Boy, sure is alot of stuff in this movie, I was pretty cavalier when planning this thing. Beaucoup props. This was a fun one though. Only one day. Feels like i'm spoiling myself, getting to see something from start to finish in one day. Might do something tedious tommorrow, or spoil myself more with more quick stuff.

Need some extras; 16th century armour and weapons. Fun.

Now I gotta polish off the interior. Don't want to spend too long on it; i'm already over my time budget for the carriage.

I took one of these pictures and some frames of other characters from other scenes, and put them together in a shot it AE. Very useful to do. I noticed that, of all the surface area in the interior, there's actually only a couple little spots that get alot of screen time. I.E. I should spend my time on these spots. Rather than making a really nice floor, for example.

Some slightly-out of date pictures (a couple days old). The pictures seem to turn out better when they start as full-size jpegs. See the little footstep thing below the door? That's what I was making when I hacked my finger. It just had to have that little compound curve on it.

Gave my finger a bit of a slice on Sunday. Had to get stitches. It happened in some strange sequence of events - blade got stuck in a block of wood, snapped, block of wood slipped. Or something like that. But I can still work. Though my right hand isn't as mobile as before.

Inches away from being done the carriage. Should be able to make the cushions for the inside today. Might add some paint to the inside - a nice naval buff maybe.

Fooling around with what the lighting might be like for the climactic scene.

Getting close to done. Still some details left to do. Haven't attached the cab to the undercarriage yet. Gonna be careful about the wheel placement. Back wheels need to be a bit more forward, and the cab about 1/4" higher. Might add paint to the undercarriage. The brownness is a little suffocating.

Just so everybody knows, I have to moderate all comments on my blog. 19 out of 20 are porn-site spammers trying to increase their Google rating.

Allright. Now I finally have some time/inclination to write a little. Not much of a blogger. Would rather work.

Carriage is getting pretty close to done. The glossiness is creating alot of work. I'm not even sure if it's a good idea. The 'boot' (sticky-outy part at the front of the carriage) was glossy, but I was finding it to hard to get it smooth. Balsa don't varnish very well. So I gave it a final sand and gave it a coat of matte polyurethane. I'm digging the bright orange. It's the official orange of the film. Gonna make multiple appearances - the carriage, Lord William's flag, his footmen, and the dress he gives Anna Maria.

The wheels weren't easy. Took lot of head scratching before I figured out a way to do it. Couldn't cut them out of a large single piece of balsa, as balsa snaps easily along the grain. So I laminated two pieces together, with the grain perpendicular. Then I hacked them out with a blade. The result was crude, but I found that gluing a thin piece of basswood along the inside and outside fixed up the wonkiness.

Getting there. The undercarriage is pretty silly. I like it. Very swoopy.

I'm gonna change the colour scheme a little. Gonna replace the reddish-brown panel (see top photos) with a bright red orange. Also gonna keep wet sanding and painting the orange and black until they're nice and smooth.

Gonna have to build the damn wheels soon.

The assembly (bottom half of top photo) is the fore part of the undercarriage. It's not realistic and doesn't function, but it doesn't matter. Just has to give the impression of a bunch of metal junk down there.

I slapped some stain on the carriage in its 'wood planking' state. It was all wrong. Looked very rustic and earthy. The owner of this carriage is supposed to be aristocracy. I began laboriously filling and sanding, and priming, and filling more, and sanding, and priming. Trying to get an automotive-like finish. Not perfect, but enough to sell it.