Carol loves her garden. Every year it seems we discover something new left by the past.

The first year we were here we thought we would have to plant Irises in the back garden. They magically appeared anyway in the spring.

Then we discovered white Hydrangeas in the back. The builder planted several types of Hydrangea on the front, but the back ones were leftovers from the past.

Tulips. Day Lilies. Miraculously I saw American Sweet Pea flowers that are as delicate and beautiful as Orchids.

We planted a Japanese Red Princess Maple. We planted Cherry bushes. A Lilac. Last year we planted two types of Ginkgo tree. We put in a vegetable garden in a risen wooden bed. We put in Dusty Roses and tall Blueberry bushes. This year, a trio of white Birch. The kind we know and love from Newfoundland.

And a very kind neighbor gave us a piece of heavy slate, 22″ x 12″, which we thought we would use as a door step of some kind. Instead I used it behind the Roses to hide a bit of a blemish in the concrete wall of our neighbor.

But that slate got me thinking.

So I decided to surprise Carol with a cool thing. But I couldn’t keep it secret. And I wanted her opinion on it. So I told her. I’m going to make a stencil, stick it to the slate, spray paint letters and a graphic, and then use my Dremel to grind into the letters to form a relief slate stone to mark her garden.

So I thought I would document the progress here.

First, I took some photos of her favorite Hydrangeas.

I used Inkscape, a cool vector art program to sketch out some Hydrange flowers.

Then I put her name in Garamond Bold, on curves around them.

The plan is to use my Cricut to cut the above graphic as a paint stencil, lay it down onto the slate and spray-paint the slate, which will give me black lettering. Then I will use grinding wheels to cut into the slate and make a relief of this image.

The plan is to add my own stems (the stencil wasn’t necessary for that) and those little bulbs that fill in the spaces around the Hydrangea flowers, by hand, with the Dremel.

This is partly what the finished idea should look like, using Photoshop Emboss tools. It’s not complete of course, as the aforementioned stems and bulbs aren’t shown here.

MOCK-UP ONLY:

I will keep you all posted as I progress.

Soooo, I haven’t updated my blog in many months, and today I’m sitting here with some time on my hands, and earlier in the week I decided to go through my Dropbox Camera Uploads and separate out my photos by year so I could be better organized.

Going through them I realized how much I had done this past year, and figured it’s time to update some things. So blog posts incoming! Be warned.

Starting with this overdue update on Carol’s Garden slate stone progress.

It’s done. It’s out in the garden now. Here are some pics of the work in progress:

First etching after spray-painting the stencil in light black to get the outlines: Some of the darker black are actually spots of water from spray-washing it, that have not yet dried. The darker gray is spray paint.

Then filling out the first name: It looks very white here because the dust is still there.

Main design nearing completion:

Here it is, probably almost finished. You can see some of the black spraypaint where my stencil was not stuck down firmly enough, but I believe that will fade with time.

So Carol and I went to Stonehenge. We took many pictures. One Carol took will be huge on our wall soon.

I spent my time taking 3D stereo pictures. My intent is to put together a good sized coffee table book of side-by-side cross-eye 3D images from the monument.

Here’s just one example.

They came to Earth from whatever Oort cloud or Nebula in which they were born – created – formed – hatched? – in search of a better place. First, they came as they were. Needless to say, they thought they were doing rather well, socially. They thought they were fooling us. They thought they were fitting in. But with exposed brains inside jars of gas they didn’t exactly make the social scene. And their unfamiliarity with that pesky gravity, they just didn’t stay put.

Soon aware that they were not blending in as well as they thought they were, they tried something else: BERDLZ!

Though this new ruse failed initially as well, they vowed to keep trying. They observed humans going about the course of what they called JERBZ! and took hints from those activities, hoping these new guises were more successful.

And they vowed to keep trying.

WERBLZ are available on my ETSY store. Not all designs will be available right away. Waves will roll out as I can make them ready.

ETSY Description:
They came to Earth from whatever Oort cloud or Nebula in which they were born – created – formed – hatched? – in search of a better place. First, they came as they were. Needless to say, they thought they were doing rather well. They thought they were fooling us. They thought they were fitting in nicely. But with exposed brains inside jars of gas they didn’t exactly make the social scene. And with their unfamiliarity with this pesky new gravity, they just couldn’t stay put.

Try as you might, however, you just can’t knock them down. They will just get back up and try again.

Comes with colorful Gravitronic Stabilizer! (Colors vary.)

Each WERBLZ is designed, 3D printed in bright, colorful ABS plastic, and assembled by Sean Huxter.

NOTE: THESE ARE NOT FOR KIDS. They are made from small parts, and each contains a 1″ metal carriage bolt head for weight/werblaility, and held together by Krazy Glue!

After the Cotswold Commission (30 Heli-packs and 25 ATV Racks) my next project I promised myself was to open up an ETSY store and see what sells, and how I can manage the sales, given only two printers and only 24 hours in a day, a lot of which I spend working and sleeping.

Well, I’m going to try it. For now, here are some items I will be putting up. The costs I put down here are likely going to be larger than these, but I thought I’d see what they look like anyway, just for my eyes. (I will edit this later.)

Rockets

(Measurements are approximate)

Apollo 42

$65

This rocket is about 8.25 inches with engines deployed, and 6.5 with engines stowed. This one has four articulated engines that swing out. Glow-in-the-dark canopy.

Tridart

$50

This was the first of my odd concept rockets. I was playing with shapes and tried to come up with something elegant and royal, and would fly, but no one had seen before. 8″. Glow in the dark windows.

Luxury Liner

$40

An odd concept that came to me one day, and I just wanted to see how it played out. 7.75″. Glow in the dark windows.

Ring Rocket

$55

Another odd concept I wanted to try. This one has an engine intake inside the body, and a ring rear. Unique in design. 7.75″

Silver Bullet

$40

My favorite. Elegant, simple, truly captures the retro design aesthetic that I love. Could be right out of a 1950s Sci Fi movie, but entirely my own. 8.25″

Father’s Day

$25

My first rocket. Modeled after a sketch on a Father’s Day card my daughter gave me one year. I loved it so much I kept it, and when I got my 3D printers, this was the first rocket I modeled for it. 5.75″

Rocketeer

$30

Funny story. A friend with a Corgi wanted me to model and print a Corgi with a jetpack. I did. Later, I took the rocket elements from that jetpack and modeled this rocket. 6″

G0G0

$25

Modeled after a T-shirt I have, this rocket was one of my first forays into rocket modeling for 3D printing. 5.25″

Oddity

$50

Based on a photo sent to me by a fellow modeler, this is a new rendition of what I call my Oddity rocket. Nice contrasting red with a turquoise blue and silver fins and struts. I use a sewing pin for the tip antenna. 8″ (8.5″ including antenna)

Hogarth

$40

A very simple child’s toy rocket from the Sputnik era. 7.5″

Rocket Jockey

$55

Another design that harkens back to a simpler time of 1950s Sci Fi movies. This one has a cockpit and a sewing pin for an antenna. 8″

Tangerine Nightmare

$45

A rocket taken from a simple sketch I saw, this one is meant to be a racer. Glow-in-the-dark blue canopy, bright bright orange with white stripes. 9.5″

UFOs

These are a few of my UFOs, some of which are meant to be modular in design so you can match different tops to different bottoms.

These will be going for something around $25 – $35 each depending on features.

I have lauded the Sigma 6 line in several posts now. I showed the three Adventure Team sets: Pyramid of Peril, Terror of the Swamp and Danger in the Jungle.

But in doing some web searching concerning the Sigma 6 Adventure Team sets, I stumbled across a concept sketch that caught my eye:

Clearly this showed an Adventure Team Sigma 6 set that had not hit the market. And it made complete sense since it was another homage to the original Adventure Team sets.

It was never released, but some searching did turn up this image, seemingly shot for the cover of the set:

It has the same styling of the three released set photo images.

Pyramid of Peril was an analogue to Secret of the Mummy’s Tomb (with a little Indiana Jones thrown in).

Terror of the Swamp was clearly an homage to Mouth of Doom, and other sets featuring an alligator.

Danger of the Jungle is an homage to the White Tiger Hunt set.

And clearly, the unreleased gorilla set was to be reminiscent of Capture of the Pygmy Gorilla.

But then when you look at the centerfold map in the book that comes with the Sigma 6 Adventure Team sets, you can clearly see six red dots on the map. Three of them coincide with the three released sets.

A fourth clearly depicts a gorilla (Ituri Forest, central Africa).

So then there are two other red dots. One depicts a scorpion (Atacama Desert, South America), and one a shark (Great Barrier Reef, Australia). (Sharks were often used in vintage Adventure Team sets.) Clearly the Sigma 6 line was an homage to the original AT line. Except for the scorpion. There was never a scorpion. There were giant spiders, though.

Were these two to be made into sets as well?

Armed with this knowledge I did some Google searching and came up with this concept sketch, clearly done by the same people who did the gorilla concept. Clearly this was to be the Atacama Desert Scorpion set:

And armed with this knowledge, I found out that this set was to feature Dusty. In fact, this is a picture of a prototype of the set, again, never released:

And here is the scorpion (not on his back):

You can search and find more images, including castings of the individual pieces of the set. There was some nice gear intended to go with this set, including a somewhat oversized Leatherman pocket pliers set, with swing-out blades at the bases that most people would love to have for 1:6 figures.

And I also saw this concept, clearly intended to be the Great Barrier Reef Shark set:

And lest people think that all of this concept work and prototype work was in vain, note that in 2010, the GI Joe Collector’s Club released what I think is their finest Convention Set ever: Escape from Spy Island:

Observe the shark.

What does this mean?

It means the shark was actually tooled, even if not ever produced, because the GI Joe Collectors’ Club could not have afforded to have had it tooled in a factory, but it could easily use the molds Hasbro had access to. So the mold was finished.

This leads me to wonder, (if they still exist) could the GI Joe Club create a convention set that uses the scorpion or the gorilla? Another Pygmy Gorilla wouldn’t be too crazy, but something new and unique like the Scorpion might do quite nicely.