Mr_Creepy
Sr Member
7/28/07 UPDATE:
Here's a few better images of "my" scale, courtesy of Nexus6 and superjedi--thanks guys
And a better image showing the v1, v2 and the screencaps I used for them:
7/15/07 UPDATE:
Well, I'm calling this done! The following pic shows a comparison of my new scale alongside the hi-def caps supplied by Nexus6 (thanks again!). I only resized them, none of the colors were adjusted. I know, a couple of the "fingertip" images have the scale backwards and are slightly "doubled", and my trim job isn't the best...
Same story on how these were made, so I'll leave my original post in place..only real difference was that I sprayed a light mist of the pearlescent paint on both side of the vellum before I clear coated it. While cutting the scale out, I could see just a hint of iridescence so I think that will help it
ORIGINAL POST:
I’ve been working on this project off and on for a few weeks now, since around the first part of April. I hadn’t ever seen or heard of anyone making them, which surprised me considering this is a small, but important plot device in the movie BLADE RUNNER.
Of course, a couple of weeks ago I found a thread at propcircle concerning the snake scale--would have been a nice read before I started on mine! Oh well, I still had a great time working on this, and having never made a paper prop "from scratch", it was a great learning experience.
Going in, I figured the easiest way to make this would be to adapt a screencap, so I took a bunch from the older Director’s Cut DVD. HERE’s the cap I decided to use as the base—it gave the best overall view of the scale, and the background was relatively uncluttered.
I had a rough idea of how big the scale probably was, but to get a more accurate gauge, I resized the cap until the screencapped baggie on my monitor was the same size as some 2X3 baggies I already had. The result was close to what I had approximated earlier, but it was nice to have supporting data.
I went back to the original cap and "cut" the scale out, sized it to the proper dimensions, and then saved it as 300dpi BMP (yeah, in hindsight that was overkill :roll: ). I used Adobe PhotoDeluxe and MSPaint to clean it up---mainly lightening and a bit of color correction. Next, I removed the surrounding background, and smoothed the edges a bit.
My original plan was to print these out on inkjet transparency sheets; I knew I’d have to do a few tests since the color would look different going from white paper to clear plastic. I also knew that I wanted the scale to have a bit of iridescence (like a real snake skin), so after they dried, I misted a light coating of opalescent paint on both sides of the sheet.
Unfortunately, after 3 attempts, I realized that the transparencies would never give me the effect I wanted. :confused Since had no idea what to do next, I set the project aside for a while. Salvation came in the form of a wedding invitation---the RSVP note had the typical vellum "insert" and I had my answer!
After a trip to the local scrapbook shop, I had packages of "normal" and heavy weight vellum, and a couple of sheets of iridescent (coated) vellum. Once I took the first sheet of the heavier paper out of the wrapper, I knew that’s what I wanted to use.
What makes the vellum "work" is that it has a milky translucence (as well as a bit of rough texture) so it looks more like the original scale (whatever it was). It’s also thicker than the transparency film, so it doesn’t feel as fragile. After printing, I sprayed a light, protective clear coat to both sides of the sheet, and then buffed it to a nice, subdued finish.
Sadly, the same properties that make the vellum so nice for this project also make it hard to get good pictures (my camera skills don’t help much either…). In the following images, the same scale is used, but under different lighting conditions….
"baggie" caps
COMPARISON IMAGE of my finished scale alongside the "parent" screencap.
"FINGERTIP" screencap comparison.
The hardest part of this whole project was trying to find something that looked good in different lighting conditions. Since this won’t always be displayed in a rainy, smog-ridden inner city, I wanted it to still look reasonably accurate sitting in a baggie on a shelf!
HERE‘s a pic of the various test sheets and scales, along with the final version (the reddish one).
The screencaps posted at propcircle appear to be from the recent high-def version of BR, and show much more "characterization" and fine detail than mine. Overall, though, I think my interpretation of the BLADE RUNNER snake scale prop works.
Any thoughts, comments, critiques, abuse and/or opinions would be welcomed and appreciated.
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