The original goal was to have this piece finished before the end of the year as it was one of my CHALLENGE 2010 projects. But, ALAS, it is simply not going to happen. Oh well. The total ended up being 11.65 projects completed this year. Not bad I guess.
We did make pretty good progress however, considering we only put an hour or two at most into the project each week. The LED's look pretty cool and give the piece added dimension and bling. The smoke really stumped me for a while but balls of the sculpting epoxy over crumpled tinfoil (to save material) looked pretty good. In the end I decided that alien smoke didn't have to look like anything like the smoke we are used to seeing on earth after all. When I added the orange LED's in the rear jet engine they threw a fabulous glow on the smoke and all was well.
Well keep hacking away at the smoke trail which proved to be a much larger task than I imagined. The detail on the rear engine will be done today and I may even get the rivets glued onto the 'steel' bands on the box. I'll probably sneak a few more bubbles onto the smoke as well. In another week or two this piece will be done. And you just know I have something really cool in mind after that. It will be a brand new year after all...
Happy New Year!
-dan
