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Noah's Hidden Cavern - A Old School Pico Adventure


Noah C Peterson

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I love your vision.  It's a really cool concept and I have read about it but never followed someone doing a shadow box effect.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Noah C Peterson

Hey friends, so I finally had time to attack the background again which without fixing I can't get anything going. 

 

After much trail and much more error here is what I figured out. 

 

I used color changing LEDs for the shadowbox so the colored vinyl actually became a hindrance for color blending. I ordered a much more transparent vinyl and went from there.

 

The biggest issue I had trying to figure this out is no matter how fine a sandpaper I used you could still see visabke scratches, or even worse when I got those scratches buffed you couldnt see the background.

 

So where do we go from here. I was on my last piece of vinyl after a few hours of failure and I threw in the towel. Eff it, I'm ganna go take a shower and call it a day. Then the epiphany, I saw a freaking MAGIC ERASER and remembered hearing they worked because they were mildly abrasive. Well sure enough

 

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FTS 5/22/19 

 

These pictures really don't do it justice I'm going to pop the DSLR out soon 😉

 

The plan now is to build a couple of rock panels in the back to give even more depth and then we can get this bad boy wet! Hoping to get rock and water in there next week. 

 

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The only issue remaining will be that the wet rocks will color up, while the dry rocks will remain white.  Do you have any plans to add color to these rocks?  I imagine going over them with light coats of spray paint (possibly of various colors), to get them to blend in even better.

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Noah C Peterson
1 hour ago, seabass said:

The only issue remaining will be that the wet rocks will color up, while the dry rocks will remain white.  Do you have any plans to add color to these rocks?  I imagine going over them with light coats of spray paint (possibly of various colors), to get them to blend in even better.

I'm ganna hit it with black probably just ganna sponge it so there is some of the lighter. color coming through, it'll be a lot more silhouettey next time you see it!

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Noah C Peterson

Okay finally playing around with the actual design of the box. These cut outs are ganna be covered in rock and painted but I'm still trying to settle on a layout. 

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Glad to see your vision & concept coming together for you!

It looks very awesome!!!

 

Yes, magic erasers are MAGIC for all kinds of jobs!

 

Can't wait to see what rock scape you choose! No pressure, just sayin...

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  • 3 weeks later...
Noah C Peterson

Okay, I know I'm terrible about updates, traveling for work leaves little time to work on this thing and I wanna do it right! So with out further ado progress!

 

I took a sledge hammer to some left over dry rock and started the super gluing. 

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Heres a shop of the clear vinyl with the rocks 

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Added a bit more haze and now all I gotta do it paint the rocks, glues it all together and get it wet! 

 

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Noah C Peterson

Thanks for all the positive feed back! Got back in town today and did a bit of work on the tank, added a barrier for sand and painted the back rocks. Got some sand today so hopefully we'll have an aquascape of some kind of aquascape tonight!

 

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And finally with the back wall.

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Noah C Peterson
7 minutes ago, Tigahboy said:

Cavern back wall turned out great!  

Thank you I'm thrilled that its finally coming together! 

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Noah C Peterson
8 minutes ago, Wendy said:

Your cave is looking good, hopefully you get your pico wet soon!

I think I might just start the cycle tomorrow and worry about finalizing my rockscape later 👀👀

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Noah C Peterson

Okay here is the preliminary rockscape. The back glass reflects pretty bad but it actually makes the rock blend a little more believable, not really sure if theres away around this expect to scape accordingly. Lemme know of you've got any ideas! 

 

 

20190618_230613_zpsvucrrvae.jpg

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Isn't there is a clear vinyl film on the back of the tank?  I'm wondering what it might look like if you could see into the cave a little better.

 

1 hour ago, Noah C Peterson said:

The back glass reflects pretty bad but it actually makes the rock blend a little more believable

I bet it looks pretty sharp in person.  However, the effect is lost a little in the picture.  You know, it might just be a lighting thing that you need to adjust for pics.

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Noah C Peterson
13 hours ago, seabass said:

Isn't there is a clear vinyl film on the back of the tank?  I'm wondering what it might look like if you could see into the cave a little better.

 

I bet it looks pretty sharp in person.  However, the effect is lost a little in the picture.  You know, it might just be a lighting thing that you need to adjust for pics.

There is a film on the back, my concern is that without the haze the depth will be lost and since I've already spent like 5 or 6 hours cutting and testing and etc I'm hesitant to take it off now. I honestly might buy another one just to check it out, since I had the exact same thought once everything was painted and in place.

 

 

I was able to borrowed my moms DSLR and got some pictures that are a bit more true to the effect! 

 

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3 hours ago, Noah C Peterson said:

There is a film on the back, my concern is that without the haze, the depth will be lost.

I imagine you're right.

 

The effect is very cool.  I feel that you are almost there.  The cave is very pronounced in the last pic, although it might be a bit bright.  I hate to be even a little critical, as I feel this is one of the nicest backgrounds.

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9 hours ago, MetaTank said:

The backround gives it a lot of depth, I think it's looking really good so far

I think you're losing a lot of the impact with the photo's. Probably is more pronounced in person

 

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