Made a decent amount of progress this week and things are really starting to come together. I built a cleaner, more polished version of my forced perspective model and got it mounted in the shadowbox. One of the big updates is the flooring. I used a carpet material to give it some texture, and made it double-layered. The top layer has a bigger cutout so when the light shines through, it creates this cool outer ring shadow effect (see second pic), kinda like a beam of light coming down from the skylight and softly spreading across the floor.
I added some backlighting LEDs that are super bright and give off the perfect glow for the skylight. Only thing is I didn’t realize they’re motion-sensored until after buying them, so they don’t stay on very long. Gonna need to replace those. I also got these color-changing fairy wire LEDs, but they’re super long, so I had to fold them a bunch to fit them in the shelf space. Now they’re a bit bulky, and I’ll need to block them somehow anyway, thinking of adding a mini shelf or bar to hide them and help diffuse the light.
Moving forward, do I keep these folded-up fairy LEDs or just switch to a regular LED strip? Both are about the same thickness, about half an inch. I am also going to add trim around the front-most edge so no light leaks through. Also planning to darken the side walls so light doesn’t fade through there either.
Its looking really good so far, I especially love the skylight part.
For darkening the sidewalls, you can try using think tape to block it out. Something like gorilla tape, as masking tape or clear tape would still bleed a bit of light.
As for the fairy lights, similar to what Katie suggested, could you poke holes in and just feed the bulbs through? That way you can space them however you desire, and the wire wouldn’t be visible.
If not, I think blocking them with some sort of wood trim as you were thinking would be good, especially since then you can choose a direction to diffuse the light.
This is awesome, specifically because of how cleanly you’ve executed the final version! If you were looking for ways to diffuse the light, I’m sure people have some spare acrylic that you could use. Also, I think for the wire, you could do a cool “rowed” effect where you hide them behind a slightly out bottom layer (kind of like what we were talking about in class) and then you can have them illuminate the piece from inside that space.
I really love how this is turning out! If there’s room, I really think that putting your lights for the half wall from behind might get the effect you want the best! I can’t wait to see the final product.