Garbage Day!
It’s always a good crafting day when there’s new empty garbage to enjoy.
I just housed all these peanut butter babies.
Time to cleanse with some probiotic-packed pickled radish.
*gasp* Someone pilfered all my pickles, ugh, I’m SO MAD.
Oh, hold up, this pickle plastic is a picture perfect top hat brim.
Let’s use it to make the Odyssey from Mario Odyssey.
A big top hat ship that’s also my favorite clothing-inspired vehicle.
Not to be confused with my favorite vehicle-inspired clothing.
“Wow!”
To begin, I’m using my biggest snips to trim off a few fingernails until the brim
has a slight ramp off the back.
This plastic takeout bowl has a pretty powerful looking turbine on the bottom, which I’m
hot glueing to the hat and then touching 22 times to make sure it’s permanently stuck.
And then a beverage can top for extra detailing.
Oh no, we’re already at three types of cheap plastic, some of which are notoriously bad
at accepting glue.
But my go-to method is to use an obscene amount of CA glue and accelerant to form a sort of
messy weld between the seams.
For the sidecar off the front of the Odyssey, here’s an idea.
I’m using the plastic dome from a broken LED lightbulb.
Don’t try this with glass bulbs though, it’s much more difficult.
The plan is to do a sort of boolean operation and merge the round bulb with the round base
of the ship so that they become one complete piece.
You could probably use some sort of math or measuring to calculate semicircle size, but
I opted for trial and error until it was close enough.
Then using a piece of foam board, and a piece of foam board, and a piece of chipboard, we
have a flat deck to start building off of.
Starting with this industrial-looking diamond texture from a food takeout container.
With a few punchouts for rivet holes, it’s ready to become an Odyssey deck.
After retiring another takeout container from the heavy task of transporting several pounds
of curry fried rice, we have more deck.
And I’m hungry for the Luncheon Kingdom.
Yes, perfect.
This plate rim has ship deck written all over it.
This should be enough to fill out the rest of the deck real estate.
Then I’m using some strips of EVA crafting foam to hide the seams, but mostly to add
a nice bezel rim around the deck.
And for the rivets, I’m using these beautiful shimmering rhinestones.
Sorry, that coin sound effect is pretty intense on the ears, almost as bad as me doing all
the rivet noises.
Was that better for you?
For the Odyssey bod, I’m capping off this takeout container with this dome from a plastic
package of pears.
I keep a lot of interesting plastic like this in my garbage collection, including this distant
cousin, which came from a package of apples.
After a quick sanding, I’m adding more lid detail with this broken piece of a lunar lander
toy.
And then I’m fully sealing up this container with just the most amount of CA glue.
But there were a lot of gaps that needed filling, which is where EVA foam comes in handy to
hide the mess.
More rhinestones.
Tofu containers.
These provide some lovely corrugated plastic panels, which I’m shaping and bending around
the bodice of the ship, making sure to leave spaces for doors and windows as necessary.
It was at this point that I realized there was gonna be a lot of gaps between tofu slabs,
so we’re switching from a factory fresh Odyssey to a rough and tumble version with
lots of crusty super glue everywhere.
Let’s see a quick 360.
Needs more takeout container paneling.
But let’s make it slightly fancy with a tiny mouse door cutout and a perimeter dressed
in rivets.
Let’s lay this down for a nap on a bed of crafting foam.
Then turn our attention to the door, which is a piece of a mayonnaise squirt bottle,
I think.
Except I fooled you, this is actually a pre-door for the real door, which is made from a piece
of tofu container plastic with a decorative top hat emblem.
For the porthole window on the back, I’m using what might be a deodorant cap bejeweled
with rivets.
This gets glued here.
Except not yet.
And by the way, you also need two hat-shaped windows on either side.
This is looking okay, but let’s let the man himself have a little test run.
Wow, that deserves a trophy.
Take them all.
Actually, could I borrow a couple?
Don’t worry, you’re still a winner.
This trophy base will be used to hold the moon juice orb, which we’ll add later.
Big hat time.
For the exhaust pipes off the back of the Odyssey, we’ll need more of these dollar
store trophies, plus these plastic pipe toys.
Toothbrush head.
This will become the headlamp, but it would be extra nice if it actually illuminated.
Ooh, I might have some LEDs in my bits box.
Oh, the final string.
The final horseshoe??
I bought a bulk pack of these horseshoe charms a while back and now I’m cursed to use up
the rest of them in every project or I’ll be haunted by this little guy.
Wow, 100 horseshoes gone already.
This final horseshoe deserves a power placement, replacing the Odyssey’s decorative hat icon.
Good bye.
The best way to install these lights would have been to plan from the beginning, but
since I didn’t,we’ll use a drill.
NOTE: DO NOT DRILL LIKE ME! (The drill bit was further away than my finger it appears, but still... Safety First!
Ruined.
I’m weaving the lights up through the bottom in a way that will mostly be hidden later
and then coiling it within the toothbrush housing.
For the lens, I used several layers of invisible plastic to diffuse it slightly before wrapping
the rim in EVA foam.
On the other side of the deck is a globe pedestal made from gear charms, and this bubble wand
I found on the ground.
And contrary to what you might think you know, the Earth is not actually a sphere, but a
slightly oblong pineapple-shaped christmas bulb.
For the flagpole, I used a few random tubey bits, including a spray bottle straw, capped
off with a decorative cap made from a super glue cap.
And let’s go ahead and glue everything else on.
Excessively-themed hat window.
Deodorant cap porthole.
Hold on, is that a safety hazard?
There should be railing in front of these dangerous engines.
Luckily, I came prepared with a hair roller, which has built-in safety railing if you cut
it open and flatten it out a bit.
With just a little bit of heat applied, you can perform this neat trick.
And with a little more heat, the hair roller can be locked into a new wide angle and glued
in place as M.K.O.S.H.A.
approved safety railing.
Which brings us to painting, starting with prime time.
“Wahoo!”
The next step is to test my ability at staying within the lines with some preshading along
all of the edg details.
Then I’m dipping into some nice glossy Mario blood for a candy-coated paint job.
And make sure you clean out the airbrush’s bloody nose, because the next color should
be white and not light pink.
I’m just laying down a thin basecoat here because we’re going to fly back over to
the hand painting zone to finish up the details.
We’ll finish up the white on all of the intricate areas that I was too much of a coward
to airbrush…
Following up with the gold details, taking special care around Mario’s classic horseshoe
logo.
And for the headlight lens…
Oh no.
I wish I wouldn’t have spray painted over the plastic.
Or did I?
The lesson is always add fake windows over your real windows.
Let’s finish up the gold tones, then fly over to the globe zone.
First, a wet splash of sea blue as an oceanic basecoat.
Then classic blue because the first shade was just a joke color.
Then sky blue because blue wasn’t quite blue enough.
To round out this globe, some flat earth for the continents.
Finished with light green to make it a bit more lush.
Then I’m grabbing a sponge, but just a small piece to start layering up some paint chip
effects.
I’m working forwards, but thinking in reverse, starting with stippling on pink, then working
up, which is actually down with a black basecoat, and topping it off with chrome silver, which
is actually the bare metal that’s below the paint.
Feel free to print out this paint chip quick guide so you never forget.
I kept the paint chipping simple for the rest of the Odyssey.
Just black with a touch of silver.
From the hair roller seen earlier, I’m using this metal cage to protect the headlamp from
damage.
And you better believe it’s orbin’ time.
“Get me out of here” The Odyssey is a bit too clean for my tastes,
so it’s time to take a dip into a nice dirty wash.
If you have half a La Croix can, you can mix up an oil wash using burnt umber oil paint
and mineral spirits.
Just go ahead and slather this grime all over everything indiscriminately, don’t even
worry about it.
Let it soak into all the cracks.
The beauty of the oil paint, aside from the rich color blending, is that the excess can
be easily wiped away with a paper towel or smoothly blended using a makeup sponge.
Now what do we have here?
Nothing up my sleeve.
Nothing in my hand.
Except I lied to you.
Never trust anyone who tries to deceive you.
That’s a major red flag.
So we’ve built an Odyssey, but the grass is the only sod I see.
Let’s make a base using my new hot wire table, which is when you hold a hot wire tool
firmly against your desk to get the smoothest cuts imaginable.
I struggled to make two big biscuits, then made a delicious construction adhesive cream
sandwich.
To smooth out the side lumps, which I think, frankly, add character, I’m sanding it endlessly
until I have a huge pile of lung cancer.
With the hot wire foam cutter, I’m sculpting out some lumpy earth and a crater for a lightly
crashed Odyssey.
Secret hole to hide the LEDs.
Underneath the Odyssey, I’m propping it up on some bark from the outside to serve
as a giant boulder for the ship to rest on.
Before we finish up the grass land, I first want to ice this cake with a smear of modeling
paste to fill out any gaps between the foam.
Now I hope you’re hungry because we’re about to mix up a batch of “Goop Soup!”
This dirty texture paste gets coated over the entire foam cylinder, but you know what,
it’s just not dirty enough.
It’s time to refill my dirt stores from my favorite dirt hole.
*oh no* Ah, hello old friend.
You’ve grown so big and strong.
Much more lush and full than when I left you last year.
I’m spooning out a few soil offerings then sifting out the fine dirt from the medium
rocks.
Then I’m baking it for an hour until everything looks the same on the outside, but dead on
the inside.
I’m sprinkling this cinnamon all over my birthday cake.
And don’t forget to ice and spice the sides as well, no one likes a plain bite.
*oops* Back in the airbrush booth for a quick creamy
pass of Mario ground pound brown Then I’m splitting this tape into Mushroom
Kingdom sediment layers to add a cute squiggle around the base.
A little dry, dry brushing to bring out the rocks and edge highlights before we transform
this Dry Dry Desert into a Wet Wet Grassswampsortaplace.
If you know me, you know I love the Static Grass Applicator because I just love to applicate
grass statically.
I’m drizzling some delicious glue all over...
Ah dude, doesn’t this look so good?
I can’t stop scrubbing through this shot.
This is why my videos take three years to make.
Well that’s just lovely, isn’t it?
After the grass, it’s on to a few more things to make this lawn a little more wild and unkempt.
But my silly, umm (MYCELIUM ha!), diorama needs something…
It’s a pretty spore excuse for the Mushroom Kingdom unless it has...
“MUSHROOMS!”
I have these extra safety pegs from a shelf I built that I don’t think I actually need.
With a tiny dab of glue and a tiny glob of air-dry clay, one fungi will become many fungus
if you’re patient.
I painted them in classic toadstool scheme, then sent them on to spawn on the lawn.
Oh wow, a perfect fit.
But don’t worry about that slightly visible cable.
A tiny bush will hide that.
Tiny bushes hide many crimes, including these gaps under the ship that bother me a great
deal.
Another thing that bothers me a great deal is a missing protagonist.
I’m sure I could build-a-boy if I plumb the depths of my junk collection.
A couple gundam polycaps for Mario’s shoes.
But these nude garden wire legs need pants.
Roll that breathable denim into a flexible leg tube and our plumber is about 50% done.
Mario is a somewhat round boy, so I’m using a ping pong ball for his torso.
Then to fill out that hollow belly, some aluminum foil.
Followed by a little air-dry clay as his internal organs for realism and full immersion.
Mario’s human neck is a soap pump tube, made flexible with a piece of a metal clothes
hanger.
This is a longer neck than I remember Mario having, but this is definitely what he looks
like?
He just needs to be Mario red.
“It’s-a me!”
Now we can’t have Mario’s pants falling down, so let’s add a few hooks to keep his
torso together.
And maybe a belt for good measure.
You could certainly not say that this isn’t not Mario.
He just needs to jump down his iconic green pipe.
Oh, strange, he doesn’t quite fit.
Oh… oh no, I’ve made a monster.
Speaking of monster, I have this leftover plastic monstera leaf.
I’m making some spiky leaf garnish for what I now realize is a Piranha Plant and not a
plumber.
But since this is a Mario Odyssey diorama, it wouldn’t be complete without Cappy, whom
most people don’t know is actually related to Happy.
I wrapped a little chunk of foam in red fabric until I had a pretty messy looking cap.
Then we need Cappy’s soul-piercing eyes lovingly peering up at Mario having a great
time Thanks for watching, everyone.
Stay tuned for a whole bunch of Patreon shoutouts.
Now roll the beauty shots.