Thanks a lot for all the comments guys!
JP, you're very right! I consciencely left it of as it detracts from the beautiful lines of the bass...
... and I didn't feel like doing it!
Jay, the strings are made with stretched sprue. You know, the sprues from plastic kits, heated over a candle flame and then stretched. You can make it as thin as a hair (or thinner!), and it is easy to cut and glue. After gluing, it is possible to tension them more by applying gentle heat (holding an incents stick closeby), but I didn't need to do that for the bass. Only disadvantage: it is fragile.
I chose grey plastic (becomes lighter when stretched), so I didn't need to paint it. Metallic paints would sparkle too much for this scale, and any paint would thicken them a lot, so this gave the best scale appearance.
Marcellin, that's funny! I changed from (my father's) late '70ies Fender Jazz to the Thumb! Well, with basses at that quality level, it is all about personal preferences...
Hello Bob! Yes, I remeber those Jim Holt pieces very well! Even so much, one of them partly inspired one of my next projects...
Mmm, the base was a little small for the passed out drummer, but maybe just the hand coming in from the edge, holding a drumstick, would be clear enough for anyone unfortunately enough to ever have come in contact with drummers?
Really, I played in the same band for over 10 years with me and two guitar players always there, but changing drummers all the time. Now we're on n° 5, and I hope he'll stay...
Luka, you're very right about the importance of things being in scale. I always spend extra time just to figure out how to get it in scale as much as possible, as it adds enourmously to the feeling of realism of any piece. In this case, the papers are not regular paper but (very thin) cigarette paper. The cables are 0.2mm copper wire and are easy to make, but time was spent to make them hang realisticly. No secret to this, it just needs time and care. As mentioned above, the strings are stretched sprue and are a lot thinner than 0.1mm. The neck of the base is already less than 2mm wide!
Thanks Pat! I always find it difficult to make something look busy in a natural way instead of contrieved and staged, and that was certainly the case with this one.
Thanks again everybody!
Marijn
