Nick's Build

[Gromit]

(This build was put together between December 2010 and January 2011)

Well, my first thought was to scratch build Santa's sleigh, a very special sleigh. But, that sounds like too much work and it's a project for next year anyway. So, maybe a little fun with a couple of the animals, a hill full of snow and a couple of buckets from the farm ... sounds like a Shaun saga to me.

(1) find a suitable base! ... This was solved with a deep photp frame from Ikea, just what I needed.

(2) find a source of polystyrene balls of various sizes, mainly to build the snowman but if any were left over, all the better. I found an assorted pack of polystyrene balls on Ebay.

Snowballs! ... I needed snowballs and considered the bean bag refills, enough snowballs for builds for years to come, even considered the packs of coloured balls, maybe a futire build involving 'Timmy' and a softball play area? After talking to a friend of mine, I managed to source a set of snowball sized polystyrene balls from the local garden centre, it seems they had a craft centre.

I made one of my regular visits to the 'Dolls House Emporium' at Ripley, just up the A38 and came away with a couple of items which were very useful for the build. All I wanted was a visit from the postman to e postman and this build would be on its way.

[Gromit]

Boxing Day 2010, starting with a good breakfast, got the warm socks on, the heater was throbbing in the workshop, the build is on. Here's the bare essentials ...



... first job was to fit the snow base into the frame. A friend of mine had a few good chunks of polystyrene he'd saved from his loft insulation and offered to donate a small slice, what a nice man, the polystyrene also gives a nice base for sticking things into. So, on with the base and then have a go at the snowman. After about an hour or so, polystyrene everywhere, looked like a snowstorm in the shed. plan B'. Oh eck! ... where's the Woodland Scenics snow gone? ... it's in here somewhere?

[Gromit]

We have a snow person ...



... basically, I took two polystyrene balls and joined them together. I covered them in pva glue and sprinkled Woodland Scenics Snow (soft flake SN140), then when that was dry, added a scarf and hat which was taken from a table decoration I found in one of the craft shops. The eyes are two little circles of felt and the nose is a carrot from the 'Dolls House Emporium' in Ripley. The arms are another product from Woodland Scenics, a couple of twigs of real wood (dead fall S30).

[Gromit]

Following a festive season of family activity, the build had been left to sit it out in the shed on its own. Here's the photo frame from Ikea ...



... it's white, cost a couple of quid and I managed to cut that polystyrene infill to shape, just the base I needed. I repositioned the completed snow person on the base and set about covering the whole area with Woodland Scenics snow. I gave the base a good painting of pva glue, wafted the hair dyer over it for a few seconds and then scattered the snow, left it a while to settle and then tapped out the residue. I wanted to use as many of the Aardman / Airfix animals as possible so eventually decided on the three pigs, Shaun and Timmy. Here's the progress so far ...



... as you can see, the base coat for the pigs is complete and one of the pigs has been hit with a couple of snowballs, I'll keep you guessing who threw them at the moment. The snowballs were built using small polystyrene spheres cut in half and coated with Woodland Scenic snow, then pva glue was applied in a fan shape around where the snowball hit and given a quick sprinkling of snow.

[Gromit]

Well here ya go, new camera up and running and the last of the figures for the build. Here's Timmy enjoying himself on the sled ...



... Shaun in full snowball mode ...



... and a quick shot of Shaun's target ...



... and an overall view of the build ...



I enjoyed this build, mainly because it was fun and exercised the grey matter. Looking forward to the 'Olympics' build. So, if you have a build in mind for the Olympics theme, drop me a line and tell me all about it and get involved, it's fun and it's rewarding listening to the chuckles at SMW.