MARSSC2NathanielOrr

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Looking back at our model escape room, in comparison to the Evidence Room, which was the escape room our class attended for research, Their escape rooms all different themes and went into a bit more detail with their puzzles where as compared to ours, it's is a lot simpler. The evidence room's themes include ones like the Rendlesham room which was based around the UFO sighting in the 80s, there was also a sci-fi room and an ancient room, our theme was 'fairy tales' and we all stuck to that really well, having each clue be linked to an iconic story. I think if we were to scale this room into a real escape room, it would definitely work, but it might be a bit too simple, most of the clues and puzzles are just riddles so I think once people figure out the first few they'd find the rest really easy. There are a few factors that would help, like obviously some of the puzzles are a bit more difficult, like mine for example requires you to decode a pigpen code which translates to a riddle that leads you somewhere else, so things like that would take up a bit of time, also the fact that we have some decoy puzzles and red herrings among the 16 codes. Now, if the room was mine there would be a few more code ideas involved. I think that 16 codes is a good amount so the simpler ones would be taken out or put at the start, I would want to have a puzzle that involves things from the stories and are more puzzle solving, for example, having a goldy locks themed puzzle where it's three weights and you need to place three bowls on them in the right order to open up something else, or a jack and the beanstalk task where there are four tiles that need to be placed into slots on a locked box, the tiles have a cow, a bean, a giant and a beanstalk on them and they need to be placed in the order that they appear in the book to open the box, so it would be beans, cow, beanstalk and giant.

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These are the three portfolio sheets our class had to do for our most recent project, which was to design props for a fairy tale themed escape room model. Mine was a comic book cover based on the story of Hansel and Gretel, and while pursuing this outcome, I made several other items, like the background for a classmates window, which was just my comic cover without the title, the small clay wooden character and obviously, the printed comic which I used sandpaper on to age, as well as tea bag water on the pages. I go over my process and my research in the first slide, my physical outcomes and development in the second, and my final outcome on the third.

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This is the nearly finished version of the escape room, we still need to place a few things around but this is for the most part, the finalised outcome, I’ve taken a few closer pictures to showcase my outcomes and where they are in the set, that being the wooden clay character from my comic ‘thunk’, my printed miniature comic book which is rested on the bench, and my picture being the outside of the window. I’m really happy with all of my outcomes and think they fit nicely into the vibe of the room.

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This is my end of project poster, we had to pick three process pictures for the first three boxes, then showcase our outcomes in the large square at the bottom, and finish with a short evaluation of the project. I used my pictures from my scrapbook page of my characters for the first box, also the draft sketch of my poster and the early stages of my wooden clay figure. Obviously I put my outcomes in the large box, being my digital poster and the printed comic book version of it, as well as my wooden clay figure, fully constructed and painted.

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Today I made the scrapbook for my next and final project, using red thread to sew it together. I used four A3 pages so I ended up with sixteen large pages, considering the project is three months and I already know what I'm going to do and I already have all of my characters designed and posed, I shouldn't need that many pages hopefully.

[marssc2nathanielorr]

These are some codes from the shows Gravity Falls and Amphibia, I really like the symbols they came up with as they match the vibe of the show, amphibia looks like something from an ancient temple and gravity falls looks like something you’d see in an old book.

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I wanted to showcase some more codes here and talk about how they work and a little about what makes me like them. Morse Code is probably the most iconic code to date, it’s spoken through sounds like knocking, beeping and tapping. The semaphore code is spoken through times on a clock face. Each time is a different letter, this is a really cool idea but it’s never really used very often. The next two are just the regular ciphers that change the letters to symbols, this is the most common use of codes in media because it’s easy to translate.

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Today I was asked to finish off the picture frames for my classmates pictures. I used the laser cutter to do this with the help of my teacher and they came out really nicely.

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I was asked to put my image as the background for the window which a classmate of mine made. But since my comic cover had the title ‘Hansel and Gretel’ on top and I hadn’t filled in the background behind the writing, I made a copy of the image and got rid of the title, then filled in the blanks and also fixed a few small things like how the light coming through the branches was a bit bent so I straightened it out. The page at the top is the page I printed off to get the right size for the window.

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Once I put the code into my comic book, I put a copy of the pigpen cipher in the back so they can decipher the code, but again I left out some of the letters so they have to figure out which letters are missing, next I got some sandpaper and started to rough up the sides of the pages and make it look aged, then I got some water with tea bags in it and used a paint brush to make the pages look older. Finally I used some thread to see the pages together because the glue wasn’t holding after the water was added.

[marssc2nathanielorr]

Today I made my miniature comic book by printing out the cover with a grey background next to it on the page and arranging five different sizes around the page, once I printed the page off I decided which one I would use and I went for the second smallest. Then I measured the page and cut out some paper and folded them to be like double pages, I then glued all of them together to appear like a book. Once that was done I started to figure out what the code inside the book would be. It leads to a roll of carpet with a golden bird on it so I knew I had to made it relevant to that and I was doing a pigpen code so I came up with a list of possible riddles, I eventually landed on ‘gold marks the flight path’ I also left out some letters to make it a bit more of a challenge.

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Mark Hogancamp is an artist who uses handmade models and miniature sets as a way to tell stories and process his own experiences. After suffering a serious attack that affected his memory and ability to draw like he used to, he began building a detailed fictional world using 1/6 scale figures, mainly set during World War II. He photographs these models in carefully staged scenes, creating dramatic images that mix history, fantasy, and personal symbolism. A lot of his work reflects his trauma, fears, and recovery, but it’s shown through characters and stories instead of being directly literal. I think what’s really interesting about Hogancamp’s work is how he turns something like model-making, which could be seen as a hobby, into a powerful form of storytelling and self-expression, showing how art can be used in unexpected ways to heal and communicate ideas.

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When Christianity, especially through the Catholic Church, spread across Britain and other countries like Norway, it had a huge impact on older pagan ceremonies and folklore that already existed there. A lot of pagan beliefs were either replaced, rewritten, or slowly blended into Christian traditions so they wouldn’t disappear completely but also wouldn’t directly clash with the Church. In Britain, many nature spirits, gods, and seasonal festivals were reinterpreted as saints’ days, demons, or superstitions, which changed how people talked about folklore and made it feel more “hidden” or dangerous over time. In Norway, old Norse beliefs about beings like trolls and the Jotun didn’t just vanish, but they were often turned into monsters or threats in stories, instead of powerful or respected figures like they were in pagan mythology. You can still see this influence in modern media, like The Ritual, where an ancient god inspired by the Jotun is worshipped through ritual sacrifice in a remote village, showing how these old beliefs survived in darker, secretive ways. Cabin in the Woods also links into this idea with the “Old Ones,” which are clearly inspired by Lovecraft’s Cthulhu and other ancient god myths, suggesting that humanity has always tried to bury these older belief systems under newer religions. I think this shows how Christianity didn’t fully erase pagan folklore, but instead reshaped it into horror stories, myths, and monsters, which actually makes them more interesting and influential in modern storytelling.

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For my extension research into “other codes,” I looked at the Noahide Laws in Judaism and the Bible Code conspiracy because they both focus on the idea of hidden rules or meanings guiding human behaviour. The Noahide Laws are a set of moral principles said to apply to all of humanity, not just Jewish people, and they’re interesting because they act like a universal code for how society should function, covering things like justice, respect for life, and responsibility. On the other hand, the Bible Code conspiracy looks at the belief that secret messages and predictions are hidden within the text of the Bible through complex letter patterns and mathematical systems. Even though this theory is widely debated and criticised, it’s still interesting from a research point of view because it shows how people search for patterns and deeper meanings in ancient texts.

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Today I finished my Hansel and Gretel poster, I started with finishing my tree with the treehouse on it, doing the different colours of moss first, then doing the bark and adding some small details as I go along like some small patches of darker and lighter shades like I’ve done on the bottom of the tree, the leaves at the top and the ground, I wanted to do this all over the place but I ran out of time. Then I finished the bush with the lighter bottom half. Then I did a simple background with three trees with some really simple shading, I did this so that it wouldn’t make the image look too cluttered and due to lack of time. Once I finished with the shading and filling in the blank spaces I finished with adding a white outline to the title since it was getting hard to read in places. I’ve attached the finished version at the bottom so you can see the better quality. Overall I’m really happy with this cover.

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Here are some reference pictures from Pinterest, these came in handy when I was designing my tree for my poster which has a gingerbread treehouse, especially the bottom image which shows how to draw the moss on different layers.

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Today I was asked to finish the wallpaper of another student so my teacher could photo copy it and put it into the model room, all I had to do was trace the drawings of pies on the paper underneath using the light box.