The Source: Lost miniature model

[Guri]

I've decided to work on my next Lost Prop.

A miniature of The Source.

Here are some of the supplies... the image at the top left hand is The Source:

And here is some of the progress...

Basic form is from a plastic container (I butchered it when I cut the hole, but that's okay since I'm covering it in plaster cloth.)

I drew a map of sorts to plan the sizing and placement.

For the base I'm building a bit of a rock face look to it and plan to do some hieroglyphics on it.

The rocks are just a visual for me to plan... they'll be bigger for the actual miniature. I have some faux leaves from the kit to put on the trees and around the base of the trunks later.

I built up the river banks in more plaster cloth.

I'm casting some rocks and will use a few real ones as well. Once those are glued on, it's time to paint them and the riverbed and then the scary part, the fake water!

 

[Guri]

Starting to glue the rocks of the cave together.

Half built the cave and decided to paint and add the water before I do the rest. Here it is painted.

For this shot, I just balanced up some of the foliage and rocks/sticks I have to start getting a feel for this thing... I will be building up a lot more greenery above and around the Source Cave and putting the leaves in with more intention when I glue it all together.

So far I can see that the flowers are far too big, which is a bummer because I don't know that I can make them smaller without a lot of fuss.

The ferns are too big, but they are easy to cut and make smaller.

The light I have in there is a led light flashlight, but it's too blue.

All in all, I'm getting pretty excited that this is going to come together much more quickly than I thought!

 

[DrMcoy]

very cool project. thanks for posting pics. just got the complete series on DVD and the encyclopedia...the DVD set I have has some sort of small model of the island itself...and some other goodies.

 

[Guri]

Thanks! A small model of the island? Can you take a picture of it? All's I got was a map - that isn't even labeled! :unsure

I've done some work gluing in the greenery... I've just balanced the rocks on top of the cave at this point... will glue them after the water is done.

And here is the 'realistic water' before it dries - I got so excited I took a photo already. :lol The tree in the back is lame, have to figure out what to do with it... and I'm still going to paint/ink on some lines on the bamboo...

It needs to dry overnight and then it will be clear and I can add 'water effects'. I have to say, these school kits are so easy to follow!

 

[DrMcoy]

i will take a pic of the island model that came with deluxe series DVD set.

Also, you should consider adding people to your diorama to give it a sense of scale.

 

[Guri]

Great! Thanks...

Adding people would be interesting. I'd might have to sculpt them and that could be pretty challenging. Who, though? A scene from the show makes most sense.

*heh* it just occurred to me, If I can't get the light right, I could do Jacob laying down with a bunch of black cotton coming out of the source. :lol

I'd prefer Jacob in someway...

 

[MooCriket]

Black cotton...that's funny!:lol Very cool looking. I'm sure if you get a really bright small bulb it will look pretty good:thumbsup

 

[Guri]

Thanks Moo!

I'm trying to do this with batteries and not a plug of any kind... Haven't done the research yet to find where to get yellow led lights and/or bulbs.

Some more progress....

I've painted the inside of the cave 'gold' per my youngest son's suggestion that he thought it needed to be shinier in there. It helps make the light appear more yellow too. he actually suggested a gold ball in there, but, he's happy with this. (I love when they want to help me with projects)

Note the hieroglyphics I've started. I'm debating on if I should take time to translate something and have it actually say something. When I made my Haldir elf armor I noticed there was 'elvish' on the hip armor and spent days translating it. All gibberish. So, being the geek that I am, I went all out and came up with some appropriate elvish protection spell and translated it into Sindarin and then the elvish lettering and wrote that on there.

Remembering how fun that was, I'm thinking I may have to do that for this project. Question is - what language do I use to sound the hieroglyphic letters out in? Arabic, English, or the 'language of Enlightenment' - Latin?

Or, for fun, I could do it in Spanish and say, Jacob made Richard do it. haha!

"Goldfinger" Jacob is there just for sizing purposes, he looks a tad big in the photos, but not so much in real life... I will sculpt him better, bake him (into the fire!) and paint him for the final product.

I also see some touch up painting needs to be done on the source rocks....

 

[Guri]

figure progress:

 

[Guri]

Goldfinger Jacob was a bit squishy and difficult to hold without ruining any details I carved, so I had this great idea to half bake him. And then I forgot about him and fully baked him. Now there is no changing it with any delicacy. Plus, when I took him out of the oven, his head fell off. lol There's a min holding it on now... felt a bit bad inserting that thing, but I don't believe in voodoo, so...

I decided it's worth it to test the painting even though the sculpt needs to be redone now. Here are the results:

Photoshop fun...

 

[DrMcoy]

nice work on figure -- i think your diorama needs it for a sense of scale and simply to give model some personality -- after all, LOST was mainkly about the characters, so without the human element the model seems a bit...lost.

The ISLAND model in DVD collection is more a map on inside lid with some slight raised portions...search for it on GOOGLE and you'll see -- just look for Lost: The Complete Series [37 Discs] [DVD]

 

[Guri]

Right now I'm feeling the model is detracting from it, though... because it's not as realistic as the rest of it. But I see your point. The second one I'm working on is with Jacob standing, that may work out better than the sitting one.

I have the ultimate edition with the 'raised map', I just thought he was saying there was some other 3d model out there... :confused

Speaking of maps, though someone I know from Lostpedia has a blog "The Lost Map" that not only marks to a very probable accuracy (not canon, just his research) of where every location is on the island, but he also has episode tracking maps... meaning he drew up different maps for every episode that follow the characters journeys around the island to show where they were during every scene.

 

[renaissance_man]

Very cool.
I just re-watched the last episode of the final season of Lost lastnight, very bittersweet.

 

[Guri]

I'm itching to do some rewatch, but haven't had the time... my best friend is hooked on it and she's starting season 4 soon. I'm going to ask her to let me watch The Incident with her... my favorite episode.

I thought I'd share this little story the Lost fans following this thread might enjoy...


My 9 year old asked me about this project, 'what exactly is this, Mommy?'

I said something along the lines of, 'it's a Light they call The Source and it's the heart of the island the people on Lost were on... it's what Jacob is protecting.' (He's seen the little figures I'm making and knows it's 'Jacob', the character his daddy dressed up like)

He looked at me and proceeded to ask a series of questions, 'but what IS it, what does it do? Where did it come from? why does it need protecting?"

Talk about your 'Fake Mom' moment. (Even though I'm his real mom :lol)

Nothing I said made any sense to him and every question I answered, he just smiled at me like it was silly.

Thinking about it later I started to realize, it was so similar to the story of Lost where, in order to understand the Light you had to live on the island and experience the miracles and strangeness in order to appreciate why it was special and important and needed protecting.

So, he'll have to watch the show to have any way of understanding...

 

[Egon Spengler]

This is too awesome Guri! Nice job!

 

[Guri]

Thanks, Egon!

I did what I said for the hieroglyphics. Since they don't have an image, I translated what the Source entry in Lostpedia says (in English) is on the cork into Latin and then back into hieroglyphics. It is obviously not going to match what is on the cork, but I'll know what it says, at least.

here's me working on it with a dime next to Jacob to give you an idea of how small this scene really is.

Here's Jacob 2.0 with his first coat of paint (still have to add some details), he's next to a smaller flower... and that's his metaphor wine bottle he's holding. :

Wider view that includes the bigger flowers:

 

[Guri]

I got inspired to go ahead and do the research. I should have done it first - I've seen this type of flower actually in office buildings around here. It's called many names: an Alpina, Red Ginger, Ostrich Feather or Alpina Purpurta. And it's in many scenes besides the Source, most notably with Eko and his frother.

Not sure what I'm going to do about the flowers in my model at this point. I'm focusing on getting the hieroglyphics done and a light until it hits me how to fix it as easily as possible. At this scale, I'm looking at having to use TWEEZERS to glue something together.

 

[blip]

:thumbsup

 

[Guri]

I guess it is unusual... but that's me! :lol

Found a light! It's very, very bright, but led/white.

Thankfully it's Easter time so there is cheep yellow cellophane everywhere.

I tried a variety of layers and I think 3 or 4 is the best for the right color without dimming it too much. Once I figure out what I want to do in the actual chamber I'll decide how to cut the cellophane appropriately.

With the scene back on... looking directly into the light - no photoshop here!

From a lower angle:

Closeup of pensive Jacob:

 

[Jm419]

I'm not sure the figure adds much. It gives a sense of scale, sure, but I think the quality of the scene is lessened by the figure. The scenery looks realistic, but the figure is kinda a red flag which snaps you out of the story and makes you realize you're looking at a model.

Other than that, this looks GREAT. Nice work here.