27 April 2014

[Art] Imaginary Planes

With the Matchbox Sky Busters/Maisto Tail Winds project several months ago, I found myself in a short-lived plane-craze fad looking up a whole bunch of planes without a care about anything other than its name and how cool they looked. During that phase, I bought myself a box of cheap quality plastic planes, each constructed with two solid pieces of polypropylene one day at work. I had "customizing" in mind, but I had no plan on what to transform them into. Fast forward to now, I finally came up with something I think is acceptable and quick, considering the main goal was to do something with it rather than simply tossing it. The idea is one where household members and visitors can interact with, unlike all the cars I've been making. That should have some value in of itself.

Regretfully, I don't have a shot of them before I painted over it, but basically, it looks like any under-painted imported Chinese toy you can find for less than $5 at a merchant's store in Chinatown. Growing up having to encounter these half-hearted creations, I couldn't stand the idea of leaving it as it.

The original idea was to turn them into something like playing pieces on a table-top games, where the playing surface was a bird's eye view of an ocean complimented with clouds and maybe an island here and there. It basically is trying to replicate a screenshot of famous SHMUP game 1942 on NES. Each plane would have push pins attached to the bottom and the surface would be a large cork board. Not knowing where I could hang it, I decided to rethink what kind of surface I could use and immediately I thought of using my front door. It's a giant sheet of metal so I could stick anything magnetic to it. Wait. Magnets! That's it! I don't need to hang up anything, I could just use the existing surface of the white door and stick the planes on without leaving any permanent traces, marks, or holes even after I take them down some time in the future. It's resourceful and brilliant.

Here's where the challenge came about. Since I have no intention of making anything permanent, that would eliminate the possibility of me painting an ocean on the door which basically forces me to work with a white canvas. Keeping the theme of retro graphics of NES, I thought of using single-colour planes that contrast with white. Here's what it looks like.




They really aren't large planes. Or I just have a really big door.


Its composition is free to be moved around by anyone, even if they happen to see video games out of it.


1942 (Strikers) on the left, Galaga on the right.

If I had more planes, the idea of Galaga would've been a keeper. Maybe even Space Invaders.

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