Over the last week I have perfected my drawings for brass etching on Rhino before transferring them over to illustrator for colouring. Following the guide on the PPD website I produced a PDF of the parts I wanted to be cut, double to be safe. The file I sent appears as shown below:
After sending the file off I recieved a response informing me that certain elements of the drawing would not be usable on the 0.4mm Brass I had requested and there was a problem selecting the layers. I went right back to illustrator and re applied all the colours making sure each tag was on the tags layer for easy selection. This second drawing seems to have been correct and I received an email today saying they should be able to post the job out tomorrow to arrive by the end of the week. With any luck it will as time is running out quickly.
Redrawing
I also spent several sessions on the laser cutter cutting the exterior pieces. Initially this threw up a few more issues with the brick work detailing. Not only was it causing each job to take forever (over an hour in one case!) to transfer from illustrator to Trotec, but the brickwork itself was very blurred across many of the parts. This seemed to be being caused by the order the cutter decided to etch first. I made the frustraiting decision to redraw all of the brickwork to ensure it looked correct. This took me about a day all in all but I feel alot happier with the outcome.
Architects Response and Colour Scheme Agreement
Heres part of the email respose I received from the architects:
'To try and answer your questions:
We think your suggestion of the see through roof with the solid front edge/overhang will work well
The only thing we thought off for the brass etching was the balustrade for the basement steps but you have probably got that in hand already. (Jim has since emailed me back stating that this detail should be left out as there is a chance it will be simply left as a low wall rather than having a rail)
For the site colours we agree and prefer a very subdued approach like no 3 where it all looks like different tones of grey. We think that if the grass is expressed too much it will highlight the imbalance between two sides of the building which have grass and the two sides that don’t. I agree that the planting should match the grass. (below)
I agree that fitting the model inside an acrylic case is probably essential'
This decision allowed me to look for suppliers of Gray Foamex Ultra for the exterior of the base.
Foamex Ultra
Having spoke to the main suppliers of Foamex board in the south (Righton, Amari, Haymar) I was unable to find anyone with the colour and finish (grey gloss ultra) I wanted to fit the architects chosen colour scheme. Remembering an option available at Technical Models Ltd over the summer I rang them up to see about the possibility of them sending me some to work with. They kindly agreed and sent the lengths I required which arrived by the end of the week. This no doubt saved me alot of money buying a whole sheet in.
Painting
Once cut I sanded the brick faces of each part and masked off the relevant sections (above).
When all the parts were ready I backsprayed the parts and allowed them to dry over the weekend (Below).
I only have a small amount of paint left for the brickwork and will certainly need more. Mixing the colour again will be a minor challenge when I next come to paint.
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