ldhenson

Post-War Trade, the Dresden Dolls' new online shop, has gone live and it's a thrill to see my shadow box game amongst the rest of the items from other artists, who've all done great stuff.

I had a great time making these boxes. They required a hell of a lot of prep work to make them usable--sanding, sealing, painting, and creating new backs to replace the original ill-fitting ones. But I loved designing the interior and selecting lyrics and images (each image on the maze walls references a particular song title). The ground has the Heart Plane logo, and if you look real close it's overlaid by a circa 1940's map of Boston; the shape of the maze is inspired by the plane's propeller and creates tricky angles for the marbles to roll through. The back is held in by tiny copper swivels, there are metal loops from which the box can be hung on a wall, and there are even little purple felt pads to protect the wall or tabletop.

I'm currently up to my elbows in plush toy commissions, but the lure of new shadow box ideas is strong...

We got the details hashed out and they gave me the thumbs-up on the prototype, so now I'll be making a small run of handmade shadow box games for the Dresden Dolls' upcoming online store in May!

It'll be a lot of labor, but I'm really pleased to get this commission and anything that gives me more excusereason to work with shadow boxes is good by me.

Besides, I have a hard time getting "Coin Operated Boy" out of my head now.

Been off-line again for a couple of weeks due to RL issues...Hope everyone on my f'list is well! I've missed you all.

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Third and possibly final shadow box game in this series, all of which are inspired by Newsies. This is my most complex box to date as I had to almost completely dismantle and re-design it, because my first attempt needed some adjustments that didn't become apparent until I'd gotten the thing all assembled and found out that the small margins of error were just enough to make it not work properly.



Anyway, this box can be played in two modes, one of which is a game (since it has a goal) and the other simply a desktop toy. It's named for "Carrying the Banner," the first big musical number in the movie. (If you're not familiar with the song, it's a cheerfully cynical rundown of penniless life in 1899 New York.)

( It's a fine life... )

X-posted to craftster.org here.

I just scrapped nearly everything I'd done so far on my third shadow box game. The basic idea is sound but that specific design was just too difficult to implement, and I've spent way too much time trying different options to salvage it when I had other things I, er, really ought to have been doing instead.

Curse you, Time, you win this round!

Added little metal-rimmed "button" plaques to both of my Newsies shadow box games.

This is a companion piece to my first shadow box game. This time around it's still Newsies, with a focus on a different part of turn of the century New York.





( If you're a fan of the movie, you'll know what I mean by... )

I was wondering: How to combine my love of shadowboxes, self-contained wooden games, old New York, and Newsies?

So I made this.



( It's essentially a customized version of... )