21st December 2012 Barry Wheeler Munny

There's no better way than relaxing on the Friday afternoon before Christmas; at home in peaceful quiet, with a hot cup of hot chocolate, writing an article with The West Wing playing in the background. It's quite relaxing! On a related note, Toby Zieglar can do a fantastic Max Payne impression! Today's article revolves around everyone's favourite literary agent and "fluffy little butter ball"; Barry Wheeler. Those who have been with The Sudden Stop for the past couple of months may remember the Alan Wake and Mr Scratch munny. It was my first craft! And as Christmas is rolling in with frightening speed, I thought it would be nice to do another figure of another well loved character.

I was going to use different shades on the clothes, hence the presence of the orange paint (for the jacket), but it works a lot better just being one colour. With the original character being so complex to recreate already, sometimes simplicity is quite refreshing.

What I Used:
- Kidrobot Munny Model
- Das Modelling Clay
- Gold Tissue Paper (or glitter and PVA glue)
- Red Acrylic Paint
- Almond Acrylic Paint
- Black Acrylic Paint
- Blue Acrylic Paint
- Paintbrush
- Cocktail Sticks
- Paint Palette.
- Thick String
- Golden Thread
- And a music player, as it will take quite a while!

This was perhaps the most complex Munny that I had created. With Scratch, it was relatively easy as he had three basic colours; black, white and red. With Alan, it was slightly more complex as his hair is more fluffy in comparison to Scratch and so it was modelled out of Das Clay. But with Barry there's a lot of stuff you had to consider; the character's "flaming eye of Mordor", the puffy jacket, the fairy lights and strangely enough trying to make the 3/4 length trousers not look like hot-pants. So getting the design down on paper was essential especially as it helped me come up with a solid design.

After getting down the design, I used a pencil to mark in where I wanted the clay to go on the model; essentially changing the 2D design and applying it on the 3D model. Again this was incredibly useful as it showed me what kind of things would and wouldn't work. In retrospect, I don't think the headlamp would have turned out that well if I had just immediately started working with the clay.

When everything was planned, I washed the figure in warm soapy water to remove any oils left on from the factory. Doing this allows the clay to stick much better, however things never go that smoothly, especially on the Monday that I had begun this...It's always Mondays.

I began applying the Das Clay,  I had found it slightly more tricky to work with despite washing the model before hand. Although there was a reason why I had more difficulty this time; for the other two models, I was applying clay over a large section like the model's hair or clothes, however this figure required smaller and more delicate modifications. Little did I know at the time that the biggest drawback would later being one of the best things that could have happened.

I had left the model to dry on a shelf overnight, confident that the clay would dry in an environment which wouldn't be interrupted during the 10 hours I would leave it before returning to the project...Yet something did go wrong.

I returned the following day to find that the clay had dried and I picked it up expecting to hold a solid model. What I got instead was a handful of clay pieces and a completely clear Munny body and head. So it was back to the drawing board. I washed the Munny again, moulded the clay to the head and body. At this point I was under the belief that the clay had dried too quickly, but it would work the second time.

The following day I returned to it and the same thing happened, as though the body was shedding its skin. Impressively, the headlamp managed to stay on, which was probably due to it being constructed from one piece of clay (instead of it being in four parts like the first version) and it covering more of the head. Yet I still had the problem with the body.

At this point, I refused to be beaten by a ceramic model and a series of clay parts so I thought about various solutions. These solutions ranged from drawing it on the model instead of using clay, using a glue gun or buying a new clay in the hope that it might stick better. In the end I opted for the glue gun. While making the body twice was quite annoying, it did provide me with more chances to improve the clay additions. As I made the puffy jacket twice, I got to choose the pieces with the best shape or best fit. I also managed to smooth the clay using a small file without fear of it breaking off the model. All of which made the model turn out much better than expectations!

Using the glue gun was strange as the last time I had used one I was ten, and I was pretty pants...OK, considering my age it wasn't too bad but the entire thing was reminiscent of the spider invested levels from Legend of Grimrock. Hopefully I wasn't too bad this time, I did find that the glue set faster than I had remembered it doing in the past; probably due to the chilly temperature of the room. Yet I'm quite pleased with the result!

I left it to dry for a few minutes until the glue had set, then it was down to the painting! I quite like the painting stage of any model; I'm not good at it but it means that I didn't completely failed in obtaining a somewhat recognisable character with the clay. Also it allows the character to slowly come to life! The first thing I was eager about painting was the jacket, especially as I loved the deep vibrant red. While I was trying to keep the lines neat, I didn't beat myself up too much about going a little over (you can see it in  the top left side of the jacket) as it would later be covered up by more paint.

During the gluing and painting process, I had disassembled the character; this made it much easier, especially to paint!

It took a few hours for the entire model to get the first layer of paint, but it was finally coming together...

After the model has been assembled again, it began to look a lot more like the character. Of course there were a few final details to add...Like a face.  I wanted to make sure that the paint was completely covered so going over some sections was a necessity, I also needed to add the shirt underneath, add the light for the headlamp, and make sure some of the paint lines were neater.

With the final adjustments and additions made to the model (after the photo above), I turned my attention to the fairy lights; these were surprisingly difficult. I was originally going to use real LED lights, but these were too big. I then planned to have fuse wire with various bright acrylic colours, but I didn't have any fuse wire. I did have some thick string. As the Christmas lights in the game had dark wires, I had to paint the white string, black with the acrylic paint. While it dried, I found some gold thread and after twenty minutes, I tied equal spaced knots representing the lights...

With that final addition, the model was complete!

See you on Monday for the final piece in this advent calendar!

Time Taken: Approximately 9 hours

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19th December 2012 Alan Wake Gingerbread Men

Recently, a message was posted on my Facebook page requesting more Mr Scratch related posts from the Legend himself. Well...I viewed the request as being more of an imperative, and an urgent one at that! You see, I quite like my Spleen, I rely on it for Spleen-related activities, and the idea of missing it (albeit not life threatening) would quite literally tear me apart.

So I quickly did what any sane person would do in this situation...I baked Alan Wake themed gingerbread men. Also decorated the house in Christmas lights (haha, sucker).

...The gingerbread man on the Plain Flour is the source of my nightmares.

Ingredients:
Gingerbread Dough
Flour
Black Icing
Red Icing
Blue Icing
White Icing
Edible Soft Baubles
Chocolate Buttons (to eat while baking)

Gingerbread Man Cutter
Baking Paper
Tablespoons
Baking Trays
Oven / Batmobile

After that delightful group photo, I dusted the board with, flour and placed the gingerbread dough on the table. For some reason the dough really hated me, I had to put it in the microwave a couple of times to even make it semi-reasonable and malleable. I find a lot of problems in life can be solved this way; dough, cold food...small children. But here it was being all doughy and stubborn...

When it did manage to cooperate, I rolled it out so it was just 4mm thick and used the gingerbread man cutter to made the shapes. To be honest, it was much more fun actually doing it than describing. So for the sake of a good story; the dough was made out of edible fire which was kept underground in a tomb for 20 years. The rolling pin was actually the DeLorean rolling over it. The flour was finely ground crystals. And the gingerbread man cutter was still a gingerbread man cutter...With dreams of grandeur.

As the baking trays were quite small, I only managed to cook four at a time. The instructions called for the gingerbread men to be baked for approximately 10 minutes which, for the first time ever for any cooking related project this month, was accurate!  Although looking them on the tray, they looked like what happened when the writer of the Teletubbies found out that the show was cancelled and declared that "if I can't have them, no one can!"

...Well that's my childhood ruined. The two batches of gingerbread took around 20 minutes altogether to cook, with a further 10 minutes to cool down. After that came the fun part of decorating! For this I had some chocolate buttons, an assortment of coloured icing and edible golden baubles.

I wanted to make each gingerbread man reassemble their character; this was more simple to achieve for some, but for others I had to improvise a touch more. Barbara Jagger's was an example of one of the more tricky ones, especially as I try to steer away from the black icing as much as possible. Her morning dress is black but also reletively simple, making the gingerbread man design a lot harder! Yet there is one distinguishing feature; her missing heart....

My favourites are definitely Mr Scratch, Thomas Zane, Barry Wheeler and Max Payne. I love how grumpy (and slightly Vulcan) Payne looks, even in icing! Also I'm quite impressed that I didn't completely mess that one up as it was my first go at it. Thomas Zane was decorated in the edible gold baubles to represent the bolts on his suit. I was a little concerned how the final result would look like but I think it worked out quite well! As for Scratch, I'm still a little concerned how creepy he looks despite being a biscuit...I think it's the red icing for the blood and the smirk on his face. Barry; I had so much fun drawing his character! His clothes may have different patterns and various colours, but they were really simple to draw and turned out quite well!

As for the remaining characters; Rachel, Rose, Alan, and Barbara. Rachel was a character that I made right at the end, despite her being one of my favourite characters. While I use "Jaden" for video game related projects and a nickname, my real name is Rachel, so having a character of the same name in your favourite series was awesome...Also she didn't die, likes space and plays Poets of the Fall music! Woo! As for the gingerbread man version, I think it would have been better if I had used more white icing, but unfortunately I had almost ran out. Although, I did like how neat her dress was! As for Barbara, I mentioned before about her being extremely difficult, but I did add red icing on the eyes to show her evilness and icing over the hole to mirror how the heart was covered by a web of broken strings from her morning gown. Rose's character was also incredibly difficult as I was quite confused how to represent her hair, or skirt; very tricky design! As for Alan...OK, this one wasn't too bad, the colours were a little off as a didn't have either grey or green...But hopefully it still worked out well! The face was meant to show a mixture of concern and determination but...

...Bemused Alan is Bemused

TIME TAKEN: 3 hours

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18th December 2012 Poets of the Fall Section

Today I wanted so do something a little different from what I've done previously in this advent calendar.

As a fan of Poets of the Fall I wanted to include a section of the site dedicated to the band, especially as they are celebrating their 10th anniversary next year. Back when I was putting the site together in August, I had dabbled with this idea about had to leave it off when I launched The Sudden Stop as I was focusing on the Alan Wake sections.

At the moment there are several pages up online, but there's still additions to be made over the the next few days; setting up a new section always takes several weeks to do.

Poets of the Fall has produced several songs for Alan Wake and American Nightmare, under the name The Old Gods of Asgard.

Click Here for the Section

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14th December 2012 Alan Wake Christmas Cards

After the recent stream of confectionery products, I wanted to do something a little different; to make cards for two awesome people who have helped me with the site over the past 10 months. So I had an evening to get these made, written out, and sent out before the Royal Mail Christmas delivery cut off date, which I hopefully caught just in time! I also wanted to have the cards for today's article; so it all worked out quite nicely!

Things I Used:
Blank Cards
Glitter Glues
PVA Glue/Glue Stick
Crêpe Paper
Scissors
Black Paper


FIRST CARD:

I cut the black paper so it would fit onto the blank cards and still have a 2cm gap at the top and bottom, with around half a centimetre on the other two sides. I then measured and cut three equal squares out of the rough purplely (scientific terms are scientific) paper and three smaller squares to act as the second layer. I quite liked the different material/textures, so I wanted the card's design to revolve around them.

At the time, I thought it would be a good idea to use PVA glue but it was quite tricky to work with. The middle square (in the above image) was made out of a material similar to tissue paper, allowing some of the glue to soak through.. Additionally, the PVA made the card dry a little funny in the end, it wasn't too bad...Hopefully...And if it is, I'll blame it on the postal service.

The panels looked a little strange being in a single line, especially as it made the card look a little blank. After I sorted out the order and stuck everything down, it looked like this...

As it was an Alan Wake themed card, I wanted to have each square to house a small image from the games. So I chose the gun, the flashlight and the secret symbol, which I drew using glitter glue.

(If you've played the games a lot, you may have noticed that the "secret symbol" looks a little strange as the curve doesn't go on the outside. I corrected it as soon as I noticed the mistake.)

With the card only needing to dry, I put it up safely and began work on the...


SECOND CARD:

This one was a little more tricky. It was originally quite different; a silhouette of Wake in crêpe paper with black paper in the background. Wake would be holding a flashlight which would have a beam made out of grey tissue paper shining on the words "Merry Christmas" in silver glitter...However, it's extremely difficult to do...In my defence, I tried about four times before coming up with another idea.

The new idea started with the "secret symbol" being the main focus.

It looks a little rough at the moment, but this was sorted out with the help of metallic silver gel pens in the final stages.

Next, I used three different textures and shades of purple paper to create six blocks that would circle the secret symbol.

I added silver glitter to frame the six blocks and symbol. It looked a little strange when I first put it on and even more so with the lighting in the photo, but the glitter became less prominent once it dried...Which I was quite relieved about.

Like with the first card, I added a couple of Alan Wake symbols in the bottom three panels; a coffee thermos, a torch and a gun. This time the designs were made out of paper rather than the glitter glue.

Both cards had dried by the following day allowing me to add a couple of details in metallic silver pen such as the border on the "secret symbol"

Time Taken: 6 Hours

See you on Monday!

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12th December 2012 Alan Wake Cupcakes

With the new found discovery that icing does not like me, I approached this new cooking venture with care, and a slight touch of resentment. My friend can bake awesome cakes such as brownies, fudge cakes, coffee cakes, rainbow cakes, but I’m a little lot less talented then she is when it comes to baking. Although this time they didn’t turn out like the Bird Leg Cabin Gingerbread House and didn’t spontaneously combusted just as I put the final designs on! Go team! Also, I swear, I’m not bad at all cooking, but confectionery bemuses me to impossible lengths!

Ingredients for (12) Cupcakes
110g – Butter
110g – Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
Self-Raising Flour (or 1 teaspoon of Baking Powder with plain flour)
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
1-2 – Tablespoons of Milk

Tools 
Bowls
Tablespoons
Teaspoons
Scales
Oven (or pet dragon)
Cupcake cases
Cupcake tray
Baking Tray (if you have a silicon cupcake tray)

First of all, I cut 110g of butter in cubes and placed it in the microwave, The recipe called for the butter to be at room temperature, but with it being both winter and so very cold in the room I was in, the chances are that the butter would be the same temperature as the fridge. In the meantime I weighed 110g of sugar and, once the butter had warmed up, mixed it with the butter until it was fluffy.

When it was soft and fluffy enough, I put down the cat, washed my hands and added two eggs to the mixture. The eggs made the butter and sugar go extremely gooey and quite unpleasant, despite putting one in at a time and stirring. Around this time, I was doubting that the final product would even be classed as a bakery product and but still added the teaspoon of vanilla extract...Although I was fully convinced that if I had left it and returned the following day, I would be the ruler over a new civilisation of gooey-egg people which smelled like vanilla. My only salvation would be the flour...

Y U NO LOOK APPETISING EGGY-SUGARY-BUTTERY-VANILLARY MIXTURE!

As I only had plain flour instead of self-raising, I mixed a teaspoon of baking powder into it, pretending that I was completely prepared for making cupcakes today and not trying to attempt this project/article the day before it's intended to be published. *shifty look* I added the flour to the eggy-sugary-buttery-vanillary construct, and began to stir. I had hoping for the mixture to assume mystical properties and to look more like cake mix, but I was preparing for it to develop into a portal for Helheim.

Optimstic flour is optimistic

The case seemed to be the former, with the flour actually improving it greatly. It went from a disappointing porridge to cake mix in a surprisingly short space of time...Yay! I'm not totally useless at following instructions...And yes, that line is going on my CV now.

I preheated the oven to 180c which took a few minutes, giving me time to sort out the cases and the separation of the mixture into half (as I only had a 6 cake tin) and then in sixths. I had bought in special silver cases for this project but the kitchen was rearranged recently. On a related note, I'm thinking of selling my fresh-back-from-university brother on eBay.

The recipe stated that it would take 10-15 minutes in the 180c oven, but mine took around 30 minutes for just one batch. Still, it allowed me to focus on some small decorations for the cakes when all were done. Once they had  all been baked, I could finally see the final product...they turned out better than what I had expected!

Next came the decorating!

Decorations
Flaked Almonds
Red Icing
Blue Icing
Black Icing
White Icing
Golden Edible Spray
Golden Edible Baubles
Milk Chocolate Buttons

  Cupcake Designs:
1. Remedy logo in blue icing
2. "Psycho" in red icing with a drawing of Mr Scratch's knife in black and white.
3. Alan's flannel shirt from "American Nightmare" in blue icing, with the game's colour scheme and  golden baubles.
4. "Flaming Eye" in red icing, the first of two cupcakes with the quotation "Flaming Eye of Mordor"
5. White icing on milk chocolate buttons, mimicking the large typewriter in "The Writer" DLC.
6. Poets of the Fall inspired cupcake featuring the woman with the gasmask from the "Carnival of Rust" music video.
7. "of Mordor" in blue icing, the second of two cupcakes with the quotation "Flaming Eye of Mordor"
8. The second flannel shirt design from American Nightmare with black icing and gold baubles.
9. Almonds circling a blue swirl made out of icing, mimicking the Bird Leg Cabin Gingerbread House design.
10. A coffee thermos made out of blue and white icing, with Rusty's line "Try the Coffee" in black icing.
11. A drawing of Bird Leg Cabin in black icing with blue icing representing the darkness. Two gold baubles mark the windows.
12. The words "The Sudden Stop" in black and red icing.

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10th December 2012 Bird Leg Cabin Gingerbread House

While I like to go into December thinking that I'm prepared this year, I rarely am. There's always last minute shopping on the 24th followed by the construction of the tree, the advent calenders being brought down from the loft 23 days late, and attempts at trying to calm the cat down when it sees a ball of tinsel. What's quite irritating is the unrealistic portrayal of "the perfect family" with the smiling faces enjoying activities in a spacious environment, simply lacking in the frantic return of a university-student brother. And so there are certain things deemed "Christmassy" which I haven't tried...Such as building a gingerbread house. OK I lie a little, when I was six I made one at school, but it doesn't count as it was a 2D house drawn on baking paper and I was stuck with the liquorish.

The problem with me and projects like this is that I can't be normal and build an idyllic house in gingerbread it has to be geeky...I blame my parents, a large poster for Star Trek: The Next Generation hangs in the family's living room. I quickly came the conclusion that I could make an edible Bird Leg Cabin, because seriously it allows you to say "edible level design" and it makes perfect sense!

So I went shopping and bought food! Including Gingerbread dough, which is slightly cheating but as it was my first time doing this ever, and how the execution was the main focus, I decided to not have the house breaking to be a factor that I would be concerned about.

AND FLOUR!

You Will Need:

• Scissors
• Normal A4 Paper
• Non-Grease Baking Paper
• Rolling pin
• Flour (not shown in the image)
• Gingerbread Dough (500g)
• White icing (ROYAL ICING! NOT DECORATION...not that I used that...*shifty look*)
• Blue decoration icing
• Flaked Almonds
• Matchmakers (or anything chocolate and twig shaped)
• An oven and microwave or flame thrower
  (Golden edible balls are in the photo, but I didn't get a chance to use them for this)

LET'S DO THIS!

Draw the panels on a plain A4 sheets, I did this through estimating the size. While the building is rather complex, I found gingerbread to be quite forgiving; if specific panels are too wide or had become misshapen due to expansion, you can use a knife to shape them. Here's a quick guide to the number of panels needed:

(or x12 Base of  Chimney panels if you're making both sides)
I once applied to Remedy as I wanted to be an art director, and for some reason I didn't get the job.

You will also need a flat surface with enough room around it to use a rolling pin and occasionally flail in anger at the hatred your gingerbread seems to be exhibiting towards you. The dough I was using was stored in a fridge and so heating it in the microwave was suggested to make it more mailable. Place the Baking Paper over your surface and roll the dough out making it 0.5mm thick. Next, put your paper panels over the gingerbread and, with a knife, cut the dough.

Get an oven tray (or two depending on the size of your oven) and place the Baking Paper on it. Carefully move the cut out dough over to the oven tray, one piece at a time. Make sure not to handle it for too long or to adjust them too often as they will become stretched and misshapen.

I have no caption to put here as the photo is obviously that of pre-cooked gingerbread, so I'm just going to tell one of my favourite bad science jokes; Argon walks into a bar, and the bartender says "sorry, we don't serve noble gases here!" And Argon doesn't react.

Look! A smiley face! And this was the most productive thing I did that day....

OH DEAR GOD, IT'S LOOKING INTO MY SOUL!

Now place the gingerbread in the oven. For the 500g dough I bought, it was approximately 20-25 minutes, but it depends on whether it has gone golden and crispy. If it's still a little soft when it comes out of the oven, it's to be expected, it will harden as it cools.

While it's cooling, sort out what decorations you could put on it. For mine, I used a bag of flaked almonds, Quality Street mint Matchsticks, with blue and white icing.

Also, I used one of the Matchsticks to pretend I was a vampire walrus...It was awesome.

And with the dough cooled....

Yes this is a fertile land and we shall thrive, we shall rule over this land and we will call it...This land.

...NOW DECORATE ALL THE THINGS!

The first thing I focused on was the two windows at the front of the cabin; it's the smallest detail that this version of the building has. I wanted to not have it just as simple circles but swirls as it's more decorative and represents a "mad house" which in theory technically what the cabin is and quite fitting for a "psychological action thriller". I also did the swirls first before putting together the walls as it was my first time doing anything like this, and while it could have been smudged during construction, it was going to be harder adding the detail while it's vertical. You can decide when you add the windows, but I had very little problem with accidental chipping of the icing when I was constructing it after.

So below you can see the house with the roof, the walls and the base of the stone chimney (on both sides) together...

If the gingerbread Bird Leg Cabin could take Facebook photos...

...And I stupidly did the wrong thing and used the wrong type of icing. In my defence, I was advised to use the product as it was a seen as a suitable substitute, and my sister had already used the royal icing I got especially to coat biscuits which she then made into a periodic table. So the moral of this story is if you have an older sister who decides to make edible SCIENCE(!), than for the sake of your future sanity, lock away your royal icing.

Now for those who don't know about the different properties that different icing has, and are doing a similar project. Royal icing is the tough kind of icing which is perfect for putting together gingerbread walls as it sets hard. The icing that I used was one that came inside a tube and actually doesn't have a description of the kind of icing that it is....Seriously label, you had one job!...But it's decorative icing which is much softer and through trial and error appears to be fondant. On the plus side, it's the perfect mortar to use if you want to have a flat-pack IKEA house. 

The windows look green in the previous photos, this one is more true to the original TARDIS-blue colour.

A couple of minutes later, I had managed to install the two porch roofs, and used the Matchsticks to keep them upright. Depending on the size of your Bird Leg Cabin you can also make the fence  and other additions; I ran out of gingerbread quickly so Alan wrote the windows out of existence. I like to think that he does some DIY around the Cabin in between game launches, and that's how he acquires the nailgun in American Nightmare.

And now to the roof...

Matchsticks not only makes great icing-concealer attempts but also chimneys!

I used the white icing as mortar to stick the almond flakes onto the roof.  Almond flakes are awesome, but if you don't like them or you're allergic, you can also use things like crushed biscuits or chocolate buttons. I quite like the almonds because the pattern in the game looked like scales or feathers and so the nuts actually fits quite well. I did find that I had to go back and add more nuts on...especially as I got distracted and kept eating them to the point where I believe that one of my ancestors were part squirrel.

After putting a few more nuts on the roof tops, and at the front of the cabin, the gingerbread house was finally completed...

Dangit, if only had I used the right icing, the lines would have been neater.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the article. See you on Wednesday!

Time Taken: 4 hours

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