[psmith2.0]

Been on a wood/building kick throughout 2015, finally pursuing some things I've always wanted to try (making small furniture/knick-knacks, flags, weathered signage and hand-painted stuff, etc.).

Anyway, my nephew (he just turned 10) and I go see all the Marvel stuff and while seeing Age of Ultron last month, he told me how Captain America was his favorite member of the team (mine too). It's his birthday, so it was a no-brainer figuring out what to do.

Did the initial layout in Illustrator (shocking, I know ), working out the dimensions, cut list, proportions, etc. Then simply recreated it (and applied any math) in real life (made a little homemade compass with an old paint stick with my various radius numbers drilled out from a central pivot point, etc.). Initially I was going to just do a single layer board and simply mask/paint the rings and all. And then I thought I could do something cooler, and dimensional...so I did.

Anyway, Vibranium it ain't. But when you see it from a distance and kinda squint, you get that curved/convex vibe.

I know it's a cliché, but the pics don't do it justice. It looks amazing in real life...the texturing/weathering, the shadows and ridges created by the stacking, the colors, etc. Quite proud how this one turned out (exactly like my 1:1 Illustrator workup, down to the quarter-inch). BTW, it's just cheap ($1.22) 1x4x8 furring from Home Depot, three total. Leftover used to make back supports/bracing and a French cleat for hanging.

Started out looking like a very bad wedding cake...





Okay, a little more like something...



Yay!

[drewprops]

That's fun! Kind of the rustic look you might see at a theme park or a renfest.

You could do an entire series!


...

[Robo]

that's AWESOME

it's like captain americana

[Mac+]

That's pretty damn cool - I'm sure your nephew will love it!

Nice work Paul.

[psmith2.0]

Thanks, guys.

Assembled (ha!) daytime pics coming soon (the pics I took last night were a painted dry fit, lying on the floor. Now that it's all glued-and-screwed, it's a sturdy, single unit that I can prop up and get some better angles, lighting, etc.

[kscherer]

Nice work, Paul.

[709]

That's all kinds of fun. Nice work (and workmanship)!

Curious, is it mounted with the boards running vertical? Because it's equally (maybe more, to me at least) as cool looking with the boards angled in pics 5 & 6.

[psmith2.0]

Yeah, it's build to mount vertically (the bracing/mounting slats on the back run horizontally). But you're right, the angled boards look cool too. If you didn't mount in on a wall and leaned it on top of a dresser or whatever, you could orient it in any pleasing angle. But just to make it easy and straightforward, it's build centered/vertical.

My mom and sister posted pics on their Facebook accounts...I'm being swamped with interest/requests/orders by all these soccer moms with Avengers-loving kids the past 2-3 hours...

As promised, daytime/assembled pics:













Happy boy...

[709]

Very cool, he looks thrilled.

But you can't just post rims and tires and car hooks and rust like that and not show the larger vehicle. That's my kind of thing right there. Utilitarian vehicles are my jam.

[psmith2.0]

Oh, it's an old, beat-to-hell trailer that my landlords have out in their driveway. I've loaded/unloaded that thing a gazillion times over the years.

[turtle]

That is one very cool looking shield Paul. Well done! You should post more of your fun little projects here too.

[kieran]

That's really cool.

Are you going to take up one of those soccer moms on their interest? Might be a nice little inroad to something.

[709]

Heehee.

[curiousuburb]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 My mom and sister posted pics on their Facebook accounts...I'm being swamped with interest/requests/orders by all these soccer moms with Avengers-loving kids the past 2-3 hours...

Of course... Chunky Minecraft vibe is all the rage with moms who can't separate franchises, eh?

As promised, daytime/assembled pics:

DUDE! Hubcap version, but rustic 'Captain Americana' [rep to Robo for that name ... TM that now], not that blinging spinner chrome crap.

Think Amish Avengers

[709]

Also, all the colors are so nice and rich, but obviously you didn't just slap a coat of Glidden on everything. Is it more of a stain? A wash? I'm sure I could search it, but it'd be cool to hear what process you went through for the colors (and white).

[psmith2.0]

Glad you asked. These are little 2oz. bottles of acrylic paint I found in the craft section of Walmart. The brand is Apple Barrel.

They have a boatload of colors, but I just bought red, yellow, blue, black and white. I figured I can mix the above to get any greens, oranges or purples I wanted, and can use the black and white to darker or lighten things.

Best part? .50 a bottle (and it's pretty wet, and goes a long way).

I bought a few of those .57 chip brushes and I just basically dry-brushed it on there, with the grain, pretty light. This type of project (weathered, distressed, etc.) is very forgiving and you really can't go wrong. If you suck at painting, like I do, that almost works in your favor because you're not trying to get full, even coverage. Anywhere there are cracks and divots, knots, etc., the paint falls into (or stays out of). I don't overwork it, really.

As for the white, it goes on much to "clean" and bright, so I dropped just a tiny bit of black into some warm water and make a dishwater-y gray wash, which I lightly drag across the white, letting it fall into the grain in places and create streaks. with a dry brush or paper towel, I drift across it to feather/spread it out a bit.

So, in a nutshell, a combination of dry-brush dabbing and tinted washes to knock down the white. The colors I bought were called Admiral Blue and Flag Red, but they're quite vibrant. I added a skootch of black to each (I mix all this in little plastic cocktail tumblers from the Dollar Tree (12-15 for $1). So the red and blue are just custom mixes that I eyeballed, because the red from the bottle is Fisher-Price fire truck, and the blue is really electric/royal blue. Adding the black, then the dry brushing/scattering and the "dirty wash" as needed is all I did.

I made these a few days ago, the U.S. flag is 36x19 inches and I gave it to my mom. And I made the Arizona flag for my friend Tiffany and her family, who live in Gilbert, outside Phoenix. Same techniques here...mixed colors until it looked good, dry-brushed, aged/dirtied-up, lots of dabbing, sometimes going on with a wet wash and wipe with a towel in about 20 seconds to get the stained effect (like the bottom blue panels on the AZ flag).

Coke can for scale...

For the stars, I created the grid at the proper 1:1 size in Illustrator (all these things are done in Illustrator, to scale, first...then I either print templates/stencils as needed, or I'll just use the measurements, knowing it's going to work in real life), did the 12x10 grid for the alternating 6 and 5 star rows, printed it out (had to tape two letter-size pages together, but I may some indexing/registration marks, taped them together and sat with an X-acto knife for about half an hour cut every all 50 of those little 1" bastards out by hand, making me a 14x10 stencil that fit/registered to the blue field. I taped at the top and corners to keep it aligned/in place and I then just dry-dabbed on white through the stencil, holding it down tight for the ones I was working on (and pretty much painting the fingers on my left hand white in the process).

For the wood itself - all brand new 1x2 from Home Depot - I threw them around the driveway and beat them with a wrench and gouged them with an old screwdriver in a few places. I imagine I looked like a crazy person to any neighbors who happened to be watching.











I'm enjoying this because it's using the two sides of me...I get to draw/lay it all out with precision/accuracy in my favorite software (and make custom templates, stencils, etc. at any size I need)...then I get up from the computer, grab some boards and do some hands-on wood/build-y stuff...cutting, sanding, fitting, clamping, measuring, painting, gluing, screwing, etc. It's a neat mixture of the two fields. I couldn't have done the shield above without working out the radiuses and proportions in Illustrator first and "see" it.

I also use Sketchup to get a general idea of depths/overall sizes (stand it next to one of those little person symbols to get a sense of real life scale) and to "go behind" and work out the bracing/support pieces. Before I touch/saw a single board, I've worked everything out in Illustrator and/or Sketchup beforehand. Then it's just a matter of following my cut list/established numbers. The only real "trick"/unknown is the painting, and how I mix colors (mixing enough for what I need so it's consistent across the piece...getting better at that).

I'm wanting someone to ask me to do some pride flags, mostly because that'll give me a chance to custom mix some orange, green and purple and it would just be size slats braced together...one of the simpler projects. It would look good but not require a bunch of work (and a good money-maker to fund the trickier, more challenging stuff).

Currently working up a dimensional Union Jack, with the white crosses raised a quarter-inch off the blue background, and then the red inner crosses jutting out from it. Kinda like the shield, only in flag form. The wood will be angle cut to fit in like a tile job. Working it all out and will probably tackle it this coming weekend (how's that for irony).

[709]

These are wonderful. So, you're on Etsy or taking orders or what?

[drewprops]

Seriously, you could make money with this.

I fully expect to see these pop up on Facebook from somebody's Pinterest link.

The possibilities are endless until Target or somebody like that rips you off


...

he is one lucky nephew!