I was rather fascinated by the variety of kits Holliewood had available in Mischief Circus, and couldn't resist doing a mashup involving the Techno Toybox set, and Hotel Hell and Nightmare. The Torture chamber grabbed me, along with the bugs – and since computers also get bugs, I was on the way.
Hotel Hell is here:
https://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/product.php?productid=21327&cat=0&page=1
Welcome to my Nightmare
Techno Toybox:
https://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/product.php?productid=22693&cat=0&page=1
Spray Alphabet:
https://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/product.php?productid=22275&cat=0&page=1
In Greek Mythology, Pandora opened a container she shouldn't have, and all sorts of nastinesses escaped into the pure world. Perhaps if it had happened today, she would have had an X-box, opened that up and released smoke, voided the warranty, and released other nasties.
The techno pcb background stood out as being not too busy for other items to be superimposed. Printed on standard paper, glued to an offcut of mat board which my local picture framer gives away. With a Prima stencil, I went over with three different Lindys Stamp Gangcolours and a sponge, shifting the stencil with each layer.
At this stage, I knew I was incorporating a pcb as part of the base, and had auditioned the positioning of various other elements. This is becoming a decidedly hybrid project – both with kit themes and digi vs non-digi elements. Well in to the piece, it told me it was going to be a triptych! The left side will be Pandora. The right side has yet to reveal itself to me.
Digital elements were printed out on white, or green paper and fussy-cut. Bugs & blood were printed on OHP transparencies, and bug antennae enhanced with a line of Viva's black pearl pen. The torture chamber was printed twice, once as mirror image, the doors cut off and attached to the back of the doors of the copy I was using in full, with double-sided tape. But before sticking together, I inserted dressmaking pins where the visual spikes came through. The sticky tape helps the heads of the pins stay between the 2 layers of doors. The hand coming out of the dirt pile was overpainted with Jacquard interference red. Slits cut in the straps at the bottom of the torture chamber allowed the hand element to slip through, with a foam dot behind it to bring it forward from the chamber. The chamber was also backed onto thick foam before attaching to the pcb background, so the doors can swing to & fro.
For a torture chamber with spikes, there had to be blood stains, and this was reflected in the lettering: Mischief Circus' Spray Alphabet to the rescue, printed on an OHP with a cream tint to the overall background (a bit subtle for my camera skills) then cut out with a jagged-tooth pair of scissors. Time to “dress” the scene with insect and fossil stamps from
http://buttersidedownstamps.com , and worms from
http://www.vlvstamps.com/ – some stamped
onto slivers of a CD again reflecting the techno slant of the piece. Wikipedia helped me find Error messages – including a couple unique to real X-boxes! These were written onto cuttlebugged bats. The cobweb was made by freehand drawing it on a teflon sheet in pearl 3D Lumiere, peeled off when dry and dropped over the “nails”.
This was intended to be a free-standing piece, so a base was necessary – incorporating a pcb, skulls, and a famous building from
Silver Crow Creations , with steps leading up to the torture chamber. A “flame” of Jacquard 3D Lumiere topped the skull heads.
Digital elements were printed out on white, or green paper and fussy-cut. Bugs & blood were printed on OHP transparencies, and bug antennae enhanced with a line of Viva's black pearl pen. The torture chamber was printed twice, once as mirror image, the doors cut off and attached to the back of the doors of the copy I was using in full, with double-sided tape. But before sticking together, I inserted dressmaking pins where the visual spikes came through. The sticky tape helps the heads of the pins stay between the 2 layers of doors. The hand coming out of the dirt pile was overpainted with Jacquard interference red. Slits cut in the straps at the bottom of the torture chamber allowed the hand element to slip through, with a foam dot behind it to bring it forward from the chamber. The chamber was also backed onto thick foam before attaching to the pcb background, so the doors can swing to & fro.
The Big Reveal!!
