In the last month a lot of progress has been made. Slug & Jiggers Apothecary is open for business!
Here are progress pics from the last month. I have inserted 2 videos as well to help show off some of the magic. Enjoy!
Beginning prep for Olivanders. I add door embellishments and apply the undercoat of tan-ish colored paint.
Paint the top coat and add aging effects.
Regular white glue painted on just before the top coat gives the cracking/ peeling paint look.
I add several layers of grime to age to add to the neglected look.
Paint is done. looks.... yucky?
time to apply signage.
Same process and with F&B.
Just to show that things don't always go as planned, All my hard work and faux finish peeled off as I was removing the stencil.
The type of flexible board I used for the rounded top and bottom apparently has a finish that didn't allow the paint to adhere well. 5+ hours of work down the drain.
I peel off the old paint and sand down the finish.
This time a I use a high quality primer and repaint, repeating the whole process over again.
I carefully remove the stencil transfer tape.
"Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C."
Whew! Victory is mine! I am leaving Ollivanders alone for now to continue painting the rest of the room.
I paint the brick RED. My wife questioned my sense of color with this choice.....
But once I added in the old dirty look the color toned WAY down. You can also see the beginnings of my furnace/ potion shop door redo.
The furnace door was big, ugly, and plain so I decided to cut some windows into it.
I re-skinned the front of it to give my flimsy interior door more strength.
Now that is looking like a proper front door. Trimmed it out with decorative molding. I'll add the door handle, glass, and curtains sometime after I paint.
Next on my list was to figure out a grate for under the S&J display. I found this tin .... thing?.... I don't know what it is from Hobby Lobby and I used it as a pattern for my decorative iron grate.
I Cut the pattern out with the Dremel. Next I'll prime and paint.
I used pink for the undercoat.
Green top-coat and aged to perfection. added the door handle too.
Looking good and grimy.
Photoshop the S&J logo.
Size it, print it, apply it, trace it, cut it, spray it remove it, admire it.
Bam! Worked on the first try. My faith in the process is restored. Also slapped the grate in even though it was only primed just to get a sense of the finished look.
Added blemishes to tie the sign into the shop.
Bumpy spray paint over the primer helps to sell rusty metal grate look.
I was watching youtube videos of people touring through the Universal Studios Harry Potter world and saw a video showing a self-stirring cauldron and I thought " Wow! That would be cool if I could pull off something like that." So the wheels started turning and this is what I came up with. I bought a $5 Halloween candy bucket that looked like a cauldron. I bent over the sharp lip and caulked the rough edges. Then I used the heat gun to warp or "dent" the cauldron here and ther to give it a believable shape. I used the same spray texture and paint I used on the Metal grate to give it a move convincing iron look.
This was the answer to my self-stirring dilemma. Walking down an isle of The Home Depot I see this Disco ball spinning slowly around in a constant circular motion. I bought it, brought it home, cannibalized the lamp and glued a stirring stick to the revolving motor. Then I set the motor in the middle of the cauldron. It worked perfectly.
I disassembled an old broken floor lamp I had kicking around in the garage and rebuilt it as the stand for my cauldron. The hollow core allowed me to run the motor wiring down the middle hiding it away.
Here is a test run of it all put together. Lets see how this works.
Katrina helps me assemble potions
Next was to try and cram as many potions as would fit into the shop windows. I built shelves along the outside edges and stacked potions on them see how it would look.
I took a grinding wheel and roughed up the edges.
Painted the shelves. Now to fill the thing up!
I wanted a bubbling potion or two so bought a fish tank pump, drilled a hole in the bottom of a bottle and sealed the air hose in with silicone. The silicone ended up being a bit too flexible and didn't hold a good seal but the JB Water Weld did work.
a Zaxby's cup got sacrificed for the Skele-Gro potion stand.
I used a heat gun to 'age' the hand-made labels.
Many of the labels I found/ purchased from the internet and then altered them as needed.
I improved my lights. I wrapped the LED's and Positioning wire together with Worbla's (a material used in cosplay prop making) which holds much better than tape and adds a hood for focusing/ directing the light.
I ran wiring for lights, pump power, and networking from the furnace room to under the shop behind the grate. I eventually and an Apple Air Express to pipe Harry Potter theme music to. The music adds a great deal to the ambiance of the room and is controlled through my iPhone.
Here is the finished shop!
Hard to see all of the details. I have a video that might do it more justice but it turned out better that I expected. Very happy with it. Oh and did you notice our new Slug & Jiggers Apothecary resident peeking through the curtains?
Our very own house elf, staring at the strangers on the other side of the door.
Here is a brief video tour:
FYI- the music in the video is coming from the S&J Apothecary shop. The music is NOT dubbed in. Cool eh?
Shelf-by-shelf pictures of the liquid magics. Amortentia, Veritaserum, and Undiluted Botuber Pus.
Goblin Nail Clippings, Unicorn Blood, & Mandrake
Wartcap Powder, Felix Felicis, Polyjuice Potion, & Vampire Blood
Bundium Secrection and Manegro Potion
Pickled Spider, Murtlap Essence, & Gillyweed. Oh, and my ugly mug in the reflection. =P
My goal was to have the room complete by the end of May and my last two major projects are the finish of Olivanders Wand Shop and the laying of the cobblestone floor.
This is the rubber mold I will use to create the cobblestone look. I am apprehensive to do this as it is way out my realm of expertise but honestly, since when has that stopped me! See you next month!
