Heaven is Now Richer

McGee

Cory
Today my house is super clean and a ton of laundry done through a butt load of tears and complete heartbreak.
My great buddy Troy, the guy in the pic with me in the avatar died today.
I went to see him in the hospital last night but he was heavily sedated on a breather and morphined up, so I didnt get to "talk with him and let him know I was there, but I hope against all hope that he still knew I was..that he heard me somehow.
I got the message this morn that he had passed.
I am including two pics that I took with him a few years ago. I scheduled a trip to take him to the local airshow, as he had never been to one.
The first pic,(one of several of that i took) is when I had lifted him from his chair and into the cockpit of the Blackhawk .
See how lit up he is? When i dang near dropped him, he looked like he crapped himself, but when i got him into that seat, he wouldn't stop grinning and cooing for the rest of the day.
It was the one and only time he ever got that oppurtunity, and he was thrilled to the end of the world.....until....the next pic...
which was us with a company of WWII reenactors from a local chapter.
When these guys (who were incredibly gracious.. it was 98 on the tarmac that day and all of them were wanting him to have their water).
When he saw these guys in their full uniforms, actually taking the time to talk to him and engage him, he lit up even more than the cockpit seat moment.
He wasn't able to talk but nonetheless his joy and thrill was as obvious as a hundred suns...despite getting a minor sunburn that day.
These are moments that really bonded us. He was the most amazing guy ever. EVER.
 

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micahrogers

Moderator "Where am I, and how did I get here?"
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I am sorry for your loss, and I will keep you and him in my prayers, Peace be with you in your time of sorrow and my God take him into His heart.
Micah
 

Rhaven Blaack

!!!THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!
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I am very sorry for your loss. My deepest condolences to both you and his family.
Thank you for sharing the fond memories that you have taking him to the air show.
 

zathros

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Mcgee, I just spent 9 days in the hospital, close call. I can say with confidence his soul knew you were there, you are soulmates. You have been and will always be part of his life. When you see him again, oh the joy, it could not contained in your present corporeal body!!

A blessing it was to read this. Thank You! :)
 

McGee

Cory
A very heartfelt thank you to everyone of you. Zathros I am very glad as heck as I know those who are in your life, that you are here to be able to tell us it was a close call, and that we are not all reading a different message.
I am thankful to God that you are all here and for your empathy. I agree with you Zathros. These physical gloves we all wear, cant fathom that kind of joy and peace.
thank you very much, each of you.
 

McGee

Cory
Ive been thinking all day about this and while I will be having a few pics of us, put onto those stretched canvas box frames, I want to do something else a bit more special.
I'm going to create a 3 dimensional version of the pic of him and me with the Blackhawk.
I have one of the old GPM Blackhawk models. I'm going to build it up, and then take the images of him and me, scale them accordingly, then print them off, triple laminate them, and bend arms and legs slightly, just to do the 2D for 3d thing, as I don't have a clue how to design or texture map real images onto actual 3D paper model 'wireframes' etc to crank out a fully 3D paper model of people or figures.
That said, that's my plan. Then put it into a framed shadow box.
the shadow box will have to be a deep one to accommodate the whole breadth of the copter and blades, but that's okay.
The only other thing I will have to do will be the mod to the model, of opening the 'dog house' above the cockpit, and scratch building some of the mechanics and bits up there.
That has gone to the top of my list after Christmas gifts, so the ones i was going to do will be sliding backwards down the list a bit.

The basement area in my house is as yet unfinished and some walls need to go up and room spaces figured out, but from the get go, already a given, is that a few of the walls in my office space and the main entertainment room, will have deeper framing. Likely twice as deep as standard wall depth, because I have limited space, so rather than bring shelf space out to encroach on the room space, I'm sinking them inwards.
Approx 5 different spots will be dedicated as different size normal picture frame sizes, and the shadow boxes will be able to be pulled out and re dressed if needed.
The main room wall will just have one really large sunken display wall with shelves in it for just static solo standing ,models, that are not in a diorama.
I picked up a nice thick 4' X 3 1/2' piece of glass from work, so that will be the glass in front of that wall display.
all that to say, that is why making deeper shadow boxes for dioramas will be okay and not all clunky and takin' up a lot of space. Ive always though it would be really cool to have walls in your house that had Pictures hanging on them in places that make sense and look right to the wall space, but instead of just 1D pictures behind that frame, you have a space cut into the wall, sink a nice finished open front wood box cabinet into that cove, and have that space be where you can put a fully 3D "picture"..something to really pull you into the scene even more than a pic does.

ramble over. thanks for listening to my insanity.
 

McGee

Cory
and since the wood finished cove is just an empty plug for the diorama box to be put into place, with the frame finishing off the front, you could still do forced perspective dioramas in its own box and then pup it into place in the cove.
 

Rhaven Blaack

!!!THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!
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This sounds like it will be a GREAT tribute to him.
I wish you the best of luck on the project!!!
I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out!
 

McGee

Cory
Thank you very much Rhaven and all else for your generous support and kind hearts and spirits. Someone once told me that there was a very special place for me in Heaven and I said wow, well thank you... to which they responded "oh...no, see I mean its pretty much a padded room with no sharp instruments or things with more than 2 moving parts"
Well when I say that to all of you, I actually mean it in the RIGHT and kind way. Although i have to admit that what they said WAs pretty funny.
Thank you again,.
 

Rogerio Silva

Active Member
McGee

I have recently returned from a trip earlier than I thought, and I've just read your thread. In order to reduce the pain of a loss, I like to think that who's now gone is in a better situation than we are, without limitations nor diseases, and in a better place. I do believe that Troy is now better, and he can do all the things his spirit could, but his body wouldn't allow him to.
There's a dialog from a movie called "Jack" that I think really applies to this moment, and it's like this

Lawrence Woodruff: (...) Have you ever seen a shooting star, Jack?

Jack: No.

Lawrence Woodruff: It's wonderful. It passes quickly, but while it's here it just lights up the whole sky - it's the most beautiful thing you'd ever want to see. So beautiful that the other stars stop and watch (...).

By what you've been telling us, Troy was a shooting star.
My deepest feelings, my friend.

Rogério
 

zathros

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You may want to consider doing the Blackhawk as a half model, the pertinent section. It can then b framed, sealed with Argon gas, with U.V. glass on front and it will not fade and the argon gas, which does not have to be under pressure, just sealed in, will protect everything in the enclosure. :)
 

McGee

Cory
and THIS....THIS...these responses and advices and additions to personal anecdotes or modelling questions is eXACTLY why you all are such a HUGE blessing and at the top of the list of coolest people.
Thank you so much Rogerio. yes he certainly was. very much. exactly. Is that the movie with Robin Williams?

Zathros, it's ironic you mention that, as I was thinking about it last night, kind of brainstorming and thumb nailing presentation ideas, and while looking at the pic, I realized that I wanted to be able to enlarge the model enough to make the focal part of the picture, remain the focal part of the model, but that would require a much bigger diorama space.
So then I imagined just doing the front section that's in the pic (also, that much extra 3D model beyond the focal point would really lead your eye away from that) and at the point where the fore section of the model, just aft of where the bay doors cut off, I would just do a forced perspective matt painting to continue the rest of the helo, without having a box big enough to lose the scope of the point of the diorama.
The Argon gas idea is BRILLIANT.. I am all about preserving the integrity and colors of the final build.
 

McGee

Cory
The other project I'm going to tackle which will require much less building skill, but still bring a photo to life and make it pop, is to take the pic of us with the WWII crew, do some photo manipulation, where I isolate each person and rotoscope them out and wherever parts are missing because of being covered by another guy, do the artwork to complete those missing slices, to get a full image.
I know there are a couple guys that are covered enough that making a whole person with missing image information will be a bit of a challenge, but there's ways around that, that are effective. Just some artisitic license and smart math using the rest of the visuals there as reference.
Once again, using Rhavens moniker..If it can be thought of, it can be done.
(Some one figured out a way to make it look like Greedo shoots first.....OH.. COME ON.)

make several copies of the entire image and each level in the pic is its own 2D plate, and each person its own plate.
End game is basically a 2D for 3D staging creche sort of set up. Did that make sense.
I'll be giving that one to his family.
 

zathros

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The other project I'm going to tackle which will require much less building skill, but still bring a photo to life and make it pop, is to take the pic of us with the WWII crew, do some photo manipulation, where I isolate each person and rotoscope them out and wherever parts are missing because of being covered by another guy, do the artwork to complete those missing slices, to get a full image.
I know there are a couple guys that are covered enough that making a whole person with missing image information will be a bit of a challenge, but there's ways around that, that are effective. Just some artisitic license and smart math using the rest of the visuals there as reference.
Once again, using Rhavens moniker..If it can be thought of, it can be done.
(Some one figured out a way to make it look like Greedo shoots first.....OH.. COME ON.)

make several copies of the entire image and each level in the pic is its own 2D plate, and each person its own plate.
End game is basically a 2D for 3D staging creche sort of set up. Did that make sense.
I'll be giving that one to his family.


Try and use a printer (like Epson) which uses Pigment, not Dye based ink. Pigment Ink does not fade. :)
 

McGee

Cory
Man thanks again so much for that. I had no idea about that. What other kinds of printers use pigment based? Do any of the clear coats out there offer some fade resistance for models that I have done on my H(eap of) P(oop) printer?
 

zathros

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I use products from www.inkproducts.com Go to their website, then call them, on the phone. Tell them what you want, and they will tell you what to order, and what comments to place in the order box. You will get the best value of O.E.M. ink available att a price that cannot be beat by anyone. This is the real stuff, the industry standard ink from Dupont. I know this for a fact. :) I purchased an "Ink Refill Sration, rwo sets of refillable cartridges, and more Ink than I could have ever imagined. It came out less than buying Epson ink cartridges twice, and I must have done 15 to 20 refills so far. Cmes with special liquids to clean the printer heads. This company is "Good for your Printer'. If they don't have what you need, you may have to ask for a printer recomendation, I would take their advice.
 

McGee

Cory
SWEET.. EXcellent.. thank you an entire astronomical unit... the whole thing.. not just the half of it.
 

McGee

Cory
Such a sad loss. I'm sure you made his life a great time, McGee.

Thank you Cforrest. I did okay yesterday being able to look at his pictures with a smile, but today is different again... shheeesh. Im going to need new eye balls.
I like to think that whatever I may have contributed to his life, he returned that 100 fold to me. Thank you so much.
 

bgt01

Exemplary Confidant
Sorry to read about your loss. You were both lucky to have such a special friendship.
 
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