Stormtrooper #2, Daniel D. Brown PhD, 2022

My IG friends Megan and Austin (@magicalmeg90 and @rebelartdesign) were lucky enough to attend this years Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, CA. Out of the kindness of her heart, Megan asked me if I wanted a silly “I hate sand” Anakin beach towel from the convention after I commented on her story. She quickly shipped it from Cali and cemented herself in my “good people” book (swipe to end). In return, I made her a little wooden stormtrooper helmet artwork, using the first SW design I ever cut. I gave that first one away years ago to my buddy Jordan @scrapforge, so I decided to make myself one as well.
Theirs is made from African padauk and purpleheart. Mine (shown in vid) is padauk and wenge. Handcut on scrollsaw. I expect the contrast on hers will pop a little more with time as the padauk darkens.

What’s funny is I had already intended on making her a small stormtrooper magnet. But after her act of kindness, she got an upgrade.
May the force be with y’all!

Stormtrooper #1, Daniel D. Brown PhD, 2022

My IG friends Megan and Austin (@magicalmeg90 and @rebelartdesign) were lucky enough to attend this years Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, CA. Out of the kindness of her heart, Megan asked me if I wanted a silly “I hate sand” Anakin beach towel from the convention after I commented on her story. She quickly shipped it from Cali and cemented herself in my “good people” book (swipe to end). In return, I made her a little wooden stormtrooper helmet artwork, using the first SW design I ever cut. I gave that first one away years ago to my buddy Jordan @scrapforge, so I decided to make myself one as well.
Theirs is made from African padauk and purpleheart. Mine (shown in vid) is padauk and wenge. Handcut on scrollsaw. I expect the contrast on hers will pop a little more with time as the padauk darkens.

What’s funny is I had already intended on making her a small stormtrooper magnet. But after her act of kindness, she got an upgrade.
May the force be with y’all!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daniel D. Brown PhD, 2022

“Power. I have it. They don’t. This bothers them.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All natural wood color, no paint or stain.

After a brutally long work day filled with breast cancer, it’s nice to sit down and post about some fun slayage! I’ve been a massive Buffy/ @sarahmgellar fan for many years, having watched it all many times. Tori Angelini (@toricangelini) and I had a bunch of little interactions over the past few years over random woodworking/art things. But then she let it slip that she’s a massive Buffy fan too, and our conversations sorta snowballed into randomly sent Buffy/geeky things (I seem to have a lot of entertainment interests in common with her hubby @matt.angelini as well). She and @tam_a_ryn also bonded over hot sauces, and she even sent us some hot sauce along with a bunch of her wood/epoxy ornaments for Christmas.
Anyway, I knew I had to do something for her in return, and I wanted to wait long enough for it to be a total surprise. I first thought about making their little one a baby rattle. And then I thought maybe a simplistic Buffy piece for her and an “Appa” for Matt. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to do Buffy and make it rad. I mean Tori is an obsessive fan. A fanatic, even! You should ask her about her experience having a “Cameo” conversation with James Marsters AKA Spike. Kudos to Matt for getting her that! 😂
So I settled on this design I roughly based on the season 1 DVD cover.

Note: I’m intentionally leaving out Joss Whedon discussion in this post. It’s obviously been disappointing. But Buffy still rocks in all her campy, angsty glory.

Made from Bloodwood, mahogany, purpleheart, pine, basswood, ebony, holly, elm, European cherry, and walnut. I think it turned out five by five.

Boba’s/Jabba’s Palace (#3), Daniel D. Brown, 2022

I’ve been meaning to make an actual post of this for a couple weeks. Long story, short: I lied about not liking this watercolored-sycamore background. It was intended all along as 1 of 2 pieces, the second of which would be given to Luke @cyclocrosscutter. A long time ago in a galaxy… well… here, Luke surprised me with a badass purpleheart and walnut Mjolnir with hand-routered details (swipe). He said I had to make him an intarsia in exchange. So I actually made two versions of Boba’s/Jabba’s Palace. If you look closely at the stories from this build on my profile, you can see that there are actually 2 of each piece. Luckily he’s not that observant. I decided to give him this one, mainly because I figured it’s a bit different from his own work. He could slap a few pieces of different colored wood together for the sky as easily as I can. But I felt like this one was a bit more “artistic”. Everything else is the same, except the palace itself is made from lombardy poplar (not related to construction “poplar” you find at big box stores, which is actually tulipwood) instead of sycamore. And the frame is different because this was all I had that was long enough (it’s roadside walnut firewood salvage). Go to his page to see it hanging on his wall of awesome geeky scrollsaw art.
PS please don’t ask for similar trades. It stressed me out trying to figure out what to make him 😂😂. I’m not sure it matches Mjolnir in coolness, but at least it does in time invested!

Boba’s/Jabba’s Palace (#2), Daniel D. Brown, 2022

Jabba’s/Boba’s Palace.
All natural wood colors (no paint or stain).

Note: I’ll be posting multiple versions of this. This one has good lighting/color. But you can’t see the totally superfluous lights, which I’m glad I added! (See previous post).
Built from purpleheart, bloodwood, mahogany, chakte viga, yellowheart, yew, sycamore, walnut, bocote, crab apple, wenge, hickory, Lombardi poplar, and maple.
This was a replacement for a smaller, simpler version I made a few years ago. I think practice has paid off a little. I started this thing 3 months ago, and I’m so glad to be done!