Using an overlay image to check sculpting accracy.

I took a photo of the sculpt and overlayed it over the original drawing to check accuracy. I was quite shocked to see how inaccurate the sculpt was. I think it would be a better idea to lathe out the body of the submarine using wood, and adding the detail with styrene strips.

Etchings

I had a look at these etchings to give me an idea on how to cleverly design the etchings to fold well and fit together effectively. These etchings are quite complicated with many folds, mainly created by leaving gaps for the fold lines. I want to add etched fold lines to the parts that I want to be folded.

Hogaths line of beauty.

Some one pointed out that the last fin on the Submarine looks like one of Hagaths lines of beauty so I had a look at these lines to get a better shape on it.

Bronze and Brass.

I've found that more likely one would use bronze for allot of the ship as this is less likely to need allot of polishing. But for our purposes we are going to use mostly Brass as its more available to us.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci had many flying contraptions which may inspire my design for the fins on the submarine. They need to move so it would be a good idea to look at his ideas on moving flying machines.

Also I'd like to look into early hot air balloon ideas. Allot of these had wings or paddles which moved on the baskets to try to help the balloon to be steered.

This website seems to cover most ideas on flying machines, from Leonardo da Vinci, to hot air balloons, to insane contraptions. Its brief but some interesting ideas covered:

http://www.flyingmachines.org/

Metal spinning rocket nose cones.

Still looking into ways which the real submarine might be made (with a touch of salt due to its outlandish design) as this helps to make the model look more realistic. Or as realistic as a fish style submarine complete with fins can look! Metal spinning might be used on the dome of the head. Wikipedia explains it pretty well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_spinning

This is how the tops of rockets are made! Also bells and cookware can be manufactured in this way. You could use a hydraulic spinning lathe for the job. These are the professionals at work at Winward engineering ltd: http://www.winward.co.uk/about%20us%20new.htm

This would create a completely smooth finish, or one with slight rings left by the lathering tool. Looking at the shape of the head with the current design I think that it is more likely that one would used a beating metal technique all over as its not a complete dome.

Brass and whiskey.

(these images are taken from: http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Cork/Cork/blog-209569.html and http://www.pbase.com/ourcolin/image/66987144 and http://www.timboondistillery.com/timboon_railshed_distillery-single-malt-whiskey.html)

I wanted to think about the texture of the Brass we where using. Whiskey distillery's are a good reference as they are not designed to be looked at. They are designed to be used to make whiskey. Due to there practical nature the craftsman to make them would not spend the time to make them well polished like a piece of jewelry. Which is why they are a good reference.

Puffing Billie.

Puffing Billie:

http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/icons_of_invention/technology/1750-1820/IC.006/

This is the oldest surviving steam locomotives made in 1814. It looks like someone really hacked and hammered it together out of any odd scraps they could find. The wooden panels and battered metal combined look like they would fit in nicely on our submarine.

American railway models.

Backwood miniatures are high detail railway model company in America.

http://www.backwoodsminiatures.com/

There worn out turn 19th century steam trains are the sort of texture and feel that we are trying to create.

There is also "Narrow Gauge and Short line Gazette" :

http://www.ngslgazette.com/

They feature plenty of articles on how to make realistic worn out scenery effects. As do "Garden Rail"

http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/magazine/443/508

Unfortunately its pretty hard to know which issues feature useful information, but I'll look into it.

Rivets.

Looking at ship rivets:

http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/graphics/rivets.jpg

Most ships seem to use steel. For the model this would look ugly and it is unnecessary to use the same materials as used in real ship building. Brass or copper rivets will be used. On some of the ship the rivets are being sculpted and painted to look brass or copper. The rivets on the port holes will have to be copper as we cannot buy them in the right size in Brass.

Railway modeling.

I had a gander through some Railway modeling books to find out how they created scenery. For wall and walkway textures they used brought in textured styrene, which is of no interest to me. I've heard that American railway modeling is more extreme and use better crafted scenery. I'm interested in aging techniques for the wooden pontoons.

Colour Fishy image.

This is the colour version from Chris our client. It shows the sort of texture we want to show on our model. We are not following the head shape on this design though. I think the three portholes on the head make the submarine look confused.

Site plans.

These are the site plans given to us by Chris our client. There are two locations, although the most likely location is location A. We are thus going to base the model on location A. The black square seen in photo one is the projects icon.

Victorian Swirls.

I've been designing the fins today. I was considering adding victorian swirls onto the brass work:

http://bp2.blogger.com/_yw920vNyK6s/R5ll--v4eGI/AAAAAAAAArU/-NluQ7Sa4K0/s1600-h/Victorian+Swirl+Brush+Previw.jpg

A fish, a fish, Fishy fishy fishy OH.

Looked at Royal de Luxe's fishy creations. Lovely fins on this one:

http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/english/atelier.html

Port holes and periscopes

The port holes and periscopes need to be lathed out of brass. I used this web site to order the brass round's and rivets needed:

http://www.ekp.supplies.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm

Who will buy these lovely port holes?

I went to a marine model shop. I wanted to know if we could buy port holes. I found that the biggest size I could buy would be 20 mm diameter which would be too small.

I also liked the propellers they sold. Very nice.

Practice model and scult one.

I made a foam model to scale of the submarine. This helped me to see how the head would move. It was also important to see how much head to have with out getting in the way of this important movement.

It was very important to make sure that what I sculpted on top of was sturdy. I built up an armature of wire, paper, mud rock. I covered the mud rock in lacquer to make sure it didn't absorb moisture from the sculpy.

In retrospect I wish I had used clay. It would have been allot faster. I also found that as Mark was sculpting the body and I was sculpting the head the two were very different styles, and thus we decided to keep this head as a marquette and let Mark sculpt the head again.

Whale reasearch.

As the submarine is whale shape I looked into whales before starting the sculpting. I found that more cartoon or idealised whales looked more suitable for the look that our client wanted.

Device.

This facinating book details moden steam punk artists. As well as models there is also digital and painted work. The way that these models really look like they can work is what really makes them a great succes. The use of orgainic materials and cogs and gears looks great, are they alove or machines?

Puppet movement and mechanism.

The fins of the submarine puppet creature need to be carefully considered to try to make them move. As of course the main puppetry of the submarine puppet theatre IS the submarine itself! That is the clever thing about it.

This rare book is possibly the top authority on all things puppet making. Allot of useful ideas on making almost anything move with grace.

Royal de luxe.

This book is full of large scale models made by the company Royal de luxe. They create imaginative large scale models, puppets and insane contraption. The submarine puppet theatre is very much in this vein of outrageous invention which I find so ingenious. Brilliant.

Quay side.

Me and Mark Newton went to Bristol to visit the 2 possible locations that the Submarine would be placed.

It is important to bear in mind that the quay side is 200 years old and that our client wants this to be reflected in the model.

More steam punk style.

This Japanese watch maker makes funtional steam punk watches. Amazing. Inrpired.

http://watchismo.blogspot.com/2007/07/watchismo-times_13.html

This website actually contains a working steam motar bike!

http://watchismo.blogspot.com/2007/07/watchismo-times_13.html

Steam punk extreme!

This is an amazing resource of steam punk submarine's and 1800's sub's. A great inpiration:

http://www.upcool.com/sci_tech/Amazing_Submarine_Concepts_PICS_

This web site welcomes steam punk enthusiasts, from weekend posers to the more extreme side of the style. They also have a forum full of useful imformation. Their pages include projects on how to make your own steam punk. Well worth exploring:

http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/

Inspiration.

Old and new designs of subs. The under water viewing platform looks like a great idea. Not in keeping with the old style though. Too space age.

Style

This book had some great quirky underwater machines. Compleate death traps some of them, but very interesting. Submarine have come a long way.

I finished my kalidascope from my second year. Its actually in a simalar style to the submarine. I might take some of the ideas and adapt them to make them better. I think the copper pipping looks great.

Rhino drawing.

Pontoon's

Our client has told us that the pontoons to be used next to the submarine have a standard size, which can be found on this website:

http://www.intermarine.ltd.uk/

http://www.intermarine.ltd.uk/laguna_system.html

The laguna system is proberbly the pontoon system to be used.

2000 leagues under the sea.

This film features a submarine with the similar style as what we are interested in.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhyuey4xU3Q

http://www.julesverne.ca/images/book/full/20k_1963_biggoldenbook_x.jpg

Some underwater plant tecnical drawings. These are definatly of the era that the sub is mocking, 1900's. A picture that I could imagine being on the inside of the vessel.



Some sinister picture of what happens is the sub fails.

The master divers of the past.

I've been looking at a couple of books about diving and underwater adventures. I could imagine a couple of sea monsters going up on the interior walls to scare the audience a little.

I like the heavy brass asthetic of the old diving helmets, and the elegant looking dials and pipes used on old dives.

Underwater Photography.

Underwater puppetry is quite a rarity. I'm very excited to be on board this project as I think it's very new and innovative. I'm very interested to see how all the puppets move under the water, and what techniques will be used to take this new medium to it full impact.

I found this book very interesting:

Creative technique's in underwater photography by Derek Berwin and David Barber.

It's full of underwater photography making very surreal artistic shots. Everything looks much more elegant underneath the water.