Good hands, for hire.

With the Peasok team in Nizhny Novgorod: the designer's pencil sketch, my cardboard mock-up tried on my own head, the finished piece on stage. At Peasok I also cut on CNC and laser and built «Griva» — a fully mirrored costume you'll find on the studio's site. I got there by coming to play the Snow Maiden at their New Year shows, got hooked on making the costumes instead, and stayed; my initiation was an LED Snow Maiden mask I never got to wear.

Went for a coffee, got asked to hang some bulbs, ended up lighting the stage — with the crew, not alone. That's where I learned lasers, lighting and control, up to sitting at the desk and playing the light live at events.

In Egypt a man stepped out of his workshop as I walked past on a bad day and said: my workshop is your home, do what you want. His trade is jewellery, mostly beadwork; I love silver, so I asked him to teach me to forge.

An old hobby, but the first quad that was fully mine I built and flew in Georgia — a hackerspace and the local drone community. Sold since; these days I fly the simulator. I like it for the space, and for the puzzle.

Different places, different years. Whenever there's a chance to make something, I take it, whatever the circumstances — a friend's garden, a proper workshop, or, failing that, the floor.

Dahab, Egypt: live-edge slabs from a raw log, cut and sanded, then built into wooden organisers for a friend's jewellery workshop. The rings are his; the wood is mine.

Not one story — a spread of materials. Wings painted for a karaoke bar in Tbilisi that asked for them; a plaster cast made for fun with friends in Georgia; horns 3D-printed and fixed to a hoodie. Two summers as decor lead at a summer maths camp: five-metre banners down the building, cut-and-painted letters, a sign on the wall that glows in the dark.