One thing we’ve been lacking since day one at our house is a proper key storage. Currently they are all inside a drawer, and every time we need to find a specific key it’s a pain.
So, after giving it some thought and not really liking the options my local hardware shop had for me, I had an idea.
Chinese shops use to have (at least in Portugal) small wood boxes with no finish, just raw wood…why not use one of those to store the keys?
Ok, so the base solution is found…but I’m not using this as raw wood, I have to give it a protective coat of paint or varnish.
Then internal unease arises…There is no way I’m putting a basic coat of paint without any kind of customization… I’ve got to add some personal feel to it.
My brain starts working and after a quick research I found the answer. Why not make a R2-D2 themed box? I’ve seen some lunch boxes which transform the cilindrical form of the R2 into a box-shape, maintaining the R2 feel.
After some googling around, I’ve found these instructions to make an R2 paper robot. These gave me the ground base I needed to start working (credits in the picture).
Then painting stage begins. I have to start by saying that my painting skills are rather basic, and I did not wanted to use an airbrush or spray. I had some vinyl water based paint around – from Titan paints, really cool stuff – and I also wanted to make this project as cost effective as possible, so this was my weapon of choice. Just needed to buy one black bottle and one grey, since I already had cyan blue and white.
I wanted to base the whole artistic part with straight lines, so my initial thought was to use masking tape it order to guide the paint. I dont trust my skills to do decent curve lines… Though, since the wood surface is a bit rough, the masking tape did not attach perfectly and it caused a lot of paint bleeding in the first tries. Eventually I’ve solved the issue by giving a first coat of the base color before painting the top color. The base color seals the masking tape, not allowing the top color bleeding. The process takes twice the time, but the end result is worth it. Since drying times are of a couple of minutes, it takes some time but Its feasible. The last few nights after the baby is asleep had been dedicated to this.
I’m currently finishing the (first) front panel. I know it’s not very detailed, but it’s giving me way too much trouble as it is…and I’m kind of happy with the way it’s coming.
The first shapes took me some extra time to fine tune as some were crooked and had to be corrected… I’m hoping the following ones can be quicker as I perfect the process.
More to come soon.
BTW, 3M masking tape is really great…
Take care out there…
AGT
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