Workshop with Gerard Boom from "Shiftinglands"

Hi all,

this time I am posting some photos of a workshop I was taking part last weekend.

I don´t know if you´ve ever heard about Gerard Boom, but I am sure that you have if you ever had been interested in making buildings from styrofoam. This Dutchman is known for his outstanding buildings and ideas and is a real Grandmaster in doing this.

If you are an owner of a Proxxon Styrocutter you can pimp it up with several tools Gerard Boom constructed for better use of the cutter. Someone who ever tried to cut a simple circle with such a cutter will remember that it is not as easy as it seems. With the tools from Gerard - no problem.

Just have a look at his website for further information.

http://www.shiftinglands.com/

Gerard even offers workshops where he shows a lot of tricks on handling the cutter itself and also on handling his tools. He is often also on conventions like the Hamburger Tactica or the CRISIS in Antwerp.

I always had been fascinated by his works and wanted to visit one of his workshops.

Posting on a forum asking for other partipicants a few months ago some hobbyists from Munich managed to get a suitable room for a workshop and Gerard was invited to be our teacher.

And so, last weekend (January 14th and 15th) we met and had a lot of fun.

My thanks go to the fellows of Munich who had been very kind and helpful.

Mates, you are great. Hope to meet you again soon.

And of course also many thanks to Gerard, who had to travel from the Netherlands to the snowy Munich and back.

Here are some pics from the workshop. Hope you´ll enjoy them and maybe they make you think about joining a workshop, too.

One of the fantastic works of Gerard Boom - this is for 15mm figures.

Just a second view.

A great variety of the possible things you can build from styrofoam - made by Gerard Boom.

Again this is for 15mm

A combination of styrofoam and Balsa wood

Gerard´s own developed tool for cutting circles...

...and a perfect example for what it enables you to build.

So far so good. But after some introduction all participants had the chance to try it on their own.

And the results are worth watching.

The audience listening to the Grandmaster

Gerard Boom explaining his tools.

First trials of structuring engraved stones.

My project for DeadMan´sHand - a mexican Cantina

A house I got from Gerard - just a work of a few minutes for him.

Not as time consuming as my project.

I love the combination of foam and wood.

Vlad´s project - the stairs of Khazad-dum.

A great and also big project.

Andreas and his monster-project.

Also a very nice project of Andreas (not the same as the first mentioned)

Sven trying to copy the circled tower - and he did it very good.

Another project that got better and better - It was amazing to see the progress of this work

Everyone had fantastic buildings in mind to implement.

Building a dungeon.

The very good work of Thomas who drove about 500 kilometers to take part.

One of Gerard´s works.

Again a sample from Gerard.

The wooden floor took me about an hour to do.

Having a look over the master´s shoulders.

Constructing the ground of the second floor.

The cantina is growing.

The impressive work of Sven.

Andreas´ project in progress.

Martin only had the chance to take part for a few hours - but he also had fun.

Vlad carving rocks.

Building a Roof.

A sci-fi-project.

The growing of the dungeon.

Sven´s project again - amazing.

Home again - just a test how the cantina would look like with painted figures.

Canons made of resin - I just bought 30 of them for my Vauban fortress that is still in work.

We all had a lot of fun. Though some of us never met before the athmosphere of the workshop was very kind. I am sure that everyone got a lot of inspiration for further projects.

One of my next posts will be about the finished cantina. Hope to be able to post it very soon.

Cheers

Mike