Finally Finished!

I have now completed my model of the Velocity Mobile Phone designed by David Turpin.
After taking apart my model mocked up. I resprayed the screen section black with a little bit less matting agents so that it matched the shine of the actual acrylic screen. I then applied black marker to the edges of my acrylic screen. I tacked the screen in place with 4 tiny dots of super glue so that It could be removed with a scapal knife if needed for any reason. I then decided to apply black permanent marker to the loops either side of the keyboard. This worked very well with the exception of one minor smudge, which I removed with small amounts of t cut. I then check my drawings for where the screen should be placed and measured it out. I then tacked it down with some super glue, which worked very well.
I am very pleased with how the model looks with some minor exceptions, such as the paint job. I wish I had produced another colour for the keyboard section. I dont think the black of the screen section and the colour of the keyboard section work too well with each other.

There were some setbacks at the start of the this project with size issues etc. But I think I have built this model very successfully if not a little too slow.
There are some things that I can do to make this model look better, such as having a variety of photos including models in hands to show size and detail.

I think this model would have been a much quicker build If I had planned less and sorted out the size issues before the project even began. I need to stop over planning and drawing and just produce sketch models and small sketches. This seems to work better than using rhino and trying to visualise things rather than actually making and thiking about making.

Anyway!

Overall If I had spent less time planning and more time making this model would have been done much much quicker! I am happy with the final outcome and I have spoken to my designer David Turpin and he seems to be very happy with the outcome. I will talk with him further to see whether he wants the model or is interested in further work together with hopefully oppurtunities of freelance work.

Mock Up photograph

With help from my tutor who has very good knowledge of photography I used an digital SLR with a lighting kit to take some photographs of my model temporarily mocked up. My tutor then helped me on photoshop to give it simple but effective lighting effects. I am very pleased with the photo and I hope it looks even better when completely finished.

I will now finish my model and post the end results with an evaluation.

Mock Up!

I have now applied my printed screen onto the chemiwood screen section and the keyboard has been painted. I have taken some photos today with it temporarily stuck together. There are still things to do such as paint the loops on either side of the phone black and also to respray the screen section black. And in the photos i have noticed that the acrylic screens edges can be seen, so I am planning to apply permanent black marker on all four sides of the 0.5mm acrylic.

Keyboard!

I have now applied a solution of watered down black acrylic paint into the laser cut engravings on the keyboard. It was a very long and tricky process, I used a very fine paint brush and applied a small blob of paint per letter. Sometimes the paint would overflow out of the engraved area but using tiny bits of tissue to dab and wipe the excess paint worked very well. I let it dry for a full day as it was very watered down. I think it was a great success and looks fantastic. Although next time I do something similar to this I will make sure I use an even higher engrave setting to create a deeper cut line, I think this would make it much easier to apply paint into the required areas.

Screen

I am going to use a perfectly sized high quality print of a windows screen saver, which will fit behind a clear piece of 0.5mm acrylic plastic. This will create the effect of having a working screen. I will be using an original windows start up screen with bright colours to add to the effect of a working screen.

Keyboard, base and screen

I now have the keyboard and screen sections painted and ready for detail, such as painting the two side rings black, painting in the black acrylic paint detail into the lettering and symbols on the keyboard, I have decided not to use Plastisol as it would take far too long to dry and fitting the high quality printed screen behind a 0.5mm acrylic screen.

I will then need to fit the screen section onto the keyboard section at a good radius for viewing.
I will also produce a simple yet attractive baseboard for the model to sit on.

Keyboard

I have now applied my laser cut keyboard base to the model. Due to slight changes to size when laser cut, I decided to add 0.2mm larger offset so that I could just sand the acrylic slightly till it fits, which worked very well. I will now work out how to produce the keys and lettering marks.

Update!!>>

I have been looking at the best way to produce the keys for the keyboard and how the letters will be done. I looked into rub-on decals, such as http://www.decal-paper.com/rubon.html but as my model may be picked up and played with by prospective clients I have decided to get each key laser engraved and cut. Then once they have been stuck in and painted, I will be able to paint into the engraved letters using a watered down solution of black acrylic paint. Or use Plastisol (ink used for screen printing) ink to rub over the engraved parts.

Update!>>


Here is a photo of my Adobe illustrator file used on the laser cutter. I had to experiment with the engrave power to produce an engrave deep enough to apply the black acrylic paint for the lettering and symbols.

Update!>>>



With the keyboard finally cut with a high power of 80, I applied it to the base of my model. A dab of superglue per key was perfect for keeping the buttons in place. I used fine polyfiller to seal the gaps between the base and acrylic keyboard area and sanded down. With some final fine sanding i applied two fine layers of white primer and proceeded with one final fine sand. I then applied my final 2 coats of my chosen colour. Due to not having any colour swatches given by the designer I had to make the colour as close as possible from images I have. I think I was quite successful, but I may add a fine gloss coat to add the aesthetics.