yet another smallville display idea from ep #100

[hydin]

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVENT SEEN EPISODE 100 YET...


i know smallville airs in diff times and i think the UK is a few weeks behind us, and i would hate to spoil anything as cool as episode 100. hence the warning.

so far, i am working on a few of the "knowledge" crystals we see in the fortress on smallville. im loving it since i got my new bandsaw.

my favorite one so far is the "shattered" or broken one from the 100th episode. it came out looking great, and i think a great addition to the display would be a small CZ round cut in some black sand.

only 2 hitches to this particular idea.

1: what to put the sand IN? i would rather not have this stuff just.. laying on the shelf. black sand is about the closest thing on the planet to "diamond/coal dust" and i think it was what they used for the closeup anyway. problem is that stuff gets everywhere pretty easy.

2: what size do you think the diamond was that clark made? im guessing a 5mm or maybe a 6mm round. it looked like an 8mm when it was in his hand, but i think they switched to a smaller one for the ring. just used the biggun for the closeup shot. im thinking of sticking with a 6mm size. (i wear a 10mm peridot and that sucker is huge. lil smaller than a dime)

yea, it was a horribly cheesy moment in smallville history, but i was still applauding in my house when it happened

im working on a new shelf display to show off the various crystals and get them all looking like they need to, plus showing off the black one i plan to do, but this idea is sort of an offshoot of that.

picking up the CZ is easy, and picking up some black sand is easy as well. im just kinda stuck on what would make a good base for the display.

ideas? anyone? i dont want to go the "hand casting" route and have it in a dismembered hand on the shelf, but i dont want to just stick it in a little petri dish either. id like it to have some sort of class or just... coolness to the display.

id appreciate some advice or help on this one. the size, sand, base, anything really.

thanks guys
chris

 

[juno]

I'm not a Smallville watcher, however one of my early childhood memories is watching treruns of the old black and white George Reeves' Superman episodes where a tribe is going to kill Lois et al and Clark picks up a piece of coal off the ground and squeezes it into a perfectly faceted diamond. Cue my engineer dad explaining to me how diamonds and coal are related (and cue my 7-year-old fantasy of building a diamond press using charcoal brickettes and a juicer).

 

[hydin]

:lol yea, i had near about the same dreams when my science teacher told us the only diff between a lump of coal and a diamond was how the atoms were laid out. cue me smacking charcoal briquettes with a hammer :lol

ive figured out the sand and the base easy enough. mainly just gonna use a lid to a craft box (smaller box than i have my spiderman spider in), and the sand is usaully for sale at any craft place or even wal mart i think.

the only hitch now is figuring out the size of the diamond id like to go with.

still leaning towards 6mm as a fair diff between the big closeup one, and the one actually in the ring.

chris

 

[Kal-ElofKrypton]

Could I see some pictures of how the 'Knowledge Crystals' are coming along?

 

[hydin]

sure, ill snag some later on today. i have a special one im going to try and experiment with though

they vary in size from about 3/4" around to about 1 1/2" around.

the black virus one im working on will be in the 1 1/2" to 2" range. depends on price really.

chris

 

[Kal-ElofKrypton]

Sounds Great. Looking forward to seeing the pictures.

 

[hydin]

pics o the crystals.

so far anyway. trying to tweak the display a bit, but the crystals are coming out pretty well. the one with 4 pieces (3 then one in the background) is the broken one from that episode.

the only real downer is i cant figure out how to get the main crystal (biggun) to glow even with EL lighting. i may have to paint it with a light white coat of paint.

chris

 

[Kal-ElofKrypton]

Looks great so far. I don't remember a broken crystal from the episode. I'll have to watch it again. The huge crystal is that gonna be the virus crystal? Also what is EL lighting?

 

[hydin]

they dont really show it, its sort of an EU project.

they show him grabbing a crystal, breaking it into a few pieces then he flashes forward (or backward, depending on where he was standing) into the barn holding the piece of coal.

chris

 

[hydin]

oh yea, forgot to answer, EL lighting is the stuff used in MRs FX sabers to glow a certain color. check out my k ring thread and you can see how it lights up various things.

i was hoping to leave the outside of the big knowledge crystal frosted, hook a white EL sheet to it, and have it glow, but i am having no luck with it. its not frosted "enough", so i may have to just go with some glow in the dark white paint and a regular light up base to get it looking right.

the big one is just my interpretation of the big hero crystal clark is always holding in the fortress shots. its pretty much to scale, but theres is a little thicker, but the plexi gets a lot more expensive the bigger ya go. i stopped at a range where if i screwed the carving up, i wouldnt be out much more than a trip to the movies or pizza hut. after that its up in the "roses delivery for girlfriend" costs, and thats a little high for me right now :lol

chris