#wicked colors

[lyrasaur]

I've seen lots of people talking about how the Wicked For Good title being placed over the tulip field signifies that the film is a lesbian love story and I definitely think it’s intentional. There's a scene at the end of the film that further cements this point and explains why the sapphism of the story isn't made more explicit.

The story goes full circle when we see Glinda begin to tell her tale as the camera pans out over the tulip field. However, instead of transitioning to the blue waters of the past like in Part 1, the camera zooms right back to Glinda as she cuts herself off and returns to the present moment.

The entire story of Wicked Parts 1 and 2 is contained in the 8 seconds where the camera is looking over the tulip field. It’s a story playing out in the head of a closeted lesbian about the woman she fell in love with and ultimately lost. All of this is encapsulated in this frame:

A field of tulips, representing deep and unconditional love, cut through the center by the yellow brick road. The color yellow symbolizes Glinda's intuition. Glinda is telling Elphaba’s story to the best of her knowledge, but she’s constrained by factors such as her compulsory heterosexuality and her inability to be completely objective. So even though the flowers are saying that it’s a love story, it’s obstructed by the biases of the narrator.

Above the tulips, a blue sky is being covered by white clouds and white light is shining down on the field. Blue is the color of Glinda & Elphaba's love and white/light represents lies. There are a lot of lies and cover ups trying to hide the love story from being fully visible to the audience. It's possible that Glinda is planning out the version of the story that will be most acceptable to the Ozians. It could also be that this version of the story is what Glinda concocted to fit with her worldview, as it’s unclear if Glinda is planning on sharing Elphaba’s story.

There are a lot of factors restricting the full story from being told, but the truth is peeking out among scattered flowers and the colors that manage to shine through the lies.

[coolmodelguy]

1/13/2020 Hellbent, Heilos’s Katana sword build. Build Log Ten.

The process of painting on the snowflakes has begun. The first two pictures showed what the blade looked like after the first coating of snowflake paint. I’m using the full blade stencils and Wicked Colors #0301 Pearl White airbrush paint.

The third through sixth pictures show the blade after three coatings of Pearl White. This is the most difficult paint step, in that I can rarely see the paint spray when it is being applied. I learned early on that the snowflakes demand a light misting spray rather than heavy coats. A forth coating was applied so that there was a bit more saturation than shown here. As of earlier today, I have applied three coatings of pearl white to the other side, one more coating to go.

The last four pictures I took just before Christmas, of my Wall of Swords. There are five swords, four completed and the fifth Mushi blade is on top of the 3D printer. The top sword is a Chinese Jian style sword I designed to test the 3D printers capability for making thin blades, I’ll write about it later on.

The main thing I want to draw your attention to is the snowflakes on the three Mushi katana blades. The top and bottom Mushi swords are painted with an opaque white snowflake. The first sword is on top,the second sword is on the bottom. The forth sword is in the middle, its snowflakes were painted with the Pearl White. The Pearl White is almost transparent in nature, its intensity varies with the lighting and the angle at which it is viewed. I find the opaque white easier to deal with, but my daughter convinced me that the Pearl White was much better for snowflakes. Her wisdom rules.

The forth sword has a new home now, the next time I show the Wall of Swords the fifth Mushi Sword of Heilos will be in the center wall mount between the first two. The time is close!

[lyrasaur]

Alice Brooks when she announced blue is the color of Glinda and Elphaba’s love

[coolmodelguy]

Hellbent, Mushi’s Katana sword build. Build Log Ten (Part 1 of 3).

Mushi’s Sword, Version-1 with the long handle, complete.

[coolmodelguy]

2/02/2020 Hellbent, Heilos’s Katana sword build. Build Log Eleven.

Winter cold and wet, finally gave way to winter sunny and mild. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to get some painting done. I had to learn the hard way that neither wet or cold worked well for painting, so I was very grateful for a break in the weather.

The first three pictures are of the Tsuba (hand guard) and both Seppa (spacers). These part had all previously stuck to each other and had paint come off of them. The Seppa were sanded down on their faces, whereas the missing paint on the Tsuba was all hidden behind the spacers so I just sanded the edges of the missing paint areas. All three parts got a coating of white paint as a base coat, which allowed the new color coat to be uniform. The base coat is needed or the darker areas where the paint was missing would show through the new color. The base coat and the color coat had the “Balancing Clear” surface hardener added this time, to keep the parts from sticking to each other again.

The forth and fifth pictures show each side of the blade with the snowflakes painted. The blade now needs to be clear coated with transparent paint that is slightly tinted with Cobalt Blue or Violet. The sixth picture shows the blade ready to receive the clear paint.

During the stencil painting, some of the white paint bled under the stencils which forms a powdery flaw that feels like fine sandpaper around the snowflakes. This powdery paint is not actually adhering to the surface, so it is easily rubbed out by wet sanding the blade surface with 600 grit sandpaper. The wet sanding leaves fine scratches on the surface, which show up well in the seventh picture. The clear coating will make these scratches disappear.

The last three pictures show the blade after the surface has been clear coated. Very pretty and much more shiny. This also gives the visual effect that the snowflakes are in the blade, close to the blade surface. Cool!

[coolmodelguy]

Hellbent, Heilos’s Katana sword build. Build Log Six.

The first two pictures show the silver paint on the blade from different angles. Depending on which angle you are looking at is, the silver is dominant or the silver fades showing the blue underneath. After looking at the blade when the paint had fully cured, I think the silver is a bit too light so I am going to add another coating.

The third picture shows all the gold parts. The forth picture shows the handle parts with the Ice blue snowflake ornaments that go onto each part. The fifth picture shows the snowflake hand guard painted in an light ice blue color which I custom mixed from Wicked Colors Pearlized White, Clear Base and a very tiny amount of Transparent Cobalt Blue.

Now it is time to fit the parts together so that the holes for the dowels that hold the sword together can be drilled out. This is done after the painting because paint adds thickness to some of the parts which can affect the hole alignment. The 1/4″ holes are drilled out of the handle before assembly to lessen stress on the parts when the tang is drilled through.

This is the first tie the sword has been assembled since the painting started. With the dowels in place I hefted the sword, it feels nice and solid. There is still more painting work ahead for the blade and more work to do on the handle, that will be covered in the next build log.

Cheers!

[coolmodelguy]

Hellbent, Mushi’s Katana sword build. Build Log Ten (Part 3 of 3).

Mushi’s Sword, long handle and short handle versions together. Both swords are 42 inches long. Longer handle equals shorter sword blade, and shorter handle equals longer sword blade.

The next build will be Version -3 with the medium length handle which should fit my hands better, where I will also test out the new stencils and try a new approach with the snowflakes. What I will be going for is snowflakes that blend into the blade at some angles and stand out when the blade changes angle. The new stencils will allow me to experiment because I can reuse them and properly realign them for do-overs. I also want to lighten up the blue on the tip half of the blade, have it look more like the hand guard.

Stay tuned, more to come!

[coolmodelguy]

Hellbent, Heilos’s Katana sword build. Build Log Eight.

The sword blade had already been painted with the blue base coat and then a coat of Wicked Silver. There was still too much blue showing through the silver, so the blade needed another coating of Wicked Silver paint.

The first picture is of the waterproof 600 grit sandpaper, which is very fine. The painted surface needed to be sanded very lightly, using water on the sandpaper to keep the surface very smooth. The sandpaper was cut with rounded corners, so there would be no sharp edges to put scratches into the paint. The second picture shows my wet sanding kit, small squares of paper shop towels, a spray bottle with water and a small bowl to wet the sandpaper in. The third picture shows the blade being wet sanded, the little towels are used to clean the blade afterward and remove all the wet paint sludge.

The forth and fifth pictures show the blade ready for paint in the ventilated storage area that I cleaned up and made ready for paint projects. Now that the winter cold is here, I cannot do airbrush paint inside my workshop where it is warm. The cold air slows down the paint dry and cure times by quite a lot, but this setup is much better than not being able to paint at all!

The remaining pictures are all different angles of the blade after the second coat of silver. The blade now also has the transparent Violet painted on the back half of the blade and the transparent Cobalt Blue front half. Unfortunately, these pictures are not showing the true nature of the colors, they look much better in person.

The blade is now ready to have the snowflakes painted on, that step is next.

Cheers everyone and Happy New year 2020!