Sunday, October 28, 2007

Throwing in the Towel

I don't give up on projects. I will put them on hold indefinitely, or put them away for a re-think, but giving up is something I don't usually do. I have an N-Scale craftsman building kit, for instance - "Watt Moreland Waxworks" - that I started eight years ago and am only about 25% through (it's a bear of a kit with a million tiny parts, each of which needs its own colour of paint - that and I've had plans to add light and sound to it which need solidifying...I can work on it for a week or so and find I've spent the whole time doing shingles on a tiny section of roof). But I'm in no race to finish it - never am with anything - it is a hobby after all.
Unfortunately, sometimes I do come up against a deadline (Halloween) and while I do work well under pressure - this time I've had it - there's not much I can do to finish Boba Fett on time and under budget. I think this was a project where my ambition was greater than my ability, or I just made some bad decisions in the construction process re: materials and methods. I'm sure #1 would have been happy with something that looked vaguely Boba Fettish ( I've paused for a minute to see if I can think of a joke to go along with that... but not this afternoon - it's not there), but I really wanted a proper "bucket" - as it is referred to on the Star Wars costuming forums. It looked simple enough, and the prototype I put together looked OK, but the finished product needs more work than I can put in this weekend (keeping in mind I've been on this for a month now). And I know now what I should have done and I should have experimented with different materials. But that's hindsight and #1 needs a costume. He's happy to go as "Link" again, which is good and we have all the pieces from when he went two years ago ( although some are a little tighter than they were). That and I promised he could use my ipod and speakers to blast the "Zelda Theme" from behind the shield I made for him.
I don't know if I'd try to make to Boba Fett costume again - it's one of those things it would have been nice if #1 had had a part in making it, but he's still clumsy with the scissors, and there's no way in heck I'd let him cut some of the cardboard I was using with a utility knife. Maybe in a few years time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe there's time try the Master Chief costume that was posted on BoingBoing. It looked simple enough.

Jeff