Dave Lowe's Sankara Stone

The amazingly talented Dave Lowe decided to bang out a recreation of a Sankara Stone during a marathon showing of the original Indiana Jones trilogy. By the time the credits rolled on "The Last Crusade" the project was done.



Well, almost done. He did go back and tweak things to make a more faithful reproduction.



There are three things to take away from his experience.

One, the foam and filler technique he used can be adapted to all kinds of projects. It doesn't take much imagination to see how it could be used for everything from stone tablets to ancient idols. Zanthu tablets, anyone?

Two, a nice prop doesn't have to take a lot of time. Mr. Lowe has the advantage of being a professional propmaker with oodles of talent, but the Sankara project demonstrates the single most important factor in making anything- motivation. He decided to do it and then did it. By his own admission the results weren't perfect, but when he was done he had a pretty cool prop. Which brings us to...

Three, there's always room for improvement. When he wasn't altogether pleased with the first iteration of the Sankara Stone Mr. Lowe went back and did it again. The result was a better, more accurate prop. Not happy with how something came out? Just do it over.