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My current LotR inspired HT progress

29K views 107 replies 61 participants last post by  cuzed2 
#1 ·
Here's my basic home theatre layout plan:



I haven't decided on the colours yet, choosing colours really hard. I'm waiting on GOM samples, but they don't seem to be coming. How long did most of you have to wait for your samples, and what about people in Canada (and who did it get shipped with)?


So it's your standard theatre design, with GOM & pillar thingies, except i'm going to make mine out of fake styrofoam rocks, and make an embossed desgin on them.


This is my current (very elvish inspired) design for the walls (they replace the ugly lines in the picture above), It's goign to be some serious stenciling...






I've been playing with styrafoam & a product that was called "Rosco Foamcaot" (which is like drywall coumpound but fancier, recommened by "Gobler" here ), trying various techniques to make it look like rock. So far my best bet has been to use foamcoat and cover it with sand, then paint it using spraypaint. To get a rock look it seems you need to get a lot of speckling going on. (that's what's going on on the left side)



(I don't know why, but all the pictures i took make it look like the design is a "hole" in the rock to me, when it's actually embossed. To other people it looks embossed... :/ )


To get the design, i cut a stencil out of bristol board, put that foamcoat stuff in the holes, and scraped over the design with a flat putty knife. Then i let that dry and covered the whole thing with slightly watered down foamcoat covered in sand. Let that dry, then rubbed the sand off and painted.




I also bought some ClearNeon UV paint, and tried it out with the stencil i had already made for embossing. The picture below is with the rock being right beside a UV light, which is probably why it's so bright.






Other ideas i've got going on:

Rock ceiling:

I have no idea what i'm going to do for the ceiling or floor. I've already drywalled the front of the theatre ceiling, so i might just paint that a dark colour (for now). The rear, i originally planned on doing a suspended ceiling, but that won't fit that well with the rest of the design.

What i think i'm going to do is put up a suspended ceiling, then cover all the rails/metal with velcro, and make up a thin layer of jaggedy rocks to cover it. And make the entire rear wall of the theatre jaggedy rocks (should help with diffusion), to try to get the impression that the theatre was carved out of a mine or something (Moria
).


Colour:

My current thought for a colour is to use dark green GOM, and for the rock, make it a relatively dark grey, but put hints of black, orange/gold/amber in it. I'm just waiting on an air brush so that i can start playing with more colours (right now i've been using spraypaint, so i don't have a great selection of colours). This has been a pretty tough choice. How did you guys ever decide on a colour, there's too many to choose from and they all sound good :p


Lights.

I'm probably going to have an embossed design on the pillars at the front of my theatre, but i have no lights to cast a shadow from the side, so i might put some floor lights of some sort.

I'm probably going to put UV lights on the 4 sides of each center pillar/support pole.


Speakers:

The columns on the walls aren't going to stick out very far from the wall because i don't have that much room, so i can't hide my speakers in there. My current plan is to (eventually, after everything else is done), make a sort of an elaborate "stand" for the speaker out of rock (styrofoam), and hide the speaker in there, and have a display peice on the top of it, like a sword or something, since it'll be right under a sconce it should get lit cool.


Stage/Riser:

I'm probably also going to make the risers & stage out of rock, maybe half smooth half uncarved (jaggedy) to further the look of a mine.




I've never built anything before, but so far i'm liking the flexibility that styrofoam is giving, since it's so light. As i've (slowly) built my theatre, i've changed a lot of plans and styrofoam has been an answer to a lot of my problems/things i've wanted to change (like the ceiling plan). As far as construciton goes, it's at a halt until the design gets finished (pretty much all the drywall is up). I could post pictures but they're pretty standard.



Any ideas/recommendations/opinions on anything would be appreciated.
 
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#77 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by mikieson /forum/post/17715268


IM really surprised at how many of these threads are like 2-5 years old and never get updated, finished.


AND it also surprises me at how they get bumped after so many years. I cant count the times I have started to OR have posted in a thread from like 05 or something..Why keep bumping?

Because we want updated pics....




I want to see the stencils lit up with UV paint. That has to be cool!!
 
#78 ·
I started doing a bit more work when the weather got cold. I was planning on posting some picture soon (and after I cleaned up the giant mess...), but I might as well post some now.

I'll hopefully be able to get some better pictures around christmas time when I can borrow a better camera (and someone who knows how to use it).



I put up the screen wall cloth.





I also covered the support poles with a sort of spiral golden look thingy of some sort.





I made some speaker stands in the equivalent style for my side speakers.





I also made some sconces in a similar style.


I'm sort of annoyed, because I put the electrical boxes too high, but there's nothing I can do about that now (I made the sconces myself partly so that I could make them as "low" as possible). I can't leave them on right now either, because I'm using incandescent bulbs and the wood in them gets really hot. I'm waiting for some LED bulbs in the mail.




I also painted my desks/counter at the back with a marble look, which took forever (I had never done anything like it before).






Unfortunately, I don't really like the look of the desks like that. I think it's because they have too much of a big "box" look. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about them yet. Any ideas would be appreciated.



Quote:
I want to see the stencils lit up with UV paint

I'm still not sure where/what I'm going to do to mount the UV lights themselves, so I've been putting this off. I think I'll go ahead and paint the walls soon though, so I can at least test with a UV light in my hand or whatever.
 
#81 ·
I painted a bunch of the UV designs today (thanks to you guys hassling me :p), and I'm really pleased with how it looks. It put a big smile on my face when I shut the lights off
.


I can't post any pics because my camera doesn't have a long enough exposure time. I should be able to get some good pictures over christmas.
 
#83 ·
WOW, F'n (excuse the term) cool theme idea !! I know it's a older theater setup(started in 07) but, I'm subbing to this one as well, another one that I want to see when it's done.


I also love that Zelda door details....that is awsome (I want one !!!)


Awsome details so far, love it !!!!
 
#85 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by mikieson /forum/post/17715268


IM really surprised at how many of these threads are like 2-5 years old and never get updated, finished.


AND it also surprises me at how they get bumped after so many years. I cant count the times I have started to OR have posted in a thread from like 05 or something..Why keep bumping?


Maybe because it worked
 
#88 ·
Saki... Hats off to you for your artistic and creative abilities.


Brad
 
#89 ·
Got my dad to bring his camera over and take some low light pics. The pictures don't totally capture the "feel" of being in a room with glowing UV walls, but they give a decent idea.










Quote:
Why did you go from LOTR to Zelda in the theme?

I'd say they're close enough to be compatible
.

I wouldn't say my original design was specifically lord of the rings, just inspired by it (I didn't take any designs or anything from the movies or books, just ideas) which i'd say would fit with many "fantasy worlds" including zelda. In other words, I'm a huge zelda fan.
 
#91 ·
AngrySaki,


Even someone like myself who doesn't care for "theme theaters" has to admit you've done a spectacular job. It's hard to believe your claim that you've "never built anything before." Great stuff.


One question: regarding the third photo down on your last post, those letters/designs look great, but will they be glowing while watching a movie?

I'm curious what you intend, since I would tend to find them distracting during a movie (my eye wants to concentrate on the image on screen, so I'm a "no visual distractions" guy).
 
#92 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by AngrySaki /forum/post/17791067


I'd say they're close enough to be compatible
.

I wouldn't say my original design was specifically lord of the rings, just inspired by it (I didn't take any designs or anything from the movies or books, just ideas) which i'd say would fit with many "fantasy worlds" including zelda. In other words, I'm a huge zelda fan.

Its cool. I didnt intend to come off disrespectful at all. Just kind of threw me. Im not only a Zelda fan but a video game fanatic. I have 17 consoles many from their launch and about 1400 games. Im the guy that gets in line for 9hrs to get the consoles and games when they come out..
And im 9/10 the 1st in line..lol..


Room is looking good bro and cant wait to see it all complete so get ON IT..!!.
 
#94 ·
Wow - the script language lighting up is VERY cool. I love the detail on the doors too. Nice job!
 
#97 ·
WOW, nice door
 
#99 ·
Those doors are insane!!!! How did you do that?
 
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