Thursday, January 04, 2007

John's New Hobby

Meet Q-14.

You know how you think you really know your spouse, whether you've been married for 5 days, 5 months or 5 years and then they go and do something totally out of the ordinary that throws you for a loop. I don't know why, but even though I feel like I know my husband so incredibly well, he still manages to impress me now and then!!! This is one of those instances!
I know I won't do justice in explaining all that went into this, but I will try. John built this robot from beginning to end. All that he started with was a sketch he drew to guide him, sheets of plastic styrene, tools and a lot of creativity. This robot may look like a kit, you know the sheet of plastic that comes with 100+ pieces that you have to pull off individually and then put together one by one! But it is NOTHING like a kit in that John made all his own pieces from scratch! This new hobby is called "Scratch Building." You can do pretty much anything to this plastic: cut, sand, paint, glue, drill, carve, etc. The styrene is white, so once the robot was built he used many different techniques to get the metalic & rust look. He was able to enter it into an online contest. Apparently there is a whole community of scratch builders out there. I have a feeling this is the first of many projects John will do!! He loves it and says it is a great stress reliever! You can read his ficticious biography of the robot's creation and purpose for existence & also view his robot here: http://www.starshipmodeler.com/contest/scratch_16.htm
To put it in perspective, the robot is appx. 8" tall.
The "Q" stands for "Quinny" and the "14" was my volleyball/soccer # in high school and college. Kinda cool to have a robot named after me!
The Building Process

The Final Coats

The Finishing Details

10 comments:

Leah (Parrish) Millan said...

Wow! That looks incredible! John is just a guy with many talents. I can just hear Drew and Jack on day reminescing about the good ol' days working in the garage with their dad building a -- robot :) I hope he wins the contest!

S said...

That is so cool. Stephen and I were just remarking the other day that you guys have to be the most creative couple. We got Jack's birth announcement the other day and the handwriting is just impeccable!

Anonymous said...

Wow - that's pretty cool. I think Josh could get into something like that if he had more time. But he usually ends up working on his motorcycle or computers.

Can I ask you a blogging question? How do you get your previous posts to list? Do you have to do it manually, or is there an easier way?

Anonymous said...

That is absolutely amazing--some people were given an incredible amount of creativity. . . and patience apparently. Very cool!

Anonymous said...

i showed lukus and he looked for a long time. very cool. your husband is a very creative person!
someone is a very good photographer, too.

Anonymous said...

Outstanding work, John. I'm in awe at the model robot and the photography (and I'm not sure which one more!). I was just telling Loraena that I could never do something like that, not being able to see things that don't yet exist in my "mind's eye", or at least not very well.

I do enjoy looking at good work, though...

Anonymous said...

that is amazing.

Anonymous said...

Thanks everyone for your comments! I think this post helped me to understand how addicting blogging can be!!! For those that wondered, my brother photographed the robot with his Nikon D-50. I have my next project developing in my mind's eye...stay tuned!

joh3n (the 3 is silent)

Erin Neiner said...

You can also check out the link [see right] to Pixel Graphic Design Studio to see more of Doug's photography [Photo Gallery] & John's artwork [Illustration & Original Work].

Anonymous said...

Y'all will never cease to amaze the rest of us boring people! BOTH of your talents are an incredible gift. I can already see some of the same characteristics in Drew.
Congratulations on a job well done!
Much love,
The Steinbarts