Case Mod - In Progress Night of the Living Dead 40th Tribute - Oct 1st - Completion and pic-bomb

that vent did come out nice. if it was me i wouldn't be too concerned about some scratches and pitting etc, after all the case has been attacked by zombies... and we all know that zombies scratch and tear when they try and grab hold of something. i would just chalk some imperfections as adding to the look as it were. plus i'm lazy about those sorts of things. also i was at hobby lobby the other day and they had some cemetary scenrery for whatever scale lionel trains were that looked half decent. if you have those stores where you live you might take a look and see if they have any. i believe they were like $1.99 for like 10 or so. it would save alot of time making them all.

 

Glad you like it!


Yeah, your thought did occur to me...but I'm a perfectionist....If I take the lazy "eh, it works 'cause" approach, I then figure that part is going to scream "lazy" to everyone else that looks at it. I know that it probably doesn't...but that's how I feel.

 

Time for an actual update on the base of this project.

As you know, I built the rough shape of it out of foam board around a metal frame. After that, I bondo’d the outside edges to give it some strength, and then set about attaching it to the frame.



I used pop-rivets to affix styrene sheets to the frame, and then glue to affix the styro to the styrene. The blue painter’s tape is there to hold the top edges of the styrene flush to the metal until some super glue dries. This is to hold the edges flush until I Bondo over them.



After it was dry, I cut the styrene at random heights along the side so that there wouldn’t be one single “fault line” under the Bondo, which would invite stress cracks later.




The next step was to start covering the styrene, as well as fill in craters along the sides and front (notice the cavity for the second optical drive.) Here it is after the next sanding:



It was at this point that I came to the conclusion that I would never be happy with the front drive bay as it currently existed. The styro was just not holding a clean cut for the drive bay, and it was just never going to look right. Rather than scrap the idea, I turned to the one building supply that had never let me down: Plexi.

I didn’t have any full sheets around, and since it was going to be covered any way, I made do with scraps. Here is a close up of the main piece, custom-cut to fit the front drive cover:



Then, a bottom piece and a liberal coating of Bondo:



Sanded up, it was a thing of beauty:



Now, I’m good to go, and have a base “bezel” that I can be happy with. After that, it was off to my paint booth. (Also known as my garage.)




The first pic is just primer, and the second includes a black base that I used for under the next layer. The horizontal surfaces are to be painted with a slightly textured brown that will be the “dirt” under the graveyard grass. The vertical surfaces are to be painted with the same texture paint that I used on the stones to symbolize cemetery walls, churches, etc.



Having finished that and letting it dry for a few days (with the humidity I’ve had, textured paint takes a long time to dry) I got to begin on the fun stuff. First, I masked off these finished sections of paint:



…then grabbed some spray adhesive and some good old-fashioned railroad scenery:



End result, is this (notice the painted tombstones in the last picture – sorry, the flash drowned them a bit.):





Every day is a step closer. My personal deadline is rapidly approaching, but I think that I’m running pretty much on track. More to come soon.

 

wow first i thught this would be a ugly mod but now i start to like it ^^ can't wait till next update

 

nice green! can i use your mod to play GOLF??

turning out great and super cool in every updates, keep the dead living!

 

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when people say, "Wow, I thought your mod would suck!"



Glad I've started to sway your opinion. Tell your friends.

 

Loving the hand idea, quite original.

 

I'm gonna make one for each member of "the family."

Also, I painted the wood slats and such and dry-fitted them:



My original plan had been to stain the wood, however, that changed as I moved along. As the project came together, it developed almost a cartoonish, satire feel. Therefor, I decided to stick with the same color as the trim and foster that feel because that really fits.

Just a little update for y'all.

 

Today's update brings us a steathed optical drive. I love these things. On most cases, they are a very simple mod and they add a really cool look to the case. In this instance, it involved a lot more fabrication because I didn't have a ready-made 5.25” bay. I still think that it turned out well.



As we see in a test fit from a few days back, I'm using a spare HP CD-RW drive. I chose this because it was the best spare one that I had laying around, and it isn't going to be the primary drive. My DVD drive is going to be going in the main part of the case where one would normally find it. This one is going to mainly be a back up drive for when I am ripping CDs or what not.



The first step was to remove all of the stuff that I wasn't going to need off the front of the drive. This included the face and the flip-down tray face.

To make the new face, I just used a blank drive cover that you have seen in a number of other pics in this log. It has been painted the same stone texture as the base and the tombstones. The back had some ridges that needed to be cleaned off so that it would sit right.




Once this was done, I used some scraps of plexi to make the spacers on the front of the tray. These off-set the face enough that it doesn't rest right on the open/close button. Another scrap of 1/8” plexi makes the “touch spot” perfectly spaced.



Since the tray itself was the ugly “PC Beige,” I pulled it out and primed/painted it.




Here, the drive is fitted back in to the base and recessed. (Note: Yes, the base is currently upside down.)



Next was the simple matter of putting some plastic cement in the right spots and applying pressure.



The end result: A graveyard wall stealth drive.





Now, I'm off to the store for some more paint. I'll check back in later.

 

Back from getting paint. I have, once again, redone the top and........success. I may be picky, but I get results.



Now, isn't that nice?

Okay, now the next step: A nice, bloody, zombie hand print. This will go over the vent holes (which will have a red LED fan beneath it) like so:



The way that I like to do stencils is to cover the painted object with tape and transfer. By doing this, I first of all save the stencil, but also guarantee that the stencil is fully adhered to the surface.



This may look messy, but it works well. I took a sharpie and went from the stencil to the tape. This keeps the stencil from shifting and gives a solid pattern. It works much better than tracing around the inside.

After it is transferred, some careful cutting gets you in business.



Now I am free to give it a shot of enamel.



Two notes on the paint: One, I could have chosen something closer to the real color of blood – but again, I'm going for the cartoonish here. Two, I used enamel so that it will have more of a wet shine on the matte black finish.

After drying, here is what I have:

 

Suh....WEEEET! Great choice on the enamel!

 

I'd have chosen darker colourn for the handprint, but as you said it looks almost cartoonish so it really does suit

 

Great Job. I'm another fan of the series. I'll be following this one.

 

cool hand print!! well i am satisfied of the color that you used.

i am getting excited on this mod

 

Current situation update: I currently am finishing up the graveyard fence (getting it glued, painted and installed.) I have a few more white LEDs and some red EL wire on order. I don't have a lot of room behind the mobo tray, and I'm still trying to get that panel lit. That's really the last major thing I have left to do. After that, it's touch-up and final assembly. Which is good, because I have just over a week left.

 

looks ace, but I would get some different coloured grass on the go, either muddy looking dead for patches or just generally a different colour. Local hobbies shops will do this but if you don't have any then "Games Workshop" have different coloured static grass, might add a bit more depth and evil-ness. Ace mod so far, and the top holes do indeed look machined, steady hand ya got there

 

Thanks for the feed back. The choice of grass color was intentional however. For one thing, here in Western PA (where the movie was filmed and takes place) grass actually stays fairly green until November, mainly because it's cool and rainy through October. The other reason was - because the rest of the case is heavy on brown and black - I didn't want the whole thing to be muted.

 

Back again!

I finished up the main tombstones for the graveyard. I might make a few more blank ones if I feel that I need to fill some space, but these are the important ones. Since the lettering I used doesn’t come in different fonts, I tried to print them slightly askew and with extra spots of red to give them a horror-font feel. Without further adieu, I present the family to you:





I may add one for Johnny, but I’m not sure. He’s important to the plot, but not a very important character.


I’ve also done some more work on the side panels.



Much like the top, I wasn’t very happy with the paint on the side panel, so I sanded it down a bit and then went over it with some window cleaner. (Sanding with 1500 grit sandpaper really gives it a soft touch, but it leaves a lot of dust behind that you can’t easily see but will screw up the paint.)



It doesn’t look much different in this picture, but trust me – it’s a vast improvement. Go back and look at the before and afters of the top for comparison.

On the other side, I messed around with the “picture window” a bit more. As I touched base on before, even the black areas were letting through too much light, and I was going to need to do some painting on it to cover it up.

The picture is actually two transparencies – one black and white, one in color. At first, I tried to hand-paint the B&W one, but my brush-strokes showed up ones there was light behind it. So, I went to plan B.



Using painter’s tape and my carpet blade (My Xacto knife has been missing since college, and I got pretty good with this blade instead) I masked off all the important let-light-through parts, then it was prime and paint time:





Here it is, held up to the light, afterwards:




As you can see, this is much better. Yes, I realize that some of the transparent areas look pretty beat up. I will be reprinting the color layer before final install. This one was the work copy.

So now, I just have to hope that the lights I ordered will finally get the job done on this.

 

Well...they didn't. The "red" wire that the site says looks like this:



...actually turned out to be a very dim pink. At least it was only eight bucks, or else I might be pretty damn pissed off. As is, I'm still very disappointed.

On the flip side, I think that I found a solution to my problem, and early tests confirm it. Tonight or tomorrow, I will put it together and get some pics up.

 

I'm in the home stretch now!

First part that I worked on today was some touch up work on the graveyard fence. When I glued it down, it left obvious dried glue globs, plus the base of the fence pieces was fairly visible without grass covering it:



The solution here was just some Elmer's glue and some grass covering sprinkled on.




Well, that was a quick little easy project. After that, it had to move on to bigger and better things...like finishing up the side panels. Much like the top, I was displeased with the quality of the paint job, so I needed to sand it down and redo it:

The first side didn't require much more than a light pass with the 1500 grit to smooth out the spots on it:



The other side, however, needed a lot more work to get down to a smooth, blemish-free surface:



A fresh coat with quality paint, and I was back in business:




With those finished, and the paint dry, I moved on to finalizing the NotLD picture window side. While the paint was drying, I cleaned and polished the plexi pieces so that that they were ready to go when the panels were done. With the window back in, I set about laying in the freshly printed transparencies:



With some fresh super tape laid down, I sandwiched these sheets with another piece of plexi:



Next set: Lighting.

One of the main problems with lighting this panel is that I don't have room behind the mobo tray for CCFLs. One on the top and bottom would have been great, but I only have space for one in front by the drive bays. On the other hand, LEDs don't put out enough indirect light to be practical on their own. On the other, other hand – that EL wire was freakin' useless.

The solution:



By laying in a thin sheet of styrene, it will act like the foil bowl in a flashlight and reflect indirect (and softer) light back at the window...

...in theory.

To keep with lights where I wanted them, I first taped them down to get a layout set.



Once laid out, I affixed them with hot-melt glue. (Between this and the Elmer's, I feel like I'm in arts and crafts.)



Now, you will note that the EL wire is on there, but that was only to give it a go. Once the glue around it dried, it blocked what little light that was illuminated. (NOTE: I know the glue gun is pink. It's my wife's.)

Now, the moment of truth: Did my idea of a reflector work?



Yes. It. Did. Sweet.

I'll be back in a little while with another update where I test fit every on the case.