Domiciles Gameshow Concept Bid Miniature Set Model

Construction Phase

Castle Construction

The main material for the construction of the castle was a specialist foam board used for modelling.

This kind of material is made by various companies such as Kapa Foam, Foamex, Forex and Palight.

Unlike basic foam board used for presentation this material is designed to enable the user to peal off one of the cover layers of paper or plastic and then carve, heat treat, press the foam or use lightweight tools to shape and texture it with patters such as brickwork on in the cast of my castle stonework. It comes in different thicknesses and is designed for use with CNC and laser cutting tools.

Lasers need to be set to a fairly low level, enough to cut the foam cleanly but not enough to lent into the foam so it indents.

It also helps to separate the components by a few mm in the layouts in Lightburn before setting it to cut. The laser enables very fine details cuts down to a fraction of a mm and round smooth circles.

Stanley knives and scalpels were used to carve stonework into walls, after peeling off the top card.

To get a good stone paint texture I first sprayed from overhead and various angles in grey primer.

I then did this in black, and then came in at a very low angle with primer again lightly to create a patchy dry brush like effect that kept the black in the cracks and dents. White and green were also used very lightly.

Dark acrylic was used behind the windows and arrow slots to give a shadow interior and depth. I wanted to use black but had to settle for dark brown as that’s all that was available to laser cut.

Tiny triangular supports were added for a crenulation effect to support the upper floor in the towers.

To set the walls to be glued at 90 degrees I used an engineer’s square.

The gate was painted black then dry brushed brown for a wood plank effect.

The flags were printed onto double sided photo card and the flag pole was a tooth pick.

Construction Phase

Amie Hosts Stage

The stage was one of the simpler sections of the model build as mostly rectangular blocks. I cannot remember if this was a laser or scalpel cut out but I used the sand-coloured filler primer to colour the parts. 

This was carved from Kapa foam board.

The stage featured a stage wide step on either side. The football chant on the front will be covered later.

The stage extends back through the rear wall with a tunnel made from flats surrounding it.

I made the mistake of straight cuts which were not so neat and had gaps so I used filler all around and sanded it smooth.

The stage was covered in a modelling suede like mock carpet material to indicate luxury.

Construction Phase

Amie Host's Side Backdrop

The backdrop to the host stage was to signify power and wealth as well as have the feel of a 70s game show.

There I used the rounded corner rectangular loops seen as set decoration in gameshows of the time. Added in the line banks of blubs to create the 70s gameshow feel and tech levels.

This to position the bulb correctly I used the laser cutter to cut out the backdrop shops making 1mm holes as markers for the stick-on rhine stones. But this also allowed the use of optic fibres or led strips giving options.

I Used my engineers square to help align the placing of the rhine stones.

Printout of the 1:1 scale Illustrator can design was used to position the loops by carefully cutting out the patterns from the printouts and laying them on the laser cut and painted red foamboard.

Over the weekend when I did not have access to the laser cutter and to save pretty much a weeks’ time I used a circle cutting compass to cut the gold curves centre decoration by hand.

I then masked off ready painted red sections to restore the gold filler primer paint.

The rhine stones were added one by one with careful use of a pair or needed tweezers.

Construction Phase

Amie Hosts Backdrop Glitter Gold Walk Through Entrance

Common with 70s game show tackiness and cheapness was the golden drop strip walk through.

I got some foil like gold painted cellophane from fellow student Harrier but notice this was very prone to curling.

How I Cut It

To cut this straight I lightly sprayed some card with movable spray mount them pressed the gold cellophane against it. I then made a print out of the cutting pattern on paper and spray mounted this on top sandwiching the gold cellophane in the middle and thus holding all in place.

This was then very carefully cut with a scalpel as too risky to try the laser cutter likely to melt or set fire to it and there was no spare material.

I did this twice to make a denser and over lapping walk through

Once cut I carefully removed the paper and used white spirit to remove the glue.

Reducing the Curling Through Steaming

The Material; was sill curing up on itself horrendously so I tied to loosen and soften it by holding it over a steaming kettle to try and steam iron out the kinks and curls which had some effect but not enough.

Replacing the material with Glitter Foil

As all attempts to strained and relax the cellophane this in the end was replaced by double sided glitter foil thin card,

Construction Phase

Amie's Host Side Backdrop Flag Enhancements

The host backdrop also features drop flags banners.

This has been intended by myself from the start as they are often used by dictators and dictatorships (Abet much longer ones.) dropped from building to emphasize power and dominance as opposed to the standard pole flags these are more status symbols.

I wanted to have gold tassels on the bottom of the drop flag but attempts to so this with threads from a gold tassel really did not look good so I just stuck with the tassels on the print out and trying to carefully cut out the white card with a scalpel.

The stroll top roller pole at the top was made from a painted toothpick. The pommels are the same bronze beads I used as the base for the door locking wheels from the ship doors.

I used gold thread to make the handing loop to keep with the status symbol feel of wealth and power.