Greyfried
New Member
Hello folks
I have a friend who is very much 'into' World of Warcraft. Actually, she's one of only two or three friends I have who are; you'd think I'd have more, but most of my friends are pretty normal. Sort of. Anyway!
Because I knew she'd love it, and also because I wanted to make it , I present to you my first ever prop build:
The Hearthstone from World of Warcraft
I read what I could find on previous attempts at this prop. I really liked the idea of a glow in the dark glyph, but decided to go with a simple LED lamp. This gave me a base to mold the shape around and, frankly, I like LED glowy stuff.
Basic shape and parts before assembly
I used 'Lewis Newclay'. It's a polymer based clay that I was told was good for beginners and, yep, it's pretty easy to use. It doesn't absolutely require firing (they recommend an oven bake), and sets pretty hard given a day or two out in the open. Suits my purposes fine.
I made sure the I cut the symbol out of a 'lid' of clay that sat over a blue tinted plastic window. I made sure that the window was held completely off the base so that the whole thing was lit and not just the center. I also used paper (from a paper bag), above the LEDs and some tissue, paper, glued to the plastic window to diffuse the light and give a more overall glow.
Plastic bottle (with the back cut out) that I used for the 'glyph window'
It took a little bit of shopping around, but I found the perfect shade of plastic that I was looking for in this bottle. It took a bit of soaking, scrubbing, scraping and nail polish remover, but I finally got the label off and cut out a suitable section. (I'm sure there's easier ways to get labels of cleanly - I'll look it up before I build the next one).
While the shade of the plastic was perfect, I might have been better with a more opaque material. In the end, I solved that problem with paper, as mentioned above.
I ended up using a different symbol than the one pictured above. I flattened out 'lid' of clay and cut the glyph shape out using a craft knife. Since there seem to be very few good pictures of a hearthstone's glyph, I worked from the icon while the game ran on my laptop. Technically the most acurate source material, I guess, but so tiny! Once that was done I smoothed and blended the whole lot together.
The assembled and smoothed hearthstone
If/When I'm making another, I'd like to make the depth a little shallower.
The light is one of those push-to-turn-on varieties, therefore the only way to turn it off is to remove the battery. I'll have a look for some suitable paint, but as it stands, and for a cheap and cheerful first-ever-build, I'm pretty happy.
Set it to your favorite inn.
Greyfried
I have a friend who is very much 'into' World of Warcraft. Actually, she's one of only two or three friends I have who are; you'd think I'd have more, but most of my friends are pretty normal. Sort of. Anyway!
Because I knew she'd love it, and also because I wanted to make it , I present to you my first ever prop build:
The Hearthstone from World of Warcraft
I read what I could find on previous attempts at this prop. I really liked the idea of a glow in the dark glyph, but decided to go with a simple LED lamp. This gave me a base to mold the shape around and, frankly, I like LED glowy stuff.
Basic shape and parts before assembly
I used 'Lewis Newclay'. It's a polymer based clay that I was told was good for beginners and, yep, it's pretty easy to use. It doesn't absolutely require firing (they recommend an oven bake), and sets pretty hard given a day or two out in the open. Suits my purposes fine.
I made sure the I cut the symbol out of a 'lid' of clay that sat over a blue tinted plastic window. I made sure that the window was held completely off the base so that the whole thing was lit and not just the center. I also used paper (from a paper bag), above the LEDs and some tissue, paper, glued to the plastic window to diffuse the light and give a more overall glow.
Plastic bottle (with the back cut out) that I used for the 'glyph window'
It took a little bit of shopping around, but I found the perfect shade of plastic that I was looking for in this bottle. It took a bit of soaking, scrubbing, scraping and nail polish remover, but I finally got the label off and cut out a suitable section. (I'm sure there's easier ways to get labels of cleanly - I'll look it up before I build the next one).
While the shade of the plastic was perfect, I might have been better with a more opaque material. In the end, I solved that problem with paper, as mentioned above.
I ended up using a different symbol than the one pictured above. I flattened out 'lid' of clay and cut the glyph shape out using a craft knife. Since there seem to be very few good pictures of a hearthstone's glyph, I worked from the icon while the game ran on my laptop. Technically the most acurate source material, I guess, but so tiny! Once that was done I smoothed and blended the whole lot together.
The assembled and smoothed hearthstone
If/When I'm making another, I'd like to make the depth a little shallower.
The light is one of those push-to-turn-on varieties, therefore the only way to turn it off is to remove the battery. I'll have a look for some suitable paint, but as it stands, and for a cheap and cheerful first-ever-build, I'm pretty happy.
Set it to your favorite inn.
Greyfried
