Cylon Raider Papercraft – Battlestar Galactica

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BSG Raider PartsBSG Raider Instructions

When looking for a Battlestar Galactica themed craft, I originally thought about making my own version in a style similar to the way I made the crafty donut in a previous episode. But after a little searching around, it turns out that someone named NinjaToes had already designed and made available a pattern. I thought this would save me a bunch of time. “It’s already practically done!” I thought to myself. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

My first attempt at putting this all together ended in complete tragedy. I used white glue, which got all over my fingers, and then I touched the paper, which made a mess of that. And it took a crazy amount of time for the glue to dry. I managed to put together the cockpit before I gave up on that nonsense and cracked out the big guns: AKA gel based crazy glue. Much better choice. Of course I still managed to get crazy glue on my fingers too, but not nearly as bad as the white glue.

Before I started the second attempt though, I decided that rather than cut out what I needed as I needed it, I would instead cut out all of the pieces so that all I had to do was “just” put them together. By the time I had finished cutting all 72 pieces out, including a seemingly endless number of triangle bits, a mere 5 hours had passed and my index finger was pretty badly dented and definitely bruised. It took over a week to stop hurting every time I touched something with the tip of my finger. I’m not trying to complain, just fair warning in case you decide to use an x-acto knife for an extended period of time. Continue reading »

[Sneakpeek] BSG Raider

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Making this paper craft took WAY longer than I expected it to. Clocking in at around 13 hours, it’s by far the longest I’ve spent working on any craft to date.

BSG Raider I never would I have thought that making something out of paper could be so difficult.

While cutting it out, I ended up with a nasty dent in my index finger which continued to hurt for about a week after I was done cutting.

And the glue, oh man, the glue. I was pretty careful, but it will be awhile before my fingers are completely super glue free. When they say “instant” bonding to skin, they aren’t kidding around!

I shall be starting the editing process tonight, so hopefully I’ll be able to wrap it all up at some point later this month. Look forward to that soon(ish)

In which I’m responsive – Monarch butterflies

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In an effort to test my new skills in the real wild, I decided that our next challenge should be to create a video response to a video on YouTube. I figured given Shawn’s dwindling free time, it would be a video that could be put together fairly quickly, and didn’t require any materials to purchase, so it would fit right in the budget.

Unfortunately, I believe this was the last time that Shawn actually created one of his own videos. He has been in a few of mine since then, but this was really the beginning of the end of “That’s Paul and Shawn’s Show” and the start of “That’s Paul’s Show”. Fortunately for me the acronym works out pretty well regardless of whether or not Shawn’s a direct participant.

In which I'm responsiveShawns ResponseLuke's VideoMy Response

Shawn chose to respond to a video he found on Reddit in which the protagonist (who has downs syndrome) demonstrates how to make a and cheese sandwich for dinner. Since he’s clever like that, you might also notice that the video length is 42 seconds. Life, the universe and everything indeed.

Being a huge vlog brothers fan, I decided that for my video response I’d reply to one of their videos for my part of the challenge. They had recently done a video that had a bunch of monarchs in it. So I decided that my video would ask the question “where did all the monarchs go”. I sang this. There’s a reason why I don’t typically sing. It’s short, I promise. They never did accept it as an official video response. What a bummer. Continue reading »

Nintendo Controller Business Card Holder

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Back in the 90s someone I knew made me a decorative black mage from Final Fantasy using perler beads. I’ve always thought it was cool, and have kept it around somewhere handy.

When my girlfriend suggested I make a Nintendo controller business card for my next video, I immediately went in search of how I could get my hands on some of these beads. It turns out they’re pretty cheap, and easy to get.

Although I borrowed the idea from an etsy post, I tweaked the pattern just a bit to look more like an actual NES controller. Of course it’s probably simpler to get one from the original etsy listing. But it’s my intention to eventually complete the Final Fantasy set of characters with beads.

Continue reading »

Norman Rockwell Coke Puzzle

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I was out of ideas when I did this video, so I spent some time looking around my place for something I could film. As it turned out, I hadn’t done a puzzle in a REALLY long time, and happened to have a 500 piece one I like in my closet. I decided to give it a whirl.

It only took me about 3 hours to complete the whole thing, which means I got approximately 1 piece in place every 20 seconds or so. It felt pretty quick (although my butt would disagree as it was quite sore from sitting on hardwood for that long) Videos that I’ve done since then where I had to sit on the ground have included my bean bag chair for comfort.

When putting a puzzle together (and I’ve done more than a few in my time), I almost always start with the outside pieces first. I find them fairly easy to locate in the box, and it gives me a pretty good idea where everything is going to go. The best part of this step is getting a hold of the corner pieces. There are so few of them, it feels like finding a treasure each time.

Once I’ve got the outside complete, or nearly complete, I sort by colour. Typically different areas have common colours. And while I’m doing that, I separate any easily distinguishable pieces, like faces, handsĀ or words. This is only possible on smaller puzzles. Once you pass the 1000 piece mark, you just have to take some colours at a time, and work with what you’ve got instead of pulling them all out of the box.

Continue reading »

Electric race car track

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When I was little, I remember having an electric racecar set. I remember playing with it a bit, but only for a little while. I don’t remember if I stopped playing with it because it was frustrating, or if it got put away and pushed along. Either way, when I saw this track in my local thrift store I had to try it out. It had everything; A real deluxe version. 60ft of track with loop-de-loops, cross overs, multi-levels, a hairpin turn and a part that went up the wall. And at a paltry $15, how could my inner child resist?

We spent a good chunk of the night just setting the track up. Pieces didn’t go where we thought they would. The set was definitely short a few of the 60ft the box promised. But with thrift store stuff, that’s to be expected. We even worked into the next day to get it all set up and running.

Unfortunately, the crossover piece didn’t work with the cars we were using. They kept getting stuck in the gap. So those got taken out pretty quickly. It was also missing the pieces that supported the wall rider. But we would not be dismayed.

We set up the track as you saw it, and although it took awhile to get the track clean enough to run an entire lap (we did this by waiting until it got stuck, and then running the car back and forth over that spot until it was “clean”). We managed to get the whole thing running smooth.

What you see in the video is the best run we made. It got a full 3 laps before it fell off. And oh man did that car fall off a lot. Take a corner to fast, and off it went. I’m surprised I managed to make it as many as I did.

We played around with it a bunch off camera, but once was enough. It was a pain to put together. It was a pain to use, and generally speaking, it wasn’t as much fun as my nostalgia remembers. Fortunately I found someone who was interested in the kit, and they paid me the $15 I paid the thrift store, so in the end it worked out all right.

As for the rest of the video, I definitely did a lot more talking about stuff that people really aren’t all that interested in than I do now. But then again at that point, I was definitely doing more of a vlog style video than I do now too.

If you look closely, there’s a domo on the shelf. I got that when I took my daughter to Canada’s Wonderland. It turns out I’m extremely good at the water shooting game. You know the one. Where everybody aims for a target, and when the water starts coming out, you keep hitting the target until you fill something up. I played it twice when I was there, and hit the target right as soon as the water started coming out, and didn’t miss any both times. So I got a brown domo, and my daughter got a karate domo. Fun times.

Playing with lego

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Every now and then Shawn gets an idea to make some money that ends up with him having cool stuff at his house. This time around it was cherry picking Value Villages for their cool stuff, and flipping it on Ebay and running a flea market booth. This is how we ended up with a 20lb bag of lego to play with.

You get to see my daughter and Nadine (Shawn’s wife) for the first time in this video, although not for a lot of it. They had a fun time building race cars with us too. I don’t remember who built the house (I think it was Nadine) but it performed WAY better than I expected it to. I figured it’d just tip over. Although it didn’t win any land speed records, it did make it all the way to the bottom of our makeshift ramp.

Once all our cars were built, we decided to show them off, but didn’t have anything really suitable. So we stuck them on the record player. I think that it turned out pretty darn well all things considered. I was quite pleased with the way the music turned out this episode. I really think it added to the feel of the video. Particularly the change at 1:24.

This wasn’t so much a “challenge” as us having fun with lego. It was supposed to be a group challenge, but that idea went out the window pretty quickly. The original thought was that we’d each take the same footage from filming, and then cut it up our own ways, coming up with 2 different versions of the same event. Which seems like a neat idea in theory, but in practice we would have ended up with basically the same video each time. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t do that in the long run.

I’m not sure who said it but “I need a big doo-hickey on the front” got us all a big laugh while we made our cars.

I definitely started to get the hang of cutting my talking bits better than previous videos, but hadn’t figured out how to prevent the “popping” every now and then in the audio yet. Also, the camera’s still tilty. Took me a long while to fix all the things I didn’t like, but I’m definitely glad I did.

Advice for starting a Vlog

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I was asked by Chuck on Google+ if I had any advice for starting a vlog for those who are slow to get started. And it turns out that I do. If you’re thinking about making a vlog (or any other type of video). Here’s my advice. I hope it’s helpful for you.

I found this video to be a great motivator for me. He really nails on the head what I think a lot of people go through (if not everybody) as beginners.

  • Do it because you enjoy/want to do it. If it feels like a job, or you’re making something for an “audience”. It’s just not worth it. I know I talk to an “audience” a bit in my videos, but I really do enjoy watching what I’ve made myself (as well as making them)
  • Just do it. Take out your camera and start filming. Once you’ve got some film, find a video editor that matches your price range, and cut it together. There’s lots of them out there and they range from free to bloody expensive. Expensive doesn’t mean better either. Just try and find one that works for you. I use Final Cut Pro X, and though I know a LOT of people hate it, but it works well for me. You’ll learn as you go, and find what does and doesn’t work well for you. But your first video will not likely never be “perfect”, and the best way to find out what to do is to start doing it. I found originally that setting myself to a set schedule helped force me to put content out. It forced me to consider them “good enough”, and then move on to the next thing. I’m putting out less content now, and putting more time into each one, but I also have a personal goal of “once a month” so that I don’t end up putting it off indefinitely.
  • Find someone who can give you brutally honest feedback. The people who you know (friends and/or family) are likely the people who are going to watch your videos first. They’ll say things like “that’s good” or “I really like this”, but they will rarely have the heart to tell you the things that they don’t like for fear of sounding nitpicky or negative. The single biggest factor for me improving my videos was finding a friend who was able to tell me everything they didn’t like about my videos. It can be hard to hear, especially after you’ve put a lot of effort into them, but they’re often right. And if that person thinks it, you know that people who watch your videos that don’t know you will probably think it as well, but rather than tell you, they’ll just leave quietly.
  • Be flexible. Start with an idea, but don’t let that idea keep you from growing or changing. I started by challenging a friend to do weekly videos. Now I make nerdy crafts. It evolves, and I hope over time will continue to evolve. I like to try new things to see if they work. If they do, great. If they don’t, let them go. As long as you’re happy with what you’re making, that’s all that matters.
  • Read as much as you can. Read everything from “how-to” articles online to marketing books. Nalts has an interesting one about viral marketing, and what that really means on YouTube. It’s a bit dated, but a good read none the less. Making the video is half the battle. Getting people to actually want to watch them is the other half, and there’s no “easy” way to do that.

If you haven’t done so already, I’d highly recommend watching the vlogbrothers vlogs. The final motivator to get me to actually put my videos online was their channel. I started watching them from the very beginning. They were super low tech. They didn’t really know what they were doing. They didn’t have much in the way of editing, or polish and they weren’t doing it for the crazy fan base they have now. It was just 2 brothers with an idea of talking to each other over videos every day for a year, and the commitment to actually do it. I figured if they could do that, there was no reason I couldn’t do the same thing (not their idea, but just the actual doing it)

I hope that something in here’s enough to get you up and going on that thing you’ve got floating in your head as just an idea now.

 

In which I’m a witch doctor

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This is really the start of what I’d call my “nerd crafting”. It took me a night (might have been 2, I can’t remember for sure) to cut out the felt, and another night of stitching to put it all together. I eyeballed pretty much the entire doll, so there’s no hope of getting pattern out of this one later. Not that it turned out quite the way I wanted anyways (Face turned out way derpier than I hoped for).

The mask I was wearing was made out of a cardboard sheet that I cut out, and added a couple of grass skirts from a dollar store and stapled a string to the back to hold it onto my head. I wasn’t wearing a shirt under it, so it would look “authentic”. I think I managed to hide my unsightly bits pretty well.

I actually have a LOT more footage of me shaking my proverbial bon-bon, but fortunately (for all involved) I only needed to use a few minutes of it once the crafting section of the video had been sliced and put together.

As for things that I think I’ve improved since then, there’s a few. I try to make the screen a whole lot less tilty, the audio doesn’t pop (this video was “better”, but still had some popping on the left hand side) and the cutting for talking tends to be a great deal tighter.