At the same time that we were always involved with the fabrication of the hard body play set we were also putting finishing touches on the Dida Display playsets and the other accessories we had ordered from Laser Mego. Dida display sets come in different configurations, they can be just walls, partial boxes, full boxes , etc. But we knew wanted to go with the full 13 x 22 box with door, roof and floor, these are the kind that can be closed up with a clasp like a fully functioning play set back in the day. It adds more play space with its door that acts as wall and as floor, the space inside allows for the additional two 10x 10 corner wall/box displays to fit inside as well as any accessories. We wanted artwork for the roof and floor to be on all sides, there for the outside of the playset roof would be a cross approximation of our Enterprise as well as the Enterprise from tv or even animated. We took artistic liberty with the inside of the roof and made it a continuation of what we had done with the actual hard body play set we built, so it had rectangles lighting that was the same size and color keying as our actual plastic pieces. When placed inside they just go together. For our accessories we had ordered from Laser Mego, specifically crew chairs, helm console, wall consoles, bio beds. All of which are beautiful pieces by themselves. Same is to be said for the Dida Displaysets. We had begun doing artistic drafts for the helm console button/readout arrangements. And again we knew would be printing them out in decal form. We did several passes of this making tweaks to the artwork along the way. In using inkjet printable decal paper we had originally used a generic office depot brand, and well that was just crap. What we finally settled on was inkjet waterproof vinyl printable decal paper(glossy) from a company called Papilio, this we could only find through amazon. But people we had talked to raved about it. And they were right. High quality stuff, with no smudging and a brilliant surface. The only thing we had to get good at in that regard was working out the air bubbles that get trapped between the surfaces, but we eventually figured that out too. Just go slow and gently rub with like a micro fiber towel and take your time, in these pics this is not the final helm console, but you can see where we had to go after the air bubbles. Going back to the Dida Displayset , after completing final artwork for all sides we would then go about getting the pieces ready for their final assembly. In this playlet that comes with roof and floor and door, they are attached to each other using chicago style screws, which really make any playlet piece pop, one side is a smooth low profile round head interlocking with a reverse side that has a screw driver slit in its low profile round head. We actually took a cue from this design aspect and decided to incorporate the chicago screws into the rest of our artwork pieces that looked like vinyl artwork( the slat walls) if you cant find them at a craft store you can find them on amazon and they come in all sizes. But between Dida Display and the Laser Mego pieces they really allowed for that internal playset to come alive. We couldnt have been happier with those pieces!
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:59:54 +0000
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