The Professor's Patented Steampowered Perambulating Command Chair

Ok summer hols are here so time to get creative. Lacking any inspiration I started looking for ideas and found the work of Greg Brotherton. He makes wonderful creations from metal, one of which was this called 'Chained to Earth'

I like the idea of a spherical control console so found a hollow polystyrene ball and cut it up as my staring point. At this point I was just playing with no real outcome in mind, I often find that the making process generates ideas.

Next I revamped an old head to create the 'controller'

Next a chair which caused some problems as the figure was too big and had to have his legs removed! This gave me the idea of a steampunk Davros like figure: a withered old scientist contolling his minions form the chair.

The seat is bent card, reinforced with wire and covered in tape: this was flexible enough to bend to the shape of the figure so I could play with his pose: slightly hunched forward over the console.

The chair support is made from ply with drilled holes to give a Victorian ironwork look.

The poly ball is in two halves which allowed me to keep moving the figure and chair around until I was happy. it will eventually be glued in place but for now is taped.

I've used some thick and slightly textured card to finish off the cut edges of the polystyrene, when painted this gives a nice metallic look.The top of the chair is a strip of brass I had lying around and brass rods slot through the figure and chair to pin it all to the wood back.

The figure's coat is made as usual form parcel paper, edged with thin wire and covered in masking tape and pve, then painted red. Colour choice ws important as the cair/console will be very dark: I wnat the figure to stand out and a deep red always feels Victorian.

The chair now has split pins added and is pinned in place. The inside of the console is also a deep red, I coated all the polystyrene with a thick layer of pva prior to painting to give a better surface and make it stronger.

 Once the figure was in place I started using card and split pins to give an interesting metallic finish.

 

At this point I was still not sure what else to do with the console. I was happy with it but it wasn't enough on its own. I considered various ideas: floating tethered to a giant robot, given rotor blades etc.......

More tomorrow.