amoebablog

new band new guitar

2011-11-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

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check this out, got it a few days ago, interesting take on the vox phantom, made by eko who made phantoms in the sixtees.great guitar, with 3 mini humbuckers in it, might go for a single coil in the bridge at some point also been asked to join a band, a punk/ ska/dub/rock outfit formerly known as big stone culture.
couple of videos of the band on my youtube if you would like to check em out.

http://soundcloud.com/bigstoneculture/tracks?page=2

rioting and looting all over birmingham

2011-08-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

i havent posted for a while, the pressures of work and shortage of time play havoc with my creative endeavours so yet again i have little or nothing to show, sorry guys, i promise to get on to something this weekend.

as some of you may be aware there have been a few troubles here in the uk of late.
Its nearly the end of an eventful week here in birmingham, it has been like living in a war zone since monday, things seem to have calmed down a bit and things are slowly getting back to normal.
the news that three asian boys were killed by a hit and run driver during the disturbances has shook the community to the core, it was feared that the violence would escalate, but appeals for calm from the boys families were heeded, and the violence subsided last night.

the lambretta from nowhere

2011-04-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

oh no more scooters !
given to me by an old friend who could not face seeing it rot in a bramble bush in Corfu.
its a lambretta 125 series 2 li, circa 59-63.
it looks much worse than it is the frame is solid and its just about complete.
its just the thing ive been looking for, but the prices these things are going for, even in this condition are simply beyond silly.

well there you have it, heres some pics of a 1966 vespa super i restored last year i hope it turns out half as nice.
note the extra bling ! white walls chrome hubcaps and an outrageous flash gordon rocket ship tailpipe.

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after a long break

2011-01-19T03:42:00.000-08:00

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haven't made a proper blog post in ages, i finally got a bit of time to work on the scoot.
the engine pods were an absolute pain to get right, but im finally happy with the results.
they are hollow with mesh grilles on the front, i hope to have some sort of lighting inside them.

two fruits one glass

2010-12-03T15:07:00.001-08:00

busy weekend

2010-09-27T03:57:00.000-07:00

spent a few hours on this the weekend, the mess i made is phenomenal, and i still havent tidied up.
the back light is made from a disposable lighter, and the radiator is bits of an old umbrella.

getting to the shiny stuff

2010-09-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

more space monkey lambretta

2010-09-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

did the grips, seat and floor boards, also a nice looking headlamp, but its not in the pics.

space monkey scooter project

2010-09-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

hi folks its been ages since my last post, work getting in the way blah blah blah !
here are some pics of my latest build.
it started life in one of my space monkey cartoons i am making 12" animatable model of it with a space monkey stop mo puppet.

the b3ta animated album cover competition

2010-05-30T03:17:00.001-07:00

heres mine more over on b3ta.com

http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/animatedalbums/popular/

may contain nuts

bizarre happenings

2010-05-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

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bizare magazine have asked me to contribute a little somthing for the geek special
watch this space.

dr Whens bash

2010-02-08T15:41:00.000-08:00

i was tempted out of semi retirement to do a dj set at dr whens annual birthday bash on saturday, this is third year running, glamourous affairs and they are always good rollicking fun.
i did a varied set of sixties garage rock, freak beat, ska, northern soul and some low down dirty funky shit.
had a good chat to Tod mc Tod there too, we may be exploding some stuff once he gets his high speed camera rig sorted.
a good time was had by all and i awoke the next day with a monumental hangover and a big smile on my face.
looking forward to next years already.

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Dr Agamemnon When and friend.
linky to photos in the b3ta bash pool
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xsgerry/sets/72157623373783192/detail/

pink n chrome

2010-01-31T17:43:00.000-08:00

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pink n chrome lots of lovley chrome, the bare metal foil bought from a local model shop is the mutts nuts, dead easy to apply but you need to have a supply of realy sharp blades to cut the stuff.
just cut a peice a little bigger than you need cover the area, burnish into the corners and polish with an old bit of t shirt.
then its just a case of trimming and lifting off the exess with a sharp blade.

dj'ing at dr whens birthday bash

2010-01-25T16:38:00.000-08:00

dusting off the scratchy old 45s in preperation for my good friend dr when's birthday bash.
he knows how to throw a good party, i will post up a few pics after the event.

adding the detail

2010-01-17T04:45:00.000-08:00

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most of the electical and structural work is done now.
my depressing lousy job is taking up waaaaay to much time.

Elvis update

2009-11-29T09:35:00.000-08:00

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the led count is growing ever bigger, i tore down and rebuilt the headlight assembly because i wasn,t looking cadilac enough,
yesterday i bought some chrome foil from the model shop it looks fantastic i will be covering this in more detail when i apply it.

ladies and gentlemen Elvis is leaving the building

2009-11-05T02:27:00.000-08:00

there is a chapter or two in the Douglas Adams novel mostly harmless, that decribes a space ship parked outside a bar.
it belongs to Elvis, he gives it to Ford.
chapter 22.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050214165205/http://www.mindgazer.org/dontpanic/read/book5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_characters_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Elvis_Presley
i started making a version of this ship not long after i first read the book, fifteen or so years ago.
i made a steering wheel, then forgot about it, well not completley forgot.
i have made drawings and rough models of it for years.
now it time for elvis to finaly leave the building.

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the usual construction methods, milliput sculpted over a wire and tinfoil core with random bits of tat stuck together.
the ship is a couple of cheap clock faces with perspex fins, and sculpted lights.

extreme hardcore tea abuse

2009-08-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

space monkey sculpt

2009-07-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

epoxy putty and paint

also a bit of progress on ratborg

Gerry Andersons UFO, a hollywood film in the pipeline

2009-06-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

listening to BBC radio 4 just now when my boyhood hero Gerry Anderson pops up talking about how much he hated working with puppets, despite the huge global success of his puppet based shows he absolutely hated puppets because they were a complete nightmare to work with.
for me at least the stars of all his shows were always the fantastic vehicles, the thunderous starship fireball xl5, the sleek and stylish atomic submarine stingray, the huge array of hi tech craft and machinery in thunderbirds,these were what did it for me my eyeballs glued to the television taking in all that glorious inventive detail.

Derek Meddings was the man responsible for bringing these wonderful creations to our screens, he has attained a god like status in the world of special effects and justifiably so, in these days of so so cgi we take it for granted that huge structures can be blown up and set fire to on screen, but this guy did it for real, and with such style, he still remains one of my biggest influences.

in 1970 Gerry was commissioned to make his first tv series with live actors, it was to be called UFO.
its premise was a secret military organization,S.H.A.D.O. defending the earth from alien intrusion, where the ailens were from or what their immediate objective was was unclear from the start, but they were definitely up to no good, grisly abductions stolen body parts and the like, it was a much darker beast than gerrys earlier work and aimed at more mature audience.
i was eight or nine when it was first aired on television i only saw a few, it quite frankly scared the bejeebus out of me i had nightmares regarding one particular episode where as far as i can remember the aliens had abducted some poor guy and effectively drowned him inside an alien space suit.

the music supplied by barry gray was groovy funky and up tempo as it gets, it had a terrific opening sequence to set the scene.

as ever Derek Meddings was in charge of the good stuff, the series boasted a full array, of incredible vehicles and hardware, all blended seamlessly into the action.
the set pieces like the skydiver submarine and the moon base interceptor launch were works of pure telivisual art.

there doesn't seem to be much information out there about the upcoming movie at the moment, i have absoloutley no doubt it will be some sort of cgi fest, so many films are nowadays, lets hope they don't completely bugger this one up like they did with thunderbirds.

ive already had a go at the ufo series. i love the theme tune so much i made this little tribute, and yes i did spell alien wrong in the titles.
there is a high res version of it over on the ufo series home page http://ufoseries.com/index.html
plus a whole load more ufo related goodies, and i would like to take this opportunity to thank Marc Martin for his support.

ratborg saucer

2009-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

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and its all this guys fault, a few weeks ago i had never heard of ed roth, he was little known here in the uk.

experiment with saucer animation

2009-05-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

just a few frames to see what it looks like

boggle eye alien and a GT paint job

2009-05-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

new pilot sculpted and the whole thing put together for the first time

leds are in

2009-05-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

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i have decided to make this saucer with a self contained power source, the lights will activate when the saucer is picked up via a micro switch in the tail wheel strut.
keeping it simple this time just head and tail lights.

another new saucer taking shape

2009-04-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

mainly constructed from perspex and epoxy putty with brass and aluminium tubes.

mickey lee lane saw my space monkey video !

2009-04-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

yes indeed the man himself saw it and and likes what i did , i love this track its a rip roaring garage classic, i still play it loud and often.
my only regret is the original hi res version of this movie no longer exists, my computer suffered a massive meltdown shortly after its completion.
i still have some of the scenes in unedited form but not all of them.
i may return to the project at a later date, the old youtube compression played havoc with my artwork.

vespa flies again

2009-04-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

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put the motor back in yesterday, fired second kick rides nice.
few little jobs to do like badges and bulbs but otherwise pretty sorted.

bringing the vespa back to life.

2009-03-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

and this is what it looked like before, not one single bit of it wasn't dented.

1966 vespa 150 super, just got round to painting it

the one eyed astropus

2009-02-22T15:20:00.000-08:00

made from acrylic plastic fiberglass brass steel p38 filler and epoxy putty.
working lights front and rear with a strobe exhaust nozzle and cockpit illumination.
2 aa batteries in the base power up the lights.
the eyelashes are plucked from a clothes brush.
the wing mirrors are made from pieces of mini disc and sparkle nicely.

strobing rocket exhaust

2009-02-18T16:32:00.000-08:00

not sure if im gonna go with the fake rocket exhaust but it looks ok from a distance.
i put a strobing led in the tailpipe, the fire effect is made from a mutilated electrical screwdriver handle and some thick red plastic lighting gel cut into strips.

nearly there

2009-02-17T16:29:00.001-08:00

i used to hate fiddling about putting leds into stuff but i cant get enough of em now

astropus rocket ship

2009-02-13T18:13:00.000-08:00

work in progress, made from a battery operated roulette wheel p38 filler, a kids snowdome kit and milliuput.

using some of the booty bought from the local pound shop.

done and dusted

2009-01-26T16:06:00.000-08:00

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the varnish is drying as i type.
finally finished it, big tidy up now the house is a right mess.

vintage emblem and lighting check

2009-01-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

still not finished but heres a few pics of the lights.
the badge on the front is a genuine 1960 ford consul emblem from a car i owned in the late eighties, i had given it to a friend of mine to restore the enamel and forgotten about it, i visited him last week, he gave it back "hey remember this" he said, yay ! perfect saucer material.
i loved that car soooooooo much, and yes it was a convertible.

tail fins finally done

2009-01-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

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i will try to get a pic of them illuminated they look quite groovy, had to spend a couple of hours rebuilding the stand today when a solder joint gave up, i cannibalized a typewriter for miniature bolts to fix the problem and swore a lot.

saucer details

2009-01-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

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its now chock full of leds, when switched on the dome on the bottom flashes the guns have fibre optics, the rear lights light up and the inside of the pilots helmet has a green halo inside.
the landing struts are retractable.

red robot on some sort of rampage

2009-01-15T04:08:00.000-08:00

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space zombie in progress

2009-01-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

did some more work on space zombie the saucer body is fabricated from sheet steel, i need to cut a few holes and add a few details.
still haven't decided what to do with the landing gear yet.

space dub sketch

2009-01-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

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still from new project

2009-01-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

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what goes on inside the colossal death robot head

red robot download

2008-12-27T20:11:00.000-08:00

http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/bigred1.jpg
http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/bigred5copy.jpg
http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/7454.bigred2.jpg
http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/7532.bigred3.jpg
http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/7753.bigred4.jpg

model of a robot who made his first appearance in space monkey 2

been a bit busy latley

2008-10-11T04:52:00.000-07:00

ages since my last post, things have gone a bit mad in the amoeba household.
not been able to produce much stuff latley because of a new job.
anyway i started on a new space monkey movie a few weeks back and its looking good, but dont hold your breath, it takes ages to finnish one, finally getting to grips with the editing software so this ones going to look extra lush.
same sort of stuff as before with giant robots, hotrods, and a killer surf soundtrack.

the story requires a dodgy second hand car dealership, i suppose they all look a bit like this whatever universe you might inhabit .

cardboard steampunk x wing

2008-07-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

its all for free, so if you can make a donation however small please do so it would be much appreciated because i am totally broke.

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www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/xwing2cutoutbiplane.jpg
www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/xwing1cutoutbiplanekitcopy.jpg
www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/jpg/xwing3cutoutbiplane.jpg

its all available for free but theres no instructions yet but i will advise people its not easy, strengthen the struts with thin wire or make them from wood, coffee stirrers are perfect.
i will try to produce an instruction sheet but i have little time at the moment.
oh and if anyone wants to use the plan as textures for a 3d feel free and mail me the result i would like to see it.

flying saucer x3

2008-06-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

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made fom hand beaten sheet steel with led lights and rotating antenna.

space zombie

2008-06-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

i wanted to create something a little more sinister for my next project, the idea for it initially was a kind of ghost ship with a long dead astronaut at the wheel of his craft. a bit like the old aurora horror kits forgotten prisoner.
but then i thought naaaah a space zombie would much be more fun.
the cockpit tub is made fromm an acrylic tumbler, i will be using this to create lighting efects later on, in the first pic you can see a green halo and two lights inside the helmet it has two tiny bulbs inside that shine into a green plastic hemisphere embeded in the helmet.
the pilot, steering column, and cockpit detail is sculpted from white milliput epoxy putty on a wire frame.

flying saucer x2cv work in progress

2008-05-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

not finished yet still making the landing struts

2008-05-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

continuing the age old tradition of making flying saucers from car hubcaps.

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the hubcap in question is from a citroen 2cv and it is made from stainless steel, the dome is perspex the pilot is scratch built with wood wire card board and brass tubing

2008-05-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

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designs incorporating classic 50s and 60s tin toy elements.

t bot

2008-05-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

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cardboard steampunk x wing

2008-05-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

a little diversion from the robot stuff.
nearly finished just a propeller to make now, i will post links so you can download it and make it yourself

heres the illustration that started it all, there are more of my steampunk starwars designs over at deviantart if you want to check them out.
http://amoebabloke.deviantart.com/gallery/

johnny rocket pants first look

2008-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

the body is an old military inspection lamp with a very thick glass dome and a heavy aluminium collar,
the head inside is made from an old sodastream co2 bottle.

johnny rocket pants

2008-03-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

just started work on johnny rocket pants, a conversation with a friend of mine about red dwarf sparked this one off.

its for sale!

2008-03-07T19:26:00.001-08:00

item number on ebay is 320225813683

2008-03-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

a few final touches still to do but its almost there i added some rivet detail to the bands and did a bit of weathering.
the boot eyelet on the side of the dome was taken out and replaced with a brass and copper lens arrangement, this was fabricated from bits of tube with a tiny domed glass lens at the tip.
finally got rid of the ugly steel rail on the left hand side and replaced it with a water level glass, more like the one in the original illustration.
i also found some tiny glass ampules, the bases of which made excellent glazing for the big lens and the steam gauges, i never really liked the plastic ones they were just somehow wrong.
i used a dremmel to grind the lenses they were a devil to get right

\

2008-03-02T16:06:00.001-08:00

more of the making

2008-02-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

i cant remember exactly how long it was before i returned to the r2 project, probably a couple of months, i completely lost the thing in amongst the huge pile of junk/tools/tat/toys/Cd's/scooter bits etc that steadily grows around my computer.

when eventually i decided one day to have a tidy, the dome showed up so i stuck it in a box along with a load of other bits and pieces that i thought might be useful.

a few days later i raided one of those big coffee machines you get in the motorway services, those little wooden stirrers were perfect for the lagging planks on my boiler .

it just so happened i had a length of steel pipe out in the yard so i hacked a piece off with my angle grinder,and by pure fluke it fitted the dome perfectly, this was a good sign.

i then glued the planks onto the steel using cheap super glue, soldered together some tiny steam gauges and made the front panel.

thick copper wire was used for the pipework with thin copper sheet brackets i also cut tiny copper washers for where the pipes went into the body.

i also gave it a couple of coats of varnish, bad idea it was horrible i eventually stripped it all off and did it again.

then i turned my attention to the underside, beaten out from a copper blank similar to the brass one i used for the dome, it originally had a round base with sides at right angles , i just flared out the sides till it fitted the body.

some of this junk you can see on the bench is stuff Ive had lying about for years and years.

grilles and meshes were added along with a brass firebox door i also did a dry run with the legs just to get the proportions right.

a long drawn out period of messing about with leg strut configurations followed, it took about a week to get things right, i also discovered a prime piece of brass pipe out in the yard in the form of a blowlamp pump, this eventually became the topmost tube in the leg assembly.

my fingers were scorched and blackened by metal polish, but things were really beginning to take shape.

this is how the r2 dome was made

2008-02-25T13:35:00.000-08:00

the illustration that started it all was made for the robots image challenge on b3ta.com.
a few days later i came across a pressed brass blank that i had picked up somewhere so i thought i might have a go at beating it out into a dome.

a slow process of heating and beating, i used an ordinary ball pein hammer and a wooden stump with a slight depression in it for an anvil.

at this stage i use a file to identify all the high spots, and carefully hammer them out.

the beating out process took quite a while it was a long time before i was happy with the profile, but finally i called it a day, the top by now was paper thin from all the beating and filing.
on to the next stage, marking out the panel lines, and drilling loads of little holes in lines to make bigger holes i then used needle files to neaten up the edges.

then i started adding some detail, the large lens body is a piece of brass light fitting the inlaid pieces are medium and fine wire mesh with copper and silver pipe detail behind them,other materials include brass boot eyelets and lead sheeting.

work then stopped for a while, a combination of work and domestic stuff meant i had to set the project aside.

my first foray into the blogging world

2008-02-23T15:08:00.000-08:00

Friends of mine, quite a few of them in fact have said you must start a blog, well yes here i am and this is my blog, and here's what I'm up to this very minute

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ive been working on this project off and on for quite a while now, regularly updating its progress on my deviant art pageshttp://amoebabloke.deviantart.com/, then quite suddenly things started getting strange.
a link was posted on boingboing and the thing went mental five and half thousand views in one day and still rising, and quite a few offers of hard cash.
i still haven't decided what to do with it, i haven't even finished it yet.