Until I get some work in progress shots, thought I would share some of my reference material.

My Fortress project will consist of 3 parts.

1) The main fortress crystals... rolled tubes of paper, slid over acrylic tubes cut at a 45 degree angle, then mounted to a wood foundation. LEDs will be placed in the acrylic mounts, with a few random green pockets of LEDs.



These 2 pictures below gave me the idea of using Styrofoam chunks for ripped up artic ice, to cover up all the construction flaws and LED sources, and adding yet another element of bad'assery.





2) The crystal console... in which Superman talks to his father, Jorel. (Which will act as a corner desk lamp.) Hoping to get an acrylic crystal made to insert into one of the console tubes.






3) And lastly, Jor'el himself. Hoping to sculpt it out of clay, then vacuform melt a sheet of clear styrene plastic (for hologram effect), while hovering over my 2 monitors, centered below the Fortress's cathedral vaulting.


*photos courtesy of www.capedwonder.com*

Genesis.

I'd hate to admit it, but I work in a cubicle. And its pretty "IKEA". White, Gray, and Wood. Some people at work decorate, put out Star Wars figurines, pictures of the wife and kids, and so forth. Others go vertical.

But first, a lil back story...
I work in an old Air Force hangar converted into office space. Much of the companies decorations involve WW2 Aviation themes. An employee (JD) on the second floor took this "decoration" theme to the next level; by building a replica air plane hangar around his cubicle, completely made out of cardboard. No joke.

This certain individual (JD) has inspired me to construct vertically also. And the first thing that came to mind was Superman's Fortress of Solitude. With no idea of how, or what materials I would be using, I started some rough blueprints. Since I work for a pretty corporate company, I had to keep "office safety" in mind. Meaning, I couldn't have solid crystals made of plastic, or any other SOLID or HEAVY materials that could fall on me during an earthquake or something.

So in homage to JD's air plane hangar, I plan on making all of the crystals out of a paper products (rolled tubes of paper). The foundation will be built out of wood and acrylic tubes. The acrylic tubes will act as mountings for the paper crystals. And I chose acrylic because I plan on illuminating them with LEDs.

I will post some progress pictures soon.