Blackwell gave us the footage for episode nine, filmed entirely with green screen background. David chose to do physical models for these shots instead of digital. I was in charge of making the models, while David was responsible for prop designs and postproduction effects.

Our assignment was to create a columned great hall similar to one in Star Wars and a large impenetrable door. We had a few recyclables to choose from so David decided that Gatorade bottles might work.

While he got busy designing the concepts for the door, I began cutting the bottles to form the base of the columns. We were going to use 2” PVC pipe and caps for the columns from Home Depot. I figured we were only going to use the top part of the bottle until I tore the labels off and discovered a more interesting top for the column.

After cutting and painting the various parts of the Gatorade bottles, they looked like this:

The door was constructed of mainly foam core, matte board, balsa wood strips, and various parts from a plastic model tank kit placed on quarter-inch masonite for strength. It had three height layers for dimension and the appearance of sliding open.

Once the door was painted, it was photographed for postproduction.

All the parts to the hallway were now finished and needed to be assembled.

David wanted to do that on top of a table so he could get the proper angles for the shoot. I was a little nervous for fear that we would accidentally knock one or more of the columns off the table. The columns looked good, but they were quite fragile and barely put together with super glue. We carefully spaced each column in two rows and hot glued a 1″x3″ board with decorative trim across the tops…so far, so good. Next, we placed the ceiling arches and hot glued them. Once we did that, we felt fairly safe that the whole thing wasn’t going to fall.

Several sheets of poster board were layered across the arches to enclose the ceiling. More foam core was painted and added behind the columns as walls. A 2’x8’sheet of Masonite was placed for the end of the hallway. Now were ready to set up the lighting for the hallway shots.

After weeks of running around in the Arizona heat for supplies, much hard work, and a few other minor setbacks, we finally got the shots we needed (at least David thought so). Now it was time to carefully deconstruct our model to be used possibly in the future for another project. Unfortunately, sometimes your greatest fears come true. As David was removing the arches, he hooked one up on the column bridge. The whole thing fell! Oh well, easy come… easy go!

Episode nine of Voyage Trekkers with hours and hours of David’s postproduction work will be up beginning September 12. We invite you to come see our efforts at: http://www.squishystudios.com/voyage-trekkers-web-series/

Three days before the shoot, I was sent on location to view our prospective time machine. A grimy, un-restored Austin Healey Sprite needed to be rolled out of the garage, hosed off, and cleaned out before we could even begin to figure out what we were going to do with it.

After clean-up, the ideas began to flow…

David had a lot of ideas, but since we had a limited budget, whatever we could recycle was what we used. As with the death ray, we scavenged the trash bin for parts looking for interesting shapes and sizes. Small plastic bowls were sprayed with glass frost paint (a tip from my son, Todd) to cover holes in the dashboard. Lights were then hidden behind the dash.

I was busy covering the bare console with fun foam and distressing any “metal” pieces to look old. Sitting on hard concrete and bending over for hours can kill your back. OMG! I just had to rest for a minute! The pipes were now ready and glued in with hot glue making everything easily removable later.

Quarter-inch foam core board was painted and added to the roll bar along with anything else we could find that looked interesting. A spiral disc attached to an invisible hand crank gave the appearance when it turned that the car was going back in time.

David wanted to keep the continuity between the death ray and the time machine by creating parts to be swapped out. The night before the shoot, David and his son, Nathan, created a generator looking piece complete with lighting to fill the empty passenger side of the car. The duel canisters from the death ray would be placed on top of this when the scenes using the ray gun were completed. Unfortunately, the shooting schedule was such that these were never used in the actual scenes of the time machine.

The web series “Normally This Weird” is scheduled to resume airing in October. It will be exciting to see how Nathan Blackwell creates his magic on these shots. Until then, the first two episodes are up at http://www.normallythisweird.com/

Phoenix Comicon has been over for almost a month and I have been so slow getting these pictures up.  I actually prepped the photos shortly after the convention was over.  Unfortunately, other things took precedence in my life so this blog post was differed until now.

There were lots of great costumes this year, but here are only a few with , of course, my son as Spiderman and an Arizona Ghostbuster.

More coming!  Keep checking back even if you have a picture here.  I may still have more of you or your kids.

Click on any of the thumbnails to see the full picture.

 Wow! Free Comic Book Day was a blast this year!  I just want everyone who I took pictures of to know that I am trying really hard to get your pictures up on this blog. But over 400 pictures were taken on Saturday so please have patience with me as I sort through all of them and make sure I have at least one good picture of everyone.  I should have the next post with all the pictures by the end of this week.  Until then, I hope you enjoy this look back at the great cosplay characters that volunteer their time to make your day more fun.

Some of the people who read this blog really like Halloween.  This household revolves around Comic Cons, Halloween, filmmaking, and various other costuming ventures.   Sometimes I can get an entire costume with accessories finished in a season and other times a costume doesn’t come together for years. One that I have been working on is another pirate costume; one for my other son, Shaun.  Shaun’s costume got put on hold for Todd’s black Spiderman costume about two years ago.  Here is the pirate coat in its completed form.

My other son, Todd, is basically in charge of making his own garments, but although I have taught him to sew, working with stretch fabrics can be a challenge.  I took over sewing the main costume for him after he painstakingly painted the fabric to resemble the print from the original suit. 

 This costume still isn’t finished and was also put on hold as Todd was trying to figure out the best method for the webbing.  He is back to work on it, so hopefully he can have it completed by Free Comic Book Day and Phoenix Comic Con in May.

Yesterday was my day for errands.  Although it is September, here in Glendale the temperatures are still hovering around 104 degrees. A couple of everyday practices, such as keeping the blinds closed to keep the house cooler and getting out early before it got too hot, collided with my intended fashion sense. Having used the headboard lamp in order to see the grocery ads in my bedroom, I was temporarily blinded when I flipped the light off and grabbed my shoes. I wandered the house for a few minutes while I gathered up my essentials for my outing and headed out the door. 

I had to make a couple of quick stops, so I decided to have my prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy first. The drug store was busier than I had normally encountered it because it was now lunchtime. After turning my prescription over to the pharmacy technician, I decided to cruise the store and price some items.  Eventually I wandered my way out to my car and drove to the next stop.  As I was leaving, I noticed a young man looking at me with a slight smile on his face.

The bank inside the local grocery store was where I was going next.  As I was hopping out of the car, a flash of color caught my eye.  I looked down to notice that I was wearing one each of the same shoe in different colors.  I was horrified that I was in a public place and people could see my mistake.  What would people think? That I am an idiot, someone eccentric trying to make a fashion statement or a person who really doesn’t care what she looks like?  My first thought was that maybe I should hurry home and change into the correct shoes.  I decided to abandon my ego and just laugh at my error whether anyone noticed me or not.

The bank teller was alone so when I approached her, I mentioned how I was laughing at myself because I had left the house with two different shoes on.  I tried to explain that my bedroom was dark and I hadn’t noticed the difference in colors.  She laughed and tried to be sympathetic by asking, “One blue and one black?”

My response was “Not even close, one black one red.”

What a humbling experience this was.