Project Kitbash - TV Time

2023 note - actual date is an approximation, life was fairly upside down when I did this project for reasons beyond the Flu-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but I'll get to that.  I do remember I finished this right before the work shift I wore it to, however, so end of October it is.

This is how you make the best of numerous unfortunate situations.  In 2020 I was doing my second stint at Y'allmart, still on the stock team (but on the verge of moving to the online department they'd started up due to the pandemic).  The company finally did get wise about one thing since the first time I'd worked there and had started actually telling prospective marks employees they'd get paid to exercise.  This is true, but it's also significantly harder to handle when you're over 40 than it is when you're around 21.  You do get beaten into shape...but at what cost?

Sanity.  It costs you your sanity.  And most of your fingernails.  And in my case, one rib and a left knee, but those are stories for another time.

The other upside to working on the stock team is you have free access to as much cardboard as you want.  You ever look at a box and picture it as something else?  I bet we all have at least once.  This particular one ties in with another project (a roombox) I have waiting to be done.  This one just got done first.  This particular Tampico juice case came in looking much less destroyed than its brethren, and all I saw when I got a good look at it was a cartoon television.

Some people have coffee table books.  I have coffee table projects.

In my defense here, Andy had just moved out back to Arizona and I had the whole place to myself, so there was nobody to fight with for the space =p

I cut a hole in the bottom for my big round melon and did some hot glue magic to get a circle of packing foam from the Furniture department (I think) into the top of the box to keep it from rattling around once I'd put it on.

Cut another hole in the back to stick this Dollar Tree plastic basket on, both for ventilation, accuracy, and as a place to put my hair since I usually bun it up at work.

Cut out a grille/mouth under the "screen" hole...

Filled some gatorade caps with hot glue and stuck a couple of wood craft sticks in there.  They're actually pretty straight; it's the box being abused that makes them sit funny in the image.

I traced around the sides of the case on some foamcore and cut panels.

The case is now all reinforced.  The screen surround got cleaned up, I glued a couple of sheets of felt to the bottom to help it hold up and also hide/cushion the neck hole, and filled the corners in with more hot glue.  Got the basket glued to the back...

The infamous "plastic from doll packaging" Froggy always has on hand.  I hoard it too, and luckily had a piece just big enough for this.  I cut it slightly larger than the screen opening and creased the corners to give it that rounded TV screen look before attaching it on the inside of the box.

Halfway there..ish!  It looks very backyard, but it's kind of supposed to.  Everything got outlined in more hot glue.  I glued some felt into the grille so I'd be audible and could still breathe, and poked some holes to either side of it for the craft sticks.  Working TV knobs :D

Getting closer...

The aerial is half of a styrofoam craft ball painted silver.  I wired a pair of wooden fast food chopsticks together at one end, glued them into the middle of the ball, and made a couple of hot glue knobs at the top ends.  They're semi-poseable, but mostly there to be a little wiggly.  I also cut a piece of that window-cling car tint to put over the inside of the screen.

Base-Wash-Drybrush, paint all the glue outlines in flat black and the knobs in gold, and we're done.  It has that cartoony-clipart look I was going for.  The sealant coat over top of it fogged the acetate packaging plastic on the screen, though.  This is an effect I knew would happen and I've used it on purpose in the past, but I think if I had it to do over again I'd skip that part.  The window tint is enough to keep me anonymous on its own - the plastic being fogged made it impossible to see anything with the head on :'D

Off to work.

I didn't win anything - we had more important things to worry about than costume contests that year - but the store manager did say mine was his favorite costume of the day.  I'll take it.