Packaging and Spray Paint Challenge.

The challenge is to make a simple sci-fi-esque background from packaging material such as styrofoam (polystrene to you Limeys) and spray paint. No limit on the number of entries, but please describe your technique.  



I pulled this piece of beaded styrofoam packaging out of a recycling bin. It was then painted with Tamiya Acrylic spray in light gun metal. The Acrylic paint will not cause shrinkage or melting of the foam.  Two lights are used here. A bounce light off the ceiling with no filters and another with a blue gel filter behind the styrofoam block. The lighting and saturation was then adjusted in Adobe Camera raw and Photoshop to give the optimal effect.

There's not much recycling offered where I currently live, so the large styrofoam (polystyrene) packaging pieces I used for the main structure were salvaged from a rubbish dumpster at the community refuse transfer station. The refuse transfer station is a good source for supplies like this, as, unlike most garbage disposal sites these days, this one is unstaffed and nobody cares if you rummage through the bins.

It's kind of a sad world we live in, isn't it, when it is against the law in most places to take trash out of a dumpster, but gangs of thieves are neither pursued nor prosecuted for "smash-and-grab" looting of corner markets or even jewelry stores. Might be time to start thinking about the state of the world and maybe voting differently, eh? But I digress.

Visible here are five main styrofoam parts: on the right, two pieces glued together with white school glue (PVC glue) (against a third section not visible in the shadows that provides additional wall height above the ledge); on the left, a large square section with a center hole glued to a random smaller part that provides a base. The circular insert to the "dynamo" is a dense, heavy foam piece from the packaging for a washer or dryer. These interesting round pieces hold the drum in place during transportation, and I consider finding one to be a real score!

The semi-transparent center core of the "dynamo" is a plastic cup from a fast food restaurant backed by a piece of bubble wrap.

An assortment of random bits I picked up off the ground at the rubbish dump provide the detail: some soda bottle caps, some plastic straws, a metal clamp, and some lengths of metal wire. The floor surface is a piece of waxed paper that lined a basket of chips from a take-out restaurant.

The foam pieces were painted with a mix of Krylon, Rustoleum, and inexpensive "store brand" ColorPlace spray paints. I used a combination of grey primer, rust-red primer, dark grey, and black paint on this build, with a light mist of "metallic bronze" on some of the raised detail. I do not "mask" anything, as I am going for a randomly weathered look... and because I'm lazy and in a hurry. This type of paint reacts with the styrofoam, causing the foam to melt or develop pits. The paint must be applied in multiple very light passes, with the spray can held some distance from the surface, with time to dry between passes, to avoid excessively damaging the foam. For my purposes, some damage to the foam was not problematic, as it adds to the aged, weathered appearance.

Were I trying to achieve a "stone" or "concrete" effect, I would apply the paint somewhat more heavily and allow less time between passes, because the dissolving effect contributes to a stone-like appearance.

The red tinted window on the right is a scrap of red tissue paper glued on from the back. The window bars are toothpicks. The blue light inside the "dynamo" is from a string of blue battery-operated holiday string lights or "fairy lights."

The scene was set up in a dark area. Overall lighting is provided by a hand-held battery-operated flashlight (torch).

Contrast and color saturation were tweaked slightly using the basic slider controls in Apple Photos (formerly iPhoto).

The figure is a circa 2017 Mattel "City Chic" Barbie which I got greedy and sold when the price for a loose, unboxed figure reached a hundred dollars, or nearly three times what I originally paid. This figure now sells for between $200 and $300 for a loose nude doll without clothes, around $300 to $500 for an unboxed doll with clothing, and $700 to $900 for a mint-in-box example!

'Kay, now I just wanna cry!  

Oh well... perhaps I can find solace thinking of all the money I save by constructing diorama sets out of trash I find in rubbish bins.

Great work Dave! I knew you would come through with something awesome

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

Great work Dave! I knew you would come through with something awesome

Thanks. It was interesting re-visiting this build – which is one of my personal favorites – and thinking about the techniques I used, particularly for the painting.

At some point I intend to replace the blue lights with a different color. Digital camera sensors tend to be somewhat oversensitive to blue, and this blue lighting scheme has given me a lot of trouble achieving decent results.

Very cool results guys! and a fab idea for a thread. At the moment, I have none of this stuff laying about, but I will keep an eye open for some .

What a great idea, and a couple of top class pieces !
I love making stuff from junk and I'll be sure to contribute something asap

I should be clear that the packaging does not need to be styrofoam. It can be any material commonly used to package products, that can be made to look like some sci fi-background or component thereof.

In an alternative universe, the other Miss Valentinova is engaged in heavy fighting against the Cybermen in the old derelict industrial area of District 7....

^ It's a v. quick one I knocked up just now.. basically old cardboard that's been left outside for weeks and a bit of glue !
I'll perhaps try some ' movie lighting' type shots later when it gets dark ( before it all goes in the bin ! )

looks good. A bit of metallic spray and a bit of rusty spray would make it looks great.

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

looks good.  A bit of metallic spray and a bit of rusty spray would make it looks great.

Good point, unfortunately all the shops here are going to be shut for the next 48 hrs or so due to poor ol' Queenie, so I'll have to make do with what I've got to hand !
I'll keep it for a while and fettle it tho..

There is no time limit, not limit to the number of entries that you can make.

Good stuff I'll have a hunt round for more junk during the week
I blacked out the room and tried a few with 'lighting' tho only had a dodgy old torch on a bit of wire, must try and find the camera tripod I'm sure I've got, somewhere !





These look a bit "Miss V. Tomb Raider"  
"Bring me the head of the Cyber Controller "...

Very nicely done. The sharp, highly directional lighting gives the impression of sunlight poking its way through the gaps in a battle scarred building. Contrast and shadows very convincing.

 Oh nooooo! After seeing these battle-damaged pix, I'm afraid there's yet another material I'll be scrounging up and keeping: old wet cardboard! The one thing I was usually willing to discard!

Great use of, well, of wet cardboard. Or cardboard that the cats have shredded! I'm gonna have to try this!

Oh, and: "dodgy old torch" lighting for the win! That's my standard go-to method! Cobbling together a wire stand is a good idea; I'll need to try that, too!

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

Very nicely done.  The sharp, highly directional lighting gives the impression of sunlight poking its way through the gaps in a battle scarred building. Contrast and shadows very convincing.  

Very generous praise, many thanks
Like the old press photographers though, I had to bang off loads of shots to get just a few good ones !

SCU_HQ wrote:

 Oh nooooo! After seeing these battle-damaged pix, I'm afraid there's yet another material I'll be scrounging up and keeping: old wet cardboard! The one thing I was usually willing to discard!

Great use of, well, of wet cardboard. Or cardboard that the cats have shredded! I'm gonna have to try this!

Oh, and: "dodgy old torch" lighting for the win! That's my standard go-to method! Cobbling together a wire stand is a good idea; I'll need to try that, too!

Dave you are obviously psychic ... much of the shredding was indeed done over a period by.. The Cat !!

Wet cardboard, brown paper, so many things that can be repurposed. The wall looks amazing Porky! Top work fella

When I moved six or so months years ago, I left behind most of my doll... I mean action figure... room boxes.

And then somehow, I... erm... acquired a few Ever After High figures. And what with their medieval theme and all, they really needed a castle in which to live, right? Okay, maybe not a castle in which to live; more like, a castle in which to have swordfights!

And where do swordfights normally take place? On a spiral staircase, 'natch!

So:


But how did I actually build this thing, and what did I used? Well, in keeping with the title of this topic, I used white glue, hot-melt glue, spray paint, and cast-off packing materials: styrofoam (or whatever you guys call it in the UK... poly-something something) and cardboard. At least some of the cardboard came from breakfast cereal boxes and take-out pizza boxes. Yes, used take-out pizza boxes. Remember: Re-use is the purest form of recycling! Keep it green!


Here are some additional photos from the build process:


After six years, this styro and cardboard staircase is still holding together and continues to be one of my more frequently used background scenery elements.

Oh, and, as for those sword fights... a lot of them ended up being chainsaw fights. Modern technology, y'know?


There ya go! Now get to work!

Epic !.. the barred window is very effective too ( oh and nice chainsaw )

Fantastic walk through Dave! I enjoyed that a lot, might have to have a go myself at this build

Great post Dave, and lovely images. If you want paint that won't damage styrofoam, Tamiya acrylic, though expensive, is completely safe on foam.

Wow Dave you can’t really tell that the spiral staircase was made out of flat non-corrugated cardboard, cardboard tissue tubes then painted up. The spiral staircase actually looks like it was created out of stone.

Blondeactionman wrote:

Fantastic walk through Dave! I enjoyed that a lot, might have to have a go myself at this build

Go on.. You know you want to !...

Blondeactionman wrote:

I enjoyed that a lot, might have to have a go myself at this build.

What you really want to try to construct is wrought iron spiral stairs like Reverend Spooky built. Me, too! I even purchased... purchased, not scavenged... some supplies for a project like that!

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

If you want paint that won't damage styrofoam, Tamiya acrylic, though expensive, is completely safe on foam.

The fumes from the toxic enamel paint and dissolving foam are half the fun!  
I use cheap Apple Barrel brand water-based acrylic craft paint for touch-ups and detailing.

The Robot King wrote:

The spiral staircase actually looks like it was created out of stone.

Welllll... I didn't want the other guys on the forum to feel bad, but I'm actually a master stonemason.     (Not really... but I wish! I could build my own real castle!)

Porky wrote:

Go on.. You know you want to !

So do you... so let's see it!  

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While you guys are busy in the loo gathering cardboard tubes so you can start on making stairs (you do always save those cardboard tubes from the tissue rolls, don't you?), here's some spaceship scenery. I may have already posted this elsewhere on the forum at one point, but if I've forgotten about it, you probably have, too.

Here's a behind the scenes look at how to quickly and inexpensively put together a fairly convincing space ship interior.

Well, I'm convinced. Your standards may be higher.  

First, here are a couple of demo photos. All I did in "post-production" was adjust saturation and contrast and sharpness using basic software:


Here's how I assembled the set using a few random bits of cardboard and styrofoam (polystyrene) packing material scavenged from rubbish and recycle bins and less than five minutes with spray paint. I use three colours of paint: flat black, flat grey primer, and flat rust primer.

The pressed cardboard pieces with the circular designs are the packaging from inexpensive floor lamps. I think the lamps cost something like ten dollars (US) or less. They're almost worth buying just to get the cool cardboard inserts!


Here's my fancy lighting setup - a desk lamp and a flashlight (electric torch). I turn off the main room lights, and dial back the exposure compensation on the camera by 1-1/3 f/stops. Otherwise, the camera is fully automatic. I move the desk lamp around, and sometimes hold it by hand, to continually change the lighting angles and create different shadows, while shooting a lot of images, most of which end up being discarded.


There ya go! Space ship interiors do not need to be fancy, especially for run-down smuggler and pirate space ships!

I have a few old canned food tins I still need to mist with paint, then I will add them to these scenes when I need to suggest a cargo hold or warehouse.

If I'm feeling ambitious, I will sometimes perform additional post-production image editing using inexpensive or free iPad apps. The two apps I use most frequently are called PhotoToaster and Mextures. I did not use anything on the images seen here other than the basic image editing slider controls for contrast, highlights, saturation, and vignette (gotta keep those corners dark and spooky).