History of the Flappy Bird
I’m sure some will find this a little controversial, and that’s fine I get it, but I hope others will appreciate how cool this is as a project. PA_1089 (some sources list it as PA_1088) was created in 2014 by @Invaderweshare on the wall of La Boetie Hotel in Paris. Over time the tiles started to dislodge and fall from the wall, mostly due to constant maintenance needed below the mosaic.
Bringing Flappy Bird Back to Life
Near the end of Flappy Bird’s life, the individual that gave me the tiles observed one of the cleaners leaning his ladder against the mosaic. And as usual, the ladder was dislodging the tiles. Once the cleaner finished, he tidied up and discarded the tiles and several years later the tiles made their way to me. I have been meaning to restore Flappy Bird for a while now, and COVID 19 provided the perfect opportunity.
Tracking Down Materials
To be honest, the hunt to replace the missing brandless manufacturer’s tiles nearly killed the project. Suffice to say that I now know a hell of a lot more about tile manufacturers than anyone ever should. Ultimately I had to have the tiles redesigned, and find a manufacturer willing to create new molds and accept a large enough sample order.
Painting the tiles was also a little trickier than expected. I used Dulux to color match, luckily I have at least one tile of each color. The light yellow, black and white worked best, but I may need to redo the dark yellow and red tiles. Once painted the final step was to return the original tiles to their correct location within the mosaic. I plan for Flappy Bird PA_1089_2.0 to fly again in the not too distant future, far away from its original location in Gloucestershire England.
Overall Feeling for the Project
So, how do I feel about the project? Well, I loved it, I found it quite exciting trying to track down the tiles, from reviewing endless footage and photos where @Invaderweshare tile boxes are visible, trying to identify a manufacturer, to using archive.org to filter through now removed Invader posts where tile manufactures are discussed.
Restored to Original Beauty
At the end of the day, I found the restoration project enthralling and a welcomed break during this crappy COVID 19 period. In many ways, it left me feeling as I would imagine it must do for those that find some long-abandoned vintage car in a barn and restore it to its original beauty.
