As I put away the last of the items, it’s time to reflect on the year that was 2010.
The year began with a massive plan to build a temple. Not in the traditional sense you may think of, but in a very Mayan sense. I envisioned the side of the house as a cave, a mural on one side, Tzompantli in the center, and mummies on the other. Eventually, the idea to light everything with blacklights formed, and there was a great push to blacklight everything…
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| From 2010 Buildup |
About 50 such skulls were made, eventually designing a means to do it so they can be used in regular lighting or blacklight with equal effectiveness.
At the same time, Steve was formed to fill in the role of the mummies.
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| From 2010 Buildup |
At the end of the day, 2 and a half Steves were created, and about 50 skulls. A ton of lessons learned in the mixing of fluorescing paint, and a decent amount of fun had. Ultimately, these set unused as it first became unrealistic to create the cave/temple, and then the backup plan of lighting the back yard with blacklight fell through. But they stand at the ready…
The failures shortly followed.
First, “Them”. An unorthodox experiment in animation. They wound up being abandoned as the weather continued to pound rain early in the spring. A little tricky with the counter-weighting, but they looked promising what little time the prototype actually worked. (not long enough to get video, unfortunately)
Next on the list of failures came more in an act of nature.
Both the Stele and the Witches fell victim to weather when our gazebo took a tumble in a storm.
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| From 2010 Buildup |
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| From 2010 Buildup |
This was the final nail in the coffin for trying to switch to a Spider Woman theme. Thus, we stood back and began formulating other plans whilst finishing up some items on the Laboratory.
With the Laboratory completed, the Harvest was born.
The Harvest had a LOT of good points. It felt good being out in a field again, even if it was only collecting the decor. A reflection on some of my childhood in and of itself.
For, perhaps only the second time since I have started this, the front yard came out pretty much EXACTLY as I wanted it to.
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| From The Harvest |
I couldn’t be happier with that. The rest of it…well, was last minute, and shows.
And, there was some negatives as well.
Primarily…I can’t say how many asked where the heck was Charr?
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| From Year of the Charr |
Well, Charr was at rest in the shed, as I wanted the fog machine to be used more traditionally for The Harvest… A part of the aftermath of the weather that night is that I lost all 3 fog machines. Well, at least the timers. Hard to tell if the machines work or not without a switch.
And, the lighting I was hoping would help out the video camera…well, didn’t much.
With the weather wiping out everything early as well, we’re left with needing to procure new bamboo for this next year, no matter what we do.
So, what does that all mean?
I don’t know. The Harvest, in the form of the front yard, will likely be returning in some form at some point. Charr needs to make a come back, and I need to but new fog and bamboo, and still want to be heading towards the Spider Woman changeover. Beyond that, I’m taking a little break from building things till January. Maybe make some sketches, and do some research. (yes, research is vital to theme building) See what I dream up next, and how to pull it together.