Today I started working on the model that Amelie and Hannah drew out. This model is meant to show viewers an accurate idea of our biome concept and how it can function realistically. I was practically obsessed with modelling as a kid. My favourite thing was those £15 arts and crafts boxes they used to sell at Argos. I'd make animals, birds and castles which I'd bring into school. My year 3 teacher would get so frustrated because he'd accidentally keep sitting on my castle whilst teaching. It was so much fun, and then for some reason I stopped completely. 14 years later I'm back to making models for my university degree, channeling that inner child. 
1 Hanna and Amelie already started by calculating the scale of the site and mapping it out onto foam board.2Hanna had brought in some grass-like paper, model trees, and scrap foliage. She cut and glued the grass paper onto the board and from there I took over.3I crafted the trees with great care, being intentional about every detail. I focused on realistic proportions and the varying shapes and sizes of the foliage. The tiniest pieces were like individual branches with clusters of leaves, both large and small. I used hot glue sticks and scrap materials, but the process was a mess. The glue webs were everywhere, sticking to everything, making it a frustrating ordeal. Alex helped me out with some of the trees at the start, and in the end, it took me 6 hours to finish them. 
4I added other elements to the scene, like moss balls ( to represent Alex's biomimicry furniture, along with a bridge made of vines. I accidentally figured out how to make fungi by pressing hot glue with my fingerprints, creating a fungi like pattern, then coloured them in with markers. I peeled some dry sticks covered in lichen and glued it to parts of the model and trees to look like real bark.
I wanted to diversify the objects and make the environment feel more realistic, as if I were actually there, fully immersed in the space. Every detail was meant to enhance that sense of presence. 5Used sandpaper for the beach.
6Made rocks, was very difficult finding them. used rock salt and mixed it with grey and green spray paint by shaking in a cup, turned out with beautiful rocks ranging from stone grey to jade greens and lapis blues. 
7Mixed resin and acrylic for the river which looked beautiful but I soon realised it was a big mistake!. It started seeping through the sandpaper and different parts of the board. I should have used Mod-podge which actually dries quicker, unlike resin which takes days. After I went over with hot glue mixed with paint and covered the sandpaper with sand and glue. I then painted the rest of the model black to build contrast and viola!8As for the other areas of the model such as the aquarium and zones I used a bunch of things lying around the class. I cut up a paper cup and covered it in this weird honeycomb tape to make it look geodesic, and repeated that process with cut up cling film roll, which I spray painted at first but realised it looked more geodesic with the tape. As for the dome, I went out and got 3 slushy cup lids from a stingy shopkeeper who charged me £1.50! Sized them down to a diameter of 6'7 cm like on the model and at experimented with two; hot glued two domes, one smaller than the other, onto cardboard packaging and filled the in-between with blue resin to recreate an aquarium. But no matter how much I sealed the resin will always seep through, due to their separate properties. So I just spray painted one silver and plopped it on to focus on the more important features such as the bioluminescent cave. 