Imagination is Everything!
Mary and I had a nice drive up to Ojai yesterday in our Classic Fiat 124 Spider. Nothing like the winding country roads that take you up to the town. The roads are deep in the countryside and this car was meant for such roads. The sun was out, the temperature was warm and it couldn’t have been a more perfect day for a drive in a classic Italian sports car.
The car handled the tight turns like it had glue on the tires. This is one of the best handling sports cars I have ever owned.
Summer Solstice With Leigh Mccloskey and Whitley Strieber was an amazing evening. Mary and I couldn’t have had a better place to celebrate it.
Whitley and I have been friends for over 30 wonderful years and he invited Mary and I to attend Leigh’s Birthday party and Solstice celebration.
We have been to Leight’s amazing house in Malibu many times and it’s always special.
The latest from SNG Studio for the week beginning on June 12th.
Somewhere along the line I started thinking of things I could and wanted to do with the laser cutter and one of those things was a wooden slot car track. As a boy I raced on the commercial wooden tracks around town and loved it. Most of these tracks are at homes where my club races and most are wooden. Although I have a plastic track at home it never was quite the same thing for me.
The wooden track was quiet and smooth. Wide so when you moved through the turns you didn’t come off the track. There was no clackety-clack.
The above image is a typical commercial track style. Most of the home tracks that are wood today have a detailed miniature world feel as my home plastic track does.
To see Mary’s art clink on this link: Mary’s Weekly Musings (subscribe to see what she is up to weekly)
To make a wooden track you need a router, MDF particle board and elbow grease to get the job done. You needed to use expensive copper or stainless steel braids for the contacts. Add to that recessing the router cut to accommodate the braid. A tool to run the braid and glue to hold it down. This has always held me back. It hit me that I could laser cut sections of medium density pine plywood like butter with this laser. So I designed, in photoshop, a piece of straight track, placed it into Lightburn (laser cutting software) and traced it as a vector file and cut it. I used copper tape that is adhesive backed and conductive. Copper tape replaces the braid. It is thinner than braid and lays flush on the track. Less expensive and easy to use. I have used it in the past and it works well. A lot of people are using it on homemade tracks these days.
Here are the results.
Oh and by the way I did get a bit more done on the Maserati this week. There is still a lot to do. These slot car models take time.
The track is wider than commercial plastic home tracks. I’ll be able to make curves too, even have the lanes narrow to the inside to simulate actual driving on the full size tracks. The possibilities are endless.
My plan is to make track kits available. You build a wooden table and mount my track to it. Paint it, add the copper tape and you have a wooden track at home with minimal trouble. I will be making my own home track into a wooden track soon to show it can be done.
Next up, I decided that I need to do some art with the laser cutter. I have always loved shadow boxes and the miniature worlds you can create inside them. Some of you that know me well will recall I have made a few in my past from scenes from “Wind and the Willows” to starry night skies with the moon. I thought it might be cool to do some Sci-Fi related shadow boxes that were lighted and had a 3D effect. I started with something simple I could make by the end of this week. I picked this classic scene from Ray Harryhausen’s “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”. The Rhedosaurus attacking the lighthouse was always one of my favorites. The backlite and shadow of the beast was eerie and haunting and I thought this might make a good candidate for a first effort.
Here are some pictures that show the process. I drew up the parts in photoshop taken from the bronze sculpture. Traced them in Lightburn and cut them in bass wood. This week’s SNG Studio update video shows the whole process. It better explains how this is done.
I hand-painted everything. All the parts were laser engraved. I was very happy with the end results. It’s meant to be seen in the dark and backlit as in the film but it’s painted well enough to make sense if there’s light in the room.
Saturday morning Ventura Rocketeers launched their rockets. As always it was a great launch and Mary got to launch her own rocket this time, the Vanguard Monet handmade by Steve Neill.
I launched my own design, Rocket Rider that went over 1500 ft and 308 mph. It was very successful. Here’s a video from the day. Sadly the iPhone recording for Mary’s flight didn’t make it, but at the next launch we will make sure and get video of her Vanguard Monet which flew perfectly.
Next week I’m starting on a new laser cutting project. This will be a miniature 1/32 garage for the slot car track that will be offered as a kit. I built something like it for my track in balsa years ago.
The garage will be the first of many items for the track to follow. This will also branch out into haunted houses and other builds and diorama kits as model kits modelers can build for display, not just for trains or slot car tracks.
Bottom line is that the possibilities are endless. I haven’t even touched on model airplane kits yet. Give me time.
Thank you for your love and support.
Love You Bunches!
Steve and Mary
Mary’s Weekly Musings (subscribe to see what she is up to)
Fine Art America – Steve Neill
I finished the first one today. There is room for improvement but not much. I was surprised I hit the marks so well. Designing on the computer and outputting to the laser cutter was very precise.
More about this tomorrow and video of how it was made.
All the painting and coloring was done by hand.
It’s Friday as I write this and it has been a long but good week. Glen Kramer and his wife Valerie visited and picked up the Enterprise E and the K-7 space outpost. We had a wonderful meal and some good times.
I was able to get some quality time on my laser cutting skills and advanced with my abilities to use it quite far.
Yesterday I took a photo of the bronze “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” and using the Lightburn software traced the contours of the bricks and shapes for laser engraving. I also created another layer I used to cut out the lighthouse and the windows from the optic section storm panes.
After working much of the week with the cutter I got a feel for the settings and my best guess was perfect and the panes just fell away and I had a perfect cage to place difusion behind and light.
I experimented with the beast itself placing some washes and highlights so in the day time in an office there’s some feeling of detail. This is mainly designed to be seen backlit and in the dark as the original scene in the film.
Next is to make the rocky base the lighthouse and the creature stand on, make an ocean at night background and a starry sky that will also be lighted softly.
I’m off to a good start and should have this finished and in a shadow box next week.
Mary and I are preparing our rockets for this weekend’s launch. I’m flying my all scratch built self designed “Rocket Rider” and Mary’s scratch built designed “Vanguard Monet”.
I am learning so much about using this laser cutter and using Lightburn. Between the two and using Photoshop there isn’t anything this machine can’t do in 2D and next 3D.
I’m planning a garage for my track that I will offer in my store for slot Car fun Products. Nice thing is I’m learning how to engrave and cut both. This means I can engrave bricks, stones, shingles, roof tiles and more.
Currently I am working on a shadow box of a famous scene from a famous Ray Harryhausen movie, “The Beast from 20,000 Phantoms”.
This will have a lighted lighthouse and the whole thing will be backlit and the ocean in the background against a night sky. Box size is 11×11 with a depth of 4 inches. It will have a 3D effect and the blinking Lighthouse will be a nice touch. The Beats and the Lighthouse will be engraved and given a light paint job although it’s meant to be seen in a dark room it will have some relief and modeling if viewed in a lighten room. I’m doing tests now.
This will be the first in a series of Sci-Fi shadow boxes I will offer in the store soon. This one will be the first.
That’s all for now. Back to my learning curve.
I have this week been busy at the laser cutter at long last doing experiments and learning at breakneck speed the ropes of laser cutting.
I have found that certain materials and woods are more difficult than others to cut through. I’ve been writing in a notebook all my tests and the results to help me in the future.
It is all going very well and I have tested making a wooden slot car track. One of my many ideas for new products is to make available 1/32 scale wood slot car track kits and track sections.
The best tracks are wooden routed tracks. All the commercial tracks for the most part are. I have plenty of friends that have them at home and it has always been that sort of holy grail for us slotters.
It occurred to me that I could use the laser cutter to cut track pieces instead of using a router and laying out large sections to route MDF practical boards. This would make it easy and convenient for anyone without a router and wood making skills to have that wooded track.
I made this test track section and it exceeded my expectations. I posted the results and people are interested.
So my next step is to locate a good price on medium density pine plywood and cut a small oval track kit that could fit easily in a small apartment or corner of a garage for someone with minimal space. I’ll assemble it at the studio and demo the track to the public. If all goes well I’ll put it on the market.
The next plan will be to replace my home plastic track with a wood track using the same method. Then I would kit that track.
Today I plan to start designing my first lighted shadow box diorama. These will be everything from a lighthouse on the coast at night to the original series Star Trek Enterprise lighted up around a planet with stars.
I also dug out my old USS Voyager kit my late wife Gilly gave me shortly after the show came out in the 95. It sat in a box for 16 years before I started building it. I got pretty far but when we were fighting her cancer it sat unfinished. I got pretty far and the model has all the after market photo etched parts and lighting.
I was surprised when I plugged it in how much detail in the lighting I had done. I am slowly cleaning her up and putting on the last of the decals on her before I can apply a clear coat and call her done after 28 years.
Today I have our dear friend Glen Kamer and his wife coming to pick up his models today rather than have them shipped. Star Trek models never fare well being shipped. In fact most models don’t no matter how well you pack them.
We have been given a decent 3D printer to use at our studio by our friend Carl Soto. So next week will be another learning curve week for me but I’m a quick study. Both of these machines will help speed up things at the studio allowing Mary and I to make new art pieces, models, and inovations not possible until now.
This week was mainly all about finishing the second model in my two model commission. The K-7 took less time because it was already built years ago for myself. Knowing the deadline of June 14th was fast approaching I knew as fast as I am, it was unlikely I could build the model from the provided kit.
So I took apart my personal model and replaced all the lights and added a circuit board from voodoofx.com and it made a fine refit. One day I’ll build the new kit for myself. Problem solved and it turned out very well.
Here are the two models I built.
Both models are done. I am now getting back to the laser cutter. I got these commissions at the same time I received the laser cutter. I took a few days and learned how to use it but then covered it and for the last 5 weeks couldn’t touch it.
Yesterday, like a little kid, I had an hour left in my day at the studio. I hopped over to the cutter, opened up the laptop, plugged it into the laser cutter and activated it. I looked blankly at the Lightburn software for a moment trying to remember after all those weeks what I had learned. To my joy, it flooded back to me and I was doing an engraving test of a sign for fun.
I plan more cool things for my Fiat sport car obsession.This was a start. It was simple.I can already see how I can burn this next.
This shouldn’t be hard to burn now that I have figured all this out. But I do plan to do designs like this as my own and offer them to Fiat owners as one of our new products.
BTW, for our new readers, here is our classic 1977 Fiat 124 Spider at our studio garage.
Mary and I plan many adventures in this wonderful real sports car. I say real, because for me, modern sports cars lack soul. This is a driver’s car that lets you really feel the road and tests your skills as a driver. No computers here or power anything to drive for you. And you have to know how to shift, double clutch, toe and heel and a few other things. My kind of car.
Back to the laser cutter, I am designing art with the machine. I have designs in mind from my sci-fi and horror film career that will be lighted shadow boxes of various sizes you can display in your homes. These are for collectors or if you just want a really cool night light shadow box with a vista of the lunar surface with a lighted spacecraft on the surface and the stars in the sky. I’m also planning slot car track buildings, haunted houses, display shelves for slot cars and more. These will be mostly kits to be assembled. There are a thousand things to do with a Laser cutter to make products and art. This is just the beginning.
I am planning a visit to my friend Rob Burman soon to cast up a proper head life cast for mask making. It’s time to lighten up .That is to say, as I get older, manipulating 40 pound life casting in plaster and adding 20 pounds of clay isn’t so easy anymore. When making the eventual mold of my sculpture it gets heavier. A rigid poly foam life cast is so much lighter and easier to work with. Although masks don’t sell much these days, because of the high cost of materials, in my 50 years of monster making for film, TV, and mask companies, I have never made my favorite monster of all time. The Frankenstein monster from the Bride of Frankenstein. Mary and I just want one and, because we will have the molds, if someone else wants one it will be in the store. Like classic sports cars, classic monsters have a soul that is lacking in today’s CGI push button world of creatures and monsters.
For our new readers, these are some of the masks at our studio on display in my office.
Great things are ahead, and if all goes well, we should be able to keep the place going with new tech and ideas for the future.
Here is this weeks studio update video:
In fact, because we have new readers new to SNG Studio and the mermaid
of things, I mean myriad, we do and make, here is the channel with all our videos and movies:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc2nfrlEW4jbNINjuGc5muw
With regards to our latest film, “A Conversation with my Father”, the final cut is in the hands of our friend and sound editor Raul Arteaga. Steve Altman is working on the score. It won’t be long before we release it free to the public.
Mary and I have both opened up accounts on substack.com. There we will write about what we do, post pictures, videos and we plan on starting up a podcast there as well. The writers there are amazing. Check it out.This is in addition to FaceBook, Instagram and Youtube.
Steve Neills SNG Studio on Substack
Art by Cacciapaglia on Substack
It’s free to subscribe. Mary and I both agree we need to reach a larger audience than we have for our studio to survive. We need friend’s help to recommend our work. Friends listen to friends. Social media is not enough. Help us get a larger readership for people to see our work. Forward the newsletter to a friend you think might enjoy it.
Thank you for your kindness, love and your support
Love you Bunches!
Steve and Mary
Fine Art America – Steve Neill
The Art of Steve Neill 