Our first filming day is coming up fast: Monday, April 29th. One of our first locations is Hiccup's workshop which we're building in our shop. William (the youngest member of the on-fire-five) watched all of the How to Train Your Dragon movies, taking screen-shots and making lists of all the tools, materials, and odds and ends that Hiccup kept in his workshop. One of the things on his list was candles.
We could have gone out and purchased some big waxy, drippy-looking candles, but in good Kids on Fire fashion, we decided to make them.
They ended up being really cheap, really fun and easy to make, and really good looking. I'm super proud of how they came out. First, I gathered up as many paper town and toilet paper rolls as I could find and cut them to different sizes with jagged edges. I also used an old plastic spice bottle. I glued a round piece of cardboard inside to create a pocket to put a T-light in.
Next, I used the hot glue gun to gob of heaps of glue all around the top rim. My hot glue gun isn't incredibly hot, so the glue tended to mound rather than run. Soooo .... after I had a tone of glue unevenly spaced all around the rim, I used my heat gun to warm the glue and make it runny. That's how i got those lovely looking drips.
I quickly mixed up some white, brown, and a little gold paint, and gave each candle a bazillion coats. I was kind of messy on purpose, I didn't want the paint job to look smudgy rather than sleek. After the paint was dry, I went over the candles with two layers of Modge-Podge to give it a waxy shine.
Last step was to fill the hollow tubes with the puffy insulation foam stuff so they would be a bit sturdier. They were kind of fragile before the foam, but afterwards, they could be knocked over or held tightly without being crushed. I added a cardboard bottom to each one, painted and Modge-Podged it to match and . . . Wha-La!
We stuck a T-light in the top of each one , stuck them in the workshop and it was magical. The place is starting to look very viking. I'm excited to show you the whole workshop in another post. Stay tuned!
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