What have you made lately?

[Zykon TheLich]

Here's a few of my favorites from Hecq (real name, Ben Lukas Boysen.) "I Am you" in particular is one of my favorite tracks of all time. Not "oldschool hardcore/gabba rave" by any stretch, but really shows Boysen's versatility and his ability to capture a wide range of emotions. If "I Am you" isn't aural desolation, I don't know what is.

Yeah, I really like that, thanks for the tip, he's got a load of stuff on bandcamp so I'll probably pick some up there.


Anyway, to try and get back on topic, here's some shit I bodged together out of other shit.

Spoiler

I think I am basically a fully qualified carpenter now.

 

[Absent]

Actually, to make Rutger balance when walking across the plank I had to screw screws through his feet, and in some frames I had accidentally filmed screws lying on top of the plank. I have edited that out via simple copy-and-paste of a part of the plank where there are no screws lying.

As a matter of fact: the first step Rutger takes towards the plank/the camera was achieved by wrapping his waist in steel wire and me holding the edge of the wire, very visibly, on camera. I have edited out my hand and the wire as well with the same method, though the steel wire can still be seen in some frames, including the one that acts as the film's thumbnail.

Digital editing. We didn't have that with our VHS tapes and super8 reels.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I made this game console shelf and set of speaker stands, all from scratch (including the drawers, which were a bugger. They're not 100% perfect as I'd like, but they work and I'm happy about it). The only stuff that's plugged in are the consoles on the top shelf. The others are for display, with the cords and controllers in the drawers on the left.
And before anyone asks about the flamingo hole... I used to run a soundbar and subwoofer combo. That space was made for the subwoofer. I may or may not go back to that kind of setup in time, we'll see.
It's not perfect, but overall though, it's much better than the last console shelf I made and I'm pleased with the result

 

[Baffle]

WIP on the rocket stove. Yeah, the welding is shit, but in my defence I'm not very good at it.

Spoiler

[\spoiler]

 

[Baffle]

Made some shirts. It's early days and I won't be leaving the house (ballsed the sleeves on the last one).

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

View attachment 8865

I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this shirt in a dance club in 1991.

 

[Baffle]

I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this shirt in a dance club in 1991.

I'm bringing it back.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Made some shirts. It's early days and I won't be leaving the house (ballsed the sleeves on the last one).

View attachment 8865 View attachment 8866View attachment 8867

Is it much cheaper to make your own clothes than to buy them? I was thinking about learning how to do this at one point, but it just seems like cloth is really expensive.

 

[Asita]

Some foodstuffs.

1) Homemade Vanilla Extract. Pretty dang simple, actually. Get some vanilla beans, cut them up, put them in a jar. Pour in some alcohol (first time doing it, so I used some cheap Kentucky Gentlemen). Shake it up a bit daily for about 2 months and keep it out of direct sunlight, and you're good to go.

And I used this to make:

2) Homemade "no-churn" ice cream. Again, surprisingly simple.

• Additives are very flexible, I added caramel sauce and tiny chocolate chip 'morsels' to mine for a nice caramel swirl ice cream
• Get a can of Sweetened Condensed Milk, pour it into a mixing bowl.
• In a separate mixing bowl, pour a pint (about 500 mL) of heavy cream, about 3 tablespoons of Vanilla (I like a stronger vanilla flavor than the recipe calls for), and a pinch of salt (little oddity of making sweets. A tiny bit of salt is only detectable in that it makes the dishes sweeter), and whisk it up until it starts getting 'peaks' (basically until it starts acting like good whipped cream)
• Start adding your now-whipped cream to the condensed milk and gently fold it in. You want to thoroughly spread and mix the stuff without really sacrificing its fluffiness.
• Heat up some caramel sauce in the microwave. Shouldn't take more than 10 seconds or so. You just want it warm enough to be runny. Set that aside for now
• Once everything is mixed, pour about 1/3 of your mixture into the loaf pan.
• Drizzle of caramel sauce across the top of it. You don't need a lot here, just enough to create a 'snake' pattern across the top.
• Sprinkle some chocolate morsels across the top. Again, shouldn't be especially dense, but you'll want to scatter a good number across it.
• Take a knife, put it straight down into the pan, and drag it back and forth to disrupt that snake pattern and encourage those additives into the rest of the layer. You want to end up with a nice marbled pattern
• Add the next 1/3 of the mixture and repeat until it's all in the pan.
• Cover it with sealing wrap (try to get it flush against your ice cream, there should be as little air in there as possible)
• Put it in the freezer for 5 hours

I was quite pleased with it. It was perhaps a little rich, but very tasty.

 

[Baffle]

Is it much cheaper to make your own clothes than to buy them? I was thinking about learning how to do this at one point, but it just seems like cloth is really expensive.

Realistically no, you can't compete with the price of fast fashion. Ethical concerns around fast fashion is kind of what sent me in this direction: we aren't paying a fair amount for our clothes (a short-sleeved shirt like one of these takes me around 4-5 hours, a long-sleeved one a bit longer because cuffs are a bastard) and they aren't produced in good conditions. I would earn many times what it would cost to buy these shirts if I just spent that time at work but the price jump on 'ethically sourced' clothes, with no proof of those claims, is just too much for me.

The other thing is that I've got long arms (on the long-sleeved shirts there I've extended the arms by about three inches and the cuffs by an extra inch) so off-the-peg shirts either have embarrassingly short sleeves I always have to wear rolled up, or I have to go up a few sizes and then everything else is massive.

I think it's worth learning if you enjoy making things, you particularly like fashions that aren't currently popular (for me it's late 90s and early 2000s), you're a weird shape, or if you buy second-hand/clearance clothes (because you can adjust them so you have a wider range to choose from; my favourite hoodie is an adjusted XL while I'm an M, but I get to keep the massive XL hood on it, which I like).

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

'ethically sourced' clothes

Only 3 severe beatings per 16hr shift in ethical 3rd world sweatshops!

 

[Baffle]

Only 3 severe beatings per 16hr shift in ethical 3rd world sweatshops!

Pretty much! Far too many times big companies have been caught out buying from poor suppliers and then distanced themselves as it's a 'supply chain issue' and they were let down by third-party suppliers. Like, mate, it's your fucking job to make sure that doesn't happen! You're the one with all the power in the supply chain!

 

[Xprimentyl]

Obviously I didn't "make" this, but friends of ours had a faded Captain Morgan statue in their backyard. A couple of weeks ago, we were visiting them, hanging out and having some drinks, and I made a drunken promise that I could restore it. The husband (drunkenly) agreed it was good idea. Fast-forward to a few days ago, and he called me saying he really wanted to do the statue for his wife's birthday... this Saturday. "Oh shit" was my knee-jerk reaction; I thought for sure he was too drunk to even remember I offered, but alas, a couple hours later, faded Captain Morgan was in our yard. Made a run to Hobby Lobby, bought a shit-ton of paint, and well, I'm pretty damned proud of the result. I almost don't wan to give it back!

 

[Thaluikhain]

You should get drunk and promise to repaint pirates more often, looks great.

 

[Xprimentyl]

You should get drunk and promise to repaint pirates more often, looks great.

Haha! Thanks, but I think the lesson here is to not make drunk promises. Restoring the captain was fun, but it wasn't easy, and I don't want to do it again!

 

[Xprimentyl]

Okay, finished product as far as I'm concerned. Repainted (AGAIN) with a high gloss lacquer. It might last a year or two, but I really don't care after these past few days. Our friends are just arriving back from a trip to the Cayman Islands; I DARE them to have any opinion other than biblical amounts of gratitude.

 

[davidmc1158]

Okay, finished product as far as I'm concerned. Repainted (AGAIN) with a high gloss lacquer. It might last a year or two, but I really don't care after these past few days. Our friends are just arriving back from a trip to the Cayman Islands; I DARE them to have any opinion other than biblical amounts of gratitude.

View attachment 9061

So. . . . . could you consider this the largest warhammer figurine you've ever painted?

On a more serious note, it looks great. Congrats on the good work!

 

[Xprimentyl]

So. . . . . could you consider this the largest warhammer figurine you've ever painted?

On a more serious note, it looks great. Congrats on the good work!

To be honest, I have no idea what Warhammer is. I know it's a game of some sort, video or otherwise, and I've heard reference to people painting figurines for it, but were you to drop the printed Warhammer wiki in my lap, it'd be a whole new world to me.

That said, thank you for the compliment; it is the biggest figurine I've painted for ANYTHING.

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be honest, I have no idea what Warhammer is. I know it's a game of some sort, video or otherwise, and I've heard reference to people painting figurines for it, but were you to drop the printed Warhammer wiki in my lap, it'd be a whole new world to me.

Warhammer has been going on for decades, dropping the printed wiki in your lap would probably damage your legs.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

The great repurposing of the ancient granite shithouse continues with my very DIY roof timbers made out of 2 old pallets going up this afternoon.