Strange creatures

Some of my sketches - I've changed my direction, thought more about apperance of my structure. Now I'm thinking of some kind of anthropomorphic constructions...

I thought of making flat "extensions" which could be stuck in between blocks - like tails, ears, horns, etc... Made some examples from cardboard:

Foam blocks

Finally I have decide to extract expaning foam block from the mould. I was really afraid it won't work but it did! Vaseline did a good job, foam didn't stick to MDF, and all the edges were smooth, except for the top which I had to cut by knife and it doesn't look that good, but it's just a test.

The block is super-light, so it's another advantage. And making it from mould means that all the block would be the same which is good. But... Foam is just foam, it's really easy to break and, well, doesn't look amazing. So I thought how to improve this - I made the block from cardboard and filled it with foam which works even better:

Cardboard holds shape and thanks to the foam it's not hollow. Everything is still light. I think that's it.

Paper mache experiment

I was thinking -  what else can I use to make my blocks light but sturdy? I decided to try paper mache imagining that little paper pieces would be held togeteher by some kind of glue. Maybe I did something wrong because it didn't work so well...

First of all I had to make yet another mould... 4 units 6x6x6cm :

Then I had to prepare some shreded paper. I used really thin newsprint but I had to cut several A1 sheets for 1 small mould which took ages and was annoying. 

Time to make "glue" - 1 glass of flour, 1 glass of water, 2 spoons of table salt. Looked like mixture for pancakes. Maybe it was too thick, I don't know, but something didn't feel right. Maybe I should have dilluted it or use different recipe (one American houswife on youtube was suggesting to mix ordinary school glue with water, maybe that would work better).

Now I had to cover my mould with shreded paper, what wasn't easy, because the mould was tiny. In the middle of doing this I have realised that the block can't be hollow, because it won't be strong enough, so I just filled whole (well 3/4 of it, not enough filling) with paper and pancake mixture.

It looked horrible. I left it for couple of days, and it was still wet. I decided to open the mould anyway - now it looks even worse:

The experiment has officialy failed. Paper mache in NOT a good idea.Making 1 little brick was soo time consuming, also it was waste of paper, waste of flour, took ages to dry and last but not least - it just doesn't look good. 

Islamic mosaics & geometric patterns

When I'm thinking about looks of my blocks I have in my mind lots of geometric figures in crazy colours. I might use just patterns made of basic shapes. These are looking amazing (found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_uniform_tilings):

Obviously I am strongly influenced by Islamic art, they have used geometry to its limits and it's just not possible to make anything better:

There is also big tradition of mosaics in Ancient Greece, but they seem bleak to me:

When it comes to crazy coulours and anthropomorphic shapes it's good to look at Native American Totems:

And South American Indians - Aztecs and Mayans:

Expanding (foam)

MDF blocks aren't so bad, although making one is timeconsuming and annoynig (trying to find the right size drill in the workshop takes ages. oh wait, anything in the workshop takes ages). Also the blocks are heavy, which makes them unstable. So I need to find better material for my modules. First try - expanding foam. It's expensive (~6£), so I'd better use it. 

First of all I had to make a mould, so basicly reverse the shape I made the other day. It looked like this:

Since the foam is used also as an adhesive there's a risk that it will stick to my mould forever. It's not really what I'm looking for, so I had to use something what is professionally called "releasing agent" - known as vaseline. Again expensive (1£ for 20g) and I have used nearly half of the box while coating my mould with it. Then I had to sprinkle some water inside which makes the foam work.

Now (after reading the instruction carefully*) I sprayed some foam inside:

Way too much. The foam expands 2.5 times, but mine expanded like 4 times and now looks like this:

Such a waste of foam. Could have 2 blocks instead of one.

I'm still not sure if it will work. The foam seems to be dry, but might be wet inside, so it's better not to touch it. Apparently it's safe to sand after 12h, so I'll just wait. Also I need to get rid of excessive foam, cut it neatly and disassemble the mould (not easy - glue gun seems to work extremely well on moulds, so you can't take them apart unless you're super strong, but when you want something to actually stay stuck together forever then of course glue gun won't work, nooo way).

So question of giant lego foam block remains unanswered.

* I skipped the boring stuff.

PS. While watching foam tutorials on you tube I've stumbled upon video of amazing cos-play artist (?). The woman from Germany makes really impressive costumes and props inspired by e.g. World of Warcraft. This is her website http://www.kamuicosplay.com/

Real-size blocks

I made 2 MDF blocks in scale 1:1 (this time square's dimensions: 6x6 cm). Holes diameter: 2 cm. Rods: 19mm. It's working but 1mm difference between hole and rod actually makes a difference, it's too loose, so not very stable as a result.

To make blocks more stable I drilled smaller holes (4.5mm) in thick rods and stuck thinner ones perpendicularly - like on this draft:

This is how it looks like on real-life model:

It works surprisingly well, everthing is more stable, but now I'm dealing with only 2 block and 2 rods. It would be way more tricky with more elements, because holes have to be drilled realyy accurately and on the same angle (not easy). 

Bad news - assembling and disassembing my thing can take ages with so many elements.