It all started when I found this picture on the Internet : Today, I wouldn't be able to tell you where I found it! I like very much this painting, but I don't know its origins... Looks pretty much like some Lichtenstein stuff, but impossible to confirm this information. If you know more, please contact me!!

[Edit 2007-08-27 : I finally discovered who painted this! It's Benjamin Capdevielle, go have a look at his website, there are some lovely paintings there!]

Two or three years pass while this image is sleeping on my hard drive... Till the day I decided it was high time this painting was hanged on my wall at home!

So I started re-working the original image, cleaning it, cropping it (the perspective on the original photograph was wrong), then I created a grill over it to reproduce the model as accurately as possible. Which leaded me to the following : Let's do it! I reproduced the model on 6 33x41cm canvas (this was the format closest to the original I could find) : Then it was time to put some paint over it : this is a long, delicate and bothering process to get a clean result... Small modification to the original mode : the eyes and lips will now be in blue shades! Few hours later, time to hang it on the wall! These photograph are unfair to the actual result, I'll have to make better ones.. Here it is! With some patience, one can make nice preproductions... The process is pretty simple, and doesn't require specific skills!

Cabling the whole thing... On this picture, on the bottom right, the transformer for the fans. As it is adjustable, I can under-volt the fans, getting them to run slower, therefore less noisy. The four 80mm fans are directly fixed under the top cover of the box, and connected to the transformer. The LCD screen and its driving boards: On the top, the condenser and its HQI lamp. The objective's support adjusting rails slide under the LCD's boards. An optical-quality mirror will allow me to stick the box to a wall, making it little bit less bulky in the bedroom... The completed box, viewed from outside! Here it is! Now, I only have to stick it to the wall, and voila!

Here is the little plate I made for the connections to the box :: 220V input, VGA input (I'll remove it in the end, the final picture quality being way better without this connection), and 3 switches : one for the main power and the fans, one for the LCD, and a last one for the HQI lamp.

Well, you guessed it folks, I need to make a big box to contain everything!

I decided to make it out of medium wood (MDF) 10mm. thick. Light, cheap, easy to work with... The box is pretty bullky : 68cm x 35cm x 35cm.

Here we go! The grills in the background will mask the light on the air intakes. Be careful following the plan with a millimeter precision, unless the focal axis won't be respected, and therefore the image will be blur...

First box test assembly :

This divider will hold the borosilicate glass avoiding th heat to transmit from the lightbox to the rest of the box.

This same divider painted black, with the glass in.

Again the same divider, with the lightbox mounted behind. This later is mounted on the divider through spacers, by security, as the metal will heat up a lot, I don't want to take any risk with the wood...

As seen from the back, the lightbox being cabled, with its ballast on the bottom.

All the interior is painted black to avoid any reflection that would reduce the resulting image quality. The bottom left hole will be used for the VGA connectivity, as well as power inlet, and switches.

This divider will hold the LCD screen in its center, and the two Fresnel lenses on each side :

Centering the Fresnel lenses :

Objective support :

The objective support is mounted on rails inside the box, to be able to adjust the focal to the screen distance. While playing with the objective's adjustable focal, I can adjust the projected image size.

The "lightbox" is the light source of the vidéoprojecteur.

I've choosen to use a HQI lamp (mercury vapor). Benefits are a very white light (movies will end with a perfect color), and it's a ponctual light source, perfect to align the focal of all the optical elements. Plus, this lamp has a life expectancy of 10.000 hours, way more than the ones from the market's VPs ; and when it dies, it costs only a few dozen bucks to replace.

Drawbacks : it heats as hell! So you have to make sure its support will handle the high temperature, and a sufficient fresh air flow.

Cutting the support in 1.5mm thick sheet metal... Top of the picture, the reflector that will come behind the lamp.


Folding the sheet...


Assembling the lightbox : lamp supports are made out of ceramic, and one of them is mounted loose to handle the lamp dilatation due to the temperature.