THE COMPANION CUBE!!!

Step 1: don't suck.

Portal Companion Cube

The Portal companion cube started like most of my other projects: with sculpting. At the time that this blog was written, I did mainly clay sculpture. Since then I have branched out into other fields of sculpture, but for the sake of simplicity, we're going to go with "It started off as clay." One of the hardest things to do when sculpting is sculpting machined edges. the Portal companion cube was no exception, because it was all machined edges. What can I say? I'm a masochist.

I began the project with a 4"x4" armature and used heat reactive clay to rough in my shape. One of the most important lessons in sculpting, and one of the bigger things that people get caught up on, is that everyone tries to sculpt every minute detail at once. You have to rough in the shape, and then allow the shape to take form, and then clean up your work. This is much different than the carpentry I am used to, because I can neaten things as I go along.

Basic shape was easy. I used a toothpick as a depth gauge, which came to me after many hours of cursing and trying to figure out how to level out clay that didn't want to agree with me on one side and agreed with me too much on the other. I used a Sharpie marker to mark the depth that I wanted, um, and made sure that the clay was a uniform depth on all sides. This is when another difficulty began, because you have to have a uniform way to scrape the clay. I used a common speed square to give myself a flat edge and to measure up on the other edges.

Next came the detail - more cursing ensued. the Portal Companion Cube, as I said before, is full of machined edges. That meant that the circles on all the facets of the cube had to be uniform. Originally, I used a restaurant glass to model the hole. I sighted where the hole needed to be, used a torch to heat up the clay, and then pressed in the cup. My long-patient girlfriend completely refrained from accusing me of trying to burn the house down. And by completely refrained, I mean definitely did NOT cackle about it like a stoned jackal, under any circumstances at all. From there, the job got a little less stressful (hah hah) in that I could just take the scraper and carve out the recess. I say less stressful, kind of like a root canal is less stressful than having your jaw removed, because at time I ended up getting a little overzealous with my scraper, and carving all the way down to the block. which I then had to re-heat, refill, re-scrape, and re-level. Oh, goody.


I finally got all six circles finished, with most of my hair still attached to my head (that's a lie. - ed.) and proceeded to survey my handiwork. It *looked* level. By rights it must *be* level, right? This is a lie. A vicious and untrue lie. Because they weren't level. Not anywhere close. Not even in my fondest dreams could they have been level. From there I started working on the edges. I roughed out my main corner pieces, and roughed out the centers. From there, it just seemed simple that I would have to miter the corners, and move on. This, too, was a lie. A vicious and untrue lie told to me by my own brain in order to lull me into a false sense of success. Thus came version 2.0, because everything I undertake has to be at least near perfect.

Verson 2.0 started off a lot easier because I realized it was much easier to machine a wooden block that I had already prebuilt than it was to machine clay. I set the router table up and proceeded to rout the groves down all six facets.

(Side note: this cube was originally slated to be a lament configuration from Hellraiser. No worries though it will happen.)

Here you can see that the lines are machined straight because I grew a frontal lobe and use the tools I had at my disposal.

Next came the corner pieces and these were much faster than sculpting a whole cube at once so it took me no time to reach my molding phase and the silicon usage was minimal.

This done, all I had to do was wait eight hours and I had these. (see below)

The left hand side is the major corner piece and the right is the middle between each corner. Now to finish the beast so that I could have my very own companion cube and take it to Mega-con with me. I poured eight of the corners and twelve of the centers. Sanded them, primed and painted, and this is the final product as it looked at Mega-con.

This is where it got really cool because there was a girl there dressed as an actual companion cube as we as a Chelle with her own Portal gun.

(Just a reminder, I am taking commission work so if there is something that you would like, please email me at clockworkatrocity@gmail.com)

Next up: Yoshi eggs from Super Mario.

~Newsome