Finally, after ~3 weeks (~100 hours) of hard work, my paper craft is completed! woooo! It looks super cool (IMO) and I couldn’t stop looking at it, checking out all the details…etc. Spent an hour taking some nice photographers for it last night, set up 3 Ikea desk lamps, with some black cardboard for the background. It’s got tons of moving parts like the turrets, the mouth/tongue, the gears, the door/entrace at the back, and the “eyeballs”. The paper craft is very fragile and therefore it’s kind of scary when moving it around.. I think I need a clear acrylic or glass display case to store it, probably need to custom make one due to the awkward dimensions.. going to be pricey for sure, that is if I am able to find someone to make it for me… I’m going to re-watch Howl’s Moving Castle very soon, as the first time I watched it I wasn’t paying full attention and therefore wasn’t able to fully understand the story. I love you Hayao Miyazaki!!!!!

Went with Wendy to The Cannery seafood restaurant by the Vancouver Habour waterfront. The place was quite hard to find, and it had securty gates where I had to speak into a mic to let some guy know that I was heading to the restaurant. It’s beautifully located right next to the water, at a slightly elevated cliff, so beautiful when we got there at the blue hour. I brought my new Panasonic GH1 camera for a test drive, took a few pics inside and out and then the battery died on me! Huge =( … Didn’t get any pictures of the food but it was awesome. I had a swordfish and Wendy a halibut. We both had non-alcoholic pina colada. She got a balloon too as the server recognized her. I was surprised to see a dining menu that was prepared by Wendy with our names on it that says “the cannery wishes wendy & herman a happy anniversary” =D . We had a complimentary dessert too, I think it was called strawberry crumble and it was very tasty despite the strawberry paste was a bit sour.

I spent most of my time making my Howl’s moving castle model. I’m having a pretty good progress, finished all the 7 chimneys during the last 3 days of hard work, also finished making a couple of the castle’s exterior addons, and its ears (I didn’t know it’s got ears until I made them). Now I’m going to have to install the chimneys, and after that, it’ll be the many houses and also the gears and stuff. Can’t wait to finish it ASAP.

I went out with a group of amateur photographers last Thursday for a “photowalk” in Downtown. It was a flickr group but I was expecting more people. Those guys were nice, very friendly and knowledgeable on camera/photo stuff. Plus it really feels great when you get to know people that share the same interests with you. I didn’t get a lot of great photos out of the walk as I’m not a urban shooter, but I did PS a few of them and they turned out pretty well. Thinking if I’ll be joining them up for the photowalk at Granville Island on the 27th.

Aside from that, I’ve made up my mind to do the “difficult version” of the Howl’s Moving Castle papercraft. It’s supposed to be an illustrated book and you can cut out the shapes from the pages, however that book is apparently discontinued and very limited of them are available on Amazon Japan selling for $400USD - crazy. I downloaded a PDF version scanned by some guy, got 5x pages printed for ~$30, and started from there. I bought Elmer’s glue for adhering the sheets and got my x-acto blade replaced (it’s super sharp, can slice through paper so easily) I’ve spent 3 nights, got the head part in shape, and the tongue as well. Some parts like the hinges on the side of its mouth are SUPER tiny and therefore difficult to cut and glue - it’s smaller than a penny. It’s fun though. I don’t know how much time is needed to get the whole thing completed, the other guy Ben Millett apparently got his done in 72 hours. I’m not going to beat his time, will take my time to make the perfect model to the smallest detail.

Wooo just finished building this awesome “Bow-Shooting Boy” robot. This beautiful little karakuri doll was originally designed and built by Tanaka Hisashige in the late Edo period. The doll actually pulls an arrow out of the fan beside him, puts it to his bow, aims, and fires at a target! Built it in about 10 hours which wasn’t bad at all. Most of the time was spent calibrating the gears and threads that connect to the body parts cuz somehow when I put on his kimono its arm wouldn’t move correctly, had to dissemble couple parts, calibrate, and put them all back together. Did this a couple times and finally it worked correctly and I’m stoked to having it all done…:) I love the way the entire robot was powered by merely a spring, couple gears with different shapes, and bunch of nylon threads that connect the gears with the various body parts. It’s just too cool to me and I marvel how people in the past was able to come up with mechanics with so much complexity.

Progess pics:

Video of how it works: