In case you haven’t heard, it’s Valentine’s Day, and this blogpost is dedicated to a little something I made for my girlfriend, Laura, and if you want the abridged version of this story, you can skip straight to the gallery.
I decided I would make her a Fire Flower as a Valentine’s Gift, as there’s a romantic little love story behind the Fire Flower which can be summed as “She’s into games. I’m into games. Girls like Flowers. Gamer girls like Fire Flowers. Gamer Guys give Gamer Girls Power-ups. “
So I asked around what I could use to make such a Flower, and I was recommended Cold Porcelain and Modeling Clay, and I ended up buying DAS Modeling Clay to build the Fire Flower. Now, if there’s anything I’ve learned with Mythbusters is that whenever you do a project, you always do a small scale test first.
So the first day I played around with the clay, and made a tiny Fire Flower, to get a better feeling on how the clay behaves, how long it takes to dry and all. It took about 24 hours for it to fully dry. Once dry, I proceeded to make a couple of shapes per day, starting with the top, then the stem, leaves, then the back part, the back plate and finally the base of the Fire Flower.
Working with the Modeling Clay was interesting. I guess I expected it to behave like PlayDoh but this thing is stubborn. Getting it smooth was so hard, I gave up on it, and getting one part to seamlessly mix with another was a challenge best left for the experts.
For the back of the Fire Flower, I used the Mario Kart 7 (3DS) Fire Flower Cup model. I took a video of it on my cellphone, and played it on loop while working with the clay. I also grabbed a bunch of Mario Bros Mixes as background music as I worked on this project.
Painting the flower was fun, I used Acrylic paints to give everything two hands of paint, then used “Plastiloka” to put it all together, and finally, gave everything several coats of paint. The end result, if I may say so, is pretty nice.
While at it, a friend of mine helped me out making a box to put the Fire Flower in, made after the Question Block. It’s made out of Foamboard and is extremly sturdy. I then filled it up with rose petals, added a bow to it, and dressed up as Fiery Mario to complete the set. I also made a Valentine’s Day card shaped as a NES Cartridge which I mocked up using GIMP.
I gave her the gift a couple of days early, as I have to wrap up an important project this week and wanted to have one less reason to be all stressed out. She loved it, everything, and I really love to see her smile.
All in all, for a guy that hasn’t made anything artsy since middle-school, I think I did a helluva job. Now lets see how I can 1-Up myself next year.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
1-Up!