypainting the frame
- assembly
I hope this won't take too long ^^
there is like 0.5 cm more.. The fan barely fits on the other side and at first I considered putting in a slimer one.
