On the first hole you will putt the ball through a gaping hole in the side of the shipwreck, and to get a hole in one up a small hill which will then drop the ball down a ramp into the hole. You can see some of this on photo #2 and the little wooden balls I will be using for golf balls once painted. The arrows on the mound under the ship indicate which way to carve the mound into a hill shape.
On photo #3 you can see some progress on the sculpting of the clay over the styrofoam. I will be sculpting out the entire hole in non-drying clay, then casting a latex mold to make the final out of. I am doing this for a few reasons; on the final I will be using sculptamold which is very lightweight and durable, and these need to be as light as possible for easy transportation. The other reason is if any of the holes get substantial damage that cant be fixed, I can make a new casting from the mold so will always be able to easily replace damaged courses. At this point you can also see on the right a little plastic tiki shotglass I will be using for lighting (I will fill in detail on that in just a bit).
On photo #4 you can see some details of the ball ramp, I ran into a bit of a problem on this after testing; I had to make the back wall higher than anticipated to keep the ball from flying off the course (of course once it is covered in the "rough" that should help with that as well). I didn't realize that making the ball go up the small hill where the ship is, and then up the ramp required a hit hard enough to send the thing flying right off. The back wall SHOULD help with that, but I may have to make this section more of a covered "cave" to contain the momentum of the ball. If I do have to do that I will have to sculpt a seperate "hood" piece to go over the ramp. Right now on the tests it seems to do okay, once it hits the back wall it drops down to the speed ramp and rolls down.
Photo #5 shows some of the detail that will be in the final piece. This is a tidal pool of starfish and sea anemone on the upper wall. The rocks that make the walls for the course will look like beach area with tidal pools. Once the casting is done and painted I will pour clear liquid acrylic over the tidal pools to simulate water and protect the smaller pieces in the pools from over eager hands. I may end up using real starfish shells in there if I can find some to scale.
Photo#6 shows a close up of the tiki shotglass I am using for the light. I want these courses to have lighting like a real mini golf course for ambience but also because I know from experience that a lot of places that rent things like this out don't have proper lighting. So each hole will have one of these tiki shotglasses with a hole cut through the bottom and a christmas light placed inside so it glows and illuminates the course enough to play but also create atmosphere. If time and money allow I plan on putting in fiber optics throughout the course as well for more lighting and magic. I will probably put a small light on top of the putting ramp in the back as well.
And so that my friends is a small peek into my large project. Once I locate where the heck I put the sketches for the course holes I will put those up too. Until then see you next time on tiki isle, and smiles everyone! smiles!
