David's Hudolin TARDIS Build

[Berenvonbaggins]

...and the prophecy unfolds! It's looking fantastic, David!
It's funny how we look at an unfinished paint job here and a small voice inside us says "That would make a good TARDIS look, too." The battered blue box look suits any TARDIS build in my opinion. Interestingly, this is sort of how I imagined the TARDIS looked for a bit while the Doctor went to fight in the Time War, scuffed around the edges, etc.

[davidnagel]

So back to the remainder of the build process, going to gloss over some bits but will try and add them back in somewhere soon. I need to find all the images, I reached the point where I stopped taking pictures :|

Windows

As per previous process, but not with texture and paint



and with the glass I chose from a company called "Light and Lead" (the less we talk about my experience using a tile cutter to cut the glass panes down to size, the better), siliconing in with some clear acrylic greenhouse (easy to cut and snap etc) sheet.



Testing the windows and how they slotted in was paramount, so here we are with the doors and their windows, adding those spinny hardware things that I have forgotten the name...



As per previous post, it did get painted all over with a black. Looking good even in black if you ask me!



Painting

Of course, the last stretch was painting the thing blue. The kids and their cousins had a whale of a time slapping paint on (I only ordered 2 litres thinking this was enough), fortunately there was an ounce left for touch ups at its first event.



Splendid!



And then any picture from here was of the box with added signs and other bits and pieces... at the gallery thread!

And for those interested in the budget... I'm sure theres a few things missing and there could have been lots of corners cutting by not making mistakes/planning better etc etc, but the ultimate tally of all materials and even new things to get here was ....

::drumroll:

£1007

Make of that what you will. If someone is interested in the full shopping list, I can share my budget spreadsheet I used for tracking costs etc.

[russellsuthern]

Money well spent.
She looks a thousand dollars!!
 

Russell

[Berenvonbaggins]

Money well spent.
She looks a thousand dollars!!
 

Russell

Or, you could say she looks a thousand pounds; financially and physically! (Or is it impolite to comment on a TARDIS' weight  )

[Volpone]

That's another one of the things that surprises someone who's never built a TARDIS.  You just go "Oh, it's some plywood and paint and some other odds and ends, should be able to do it for 2, 300 dollars."  10-15 years ago, you'd have had a hard time building even the most basic, not accurate full-sized TARDIS for $500 (unless you managed to scrounge your materials like Russell).  1,000 pounds is about right for a project like this.

[davidnagel]

Travelling back in time (how appropriate) for some building snaps of

Lintels



And realising that the little shorter quarter round I added, didn't really make any difference as this next picture will demonstrate.


Signs

I like doing a dalek-style stack up of the parts, so I slapped the front sign in just to reassure myself I was doing the right thing.



Even not finished in this state, it really brings it all together.

Texturing

The earliest texturing going on with an itty-bitty roller, terrible idea - it should have been a big fat ass roller if you ask me!





The roof is what I neglected the most through the entire process, last to receive texture and last to receive paint. Poor roof.

[davidnagel]

That's another one of the things that surprises someone who's never built a TARDIS.  You just go "Oh, it's some plywood and paint and some other odds and ends, should be able to do it for 2, 300 dollars."  10-15 years ago, you'd have had a hard time building even the most basic, not accurate full-sized TARDIS for $500 (unless you managed to scrounge your materials like Russell).  1,000 pounds is about right for a project like this.

I still say this about other things right now, even the basic plywood one would get for such a project, nah, need to think more realistically!

[davidnagel]

Lol not sure whats going on with these pictures, they're like 3-4MB and I'm using resizepixel.com to bring them to under the forum limit and these ones, today only mind, look terrible

[Volpone]

The lintels are (no pun intended) probably the biggest thing about the Hudolin box.  The font, how much they stick out.  Next is probably the window panes, then either the lamp or the phone sign.  Took me years of being on this board before I even noticed how square the panels are on it but that's one of the subliminal things that makes it look like the Hudolin while you can't actually put your finger on it. 

With that, I'll go off on one of my tangents for just a bit:  The vast majority of people out there do NOT have the attention to detail that we have.  Lately I've been playing solitaire (with cards instead of on the computer) enough to wear out decks.  First got the Bicycle (the main US card company) deck with the blue back.  Then I got a deck with a red back.  Played with it awhile and started to realize the faces seemed different.  Got the two packs out.  The blue deck was "bridge size" and the red deck was "standard size."  (But both were labeled "standard face".)  Maybe it was just stretching to fit the different sized card stock that I was seeing.  Kept playing but couldn't shake it so I did side-by side comparisons of some of the face cards and there were definite differences.  Since it is easy to get ahold of companies these days and they all have PR departments, I e-mailed them to ask if there was some trivia reason for the difference (so dealers can spot cheating or something) and they had no idea that the standard face on the bridge deck was different from the standard face on the standard deck.  And here's the kicker:  They asked me to send them pictures and when I looked at them, they said it was just a difference due to the resizing for the different deck dimensions.  I'm like "no it isn't, the Queen of Clubs is holding a red flower on one deck and a yellow flower on the other," etc. 

I listed other differences but I've already derailed enough.  My point is...actually, I can make my point and somewhat come back on topic.  When I built my box, it was not at all screen accurate.  This was by design.  I was trying to keep it simple and to keep costs down.  Eventually I wasn't happy with it and reworked it to be more accurate.  I showed a couple friends--pretty smart friends at that--before and after pictures and they were like "I don't see the difference."  Now you guys, it wouldn't take a second to see the difference, but most people, it's tall and blue and has windows and a light on top.  It's the TARDIS. 

So in a desperate attempt to come back on topic, nice job with all the steps you did to make this not just a very nice TARDIS, but a very nice TV Movie TARDIS.  All the steps of painting, the weathering, getting the proportions and fonts and all the other little details right.  Most people will miss most of it.  Most of us will notice a lot of it, but some of it is at an almost subliminal level.  It makes the build work and if it wasn't there it would still be a nice build and we probably wouldn't know it was missing--or couldn't put our finger on it, but having done it, it's like "aaahhh...that's it." 

And all this adds to the time, expense, and difficulty of getting a build just right. 

[Berenvonbaggins]

Not to get too far off topic, but it looks like that image resizing website crunches down the photo sizes by reducing the number of colors used, instead of changing the resolution. That would explain the odd look of the colors, it's probably trying to to choose an average color. This site I've found is useful, hopefully it helps. https://resizeimage.net/

Getting back on topic, that technique for the texturing worked a treat! I thought it looked a lot more complex, but it's hard to beat the simplicity of that roller brush technique!   

[davidnagel]

I might come back and fix those picture at a later date, and maybe not rely on a random internet sit to fix them

The lintels are (no pun intended) probably the biggest thing about the Hudolin box.  The font, how much they stick out.  Next is probably the window panes, then either the lamp or the phone sign.  Took me years of being on this board before I even noticed how square the panels are on it but that's one of the subliminal things that makes it look like the Hudolin while you can't actually put your finger on it. 

Its funny you say this about the lintels, its the lintels that aren't accurate at all on my build - but sssh, only the rivet-counters will notice!!

[Volpone]

Interesting!  That just goes to show, this board has the most obsessive-compulsive, detail-oriented people anywhere. 

Anyway, I guess my attention to detail isn't that great either (or I haven't studied the Hudolin prop that closely).  But the thing about the lintels that someone like me picks up on is how much more they stick out than on any other prop.  And the different font.  Your lintels stick way out and have a different font.  I'd say they have the right font, but then I'll find out it isn't at all the right font.  Looks like the right font to me, though. 

The funny thing is, anyone that doesn't post here won't notice any of that.  When I renovated my TARDIS to make it more accurate, none of my friends could tell the difference--even when looking at side-by-side photos. 

[davidnagel]

In the lead up to an event at the weekend, I thought maybe if they put me near a wall I'll get my top sign lights working! Did they? No they did not. So shelved for now till the next event.



(yes those are b00b mugs in the background, courtesy of the SO)

[davidnagel]

Overdue on the list was fixing a gap between the lantern base and the top of the roof (because my bolts and thread inserts weren't aligning anymore) by adding some depth to the bottom.





Pending full paint job now.

We aren't going to talk about my inability to measure twice and cut once...