Fortune's Railgun: Part 2

Thus began one of the longest times I have ever spent carving out a prop, ever.

This next one is the gun completely carved out and wearing its first layer of gesso. The hours spent carving to this point aren't even on my radar anymore, but it was a lot over quite a period of time. Over all, the hardest part was keeping the 'layers' of the gun working and making sure it would hold up as it was. Since the gun was made smaller than the actual gun would have been, some things I had to fiddle with to make them work and look good.

Here was my first work with the scope. It is a piece of foam that I went through with a wide drill bit until a piece of PVC pipe fit into it perfectly. This would give a perfect, clean look through the scope as well as giving it internal support.

Also, you can see the piece of metal I eventually had to cut to work as the rest for the scope.

This is the first layer of a resin called "Crystal Sheen" I decided to try for this gun. Light, protective, though not as protective as resin with fiberglass cloth beneath it! It was very thick, and at times hard to work with, but no more than any other kind of resin. I 100% approve of Crystal Sheen, which you can only get online. The 1 to 1 ratio of it was quite nice.

The somewhat hilarious trigger, designed to take abuse from someone holding it with their finger wrapped around the trigger. I screwed it in only when the resin was done in that area so that it would have a very firm base.

The very first layer of paint. I chose to do the first layer as pure silver, then realized it definitely needed to be a darker color of silver, thus began the infinitely hilarious amounts of time I spent hunting down proper silver paint, mixing it with black, and painting.

As you can see, the second (third?fourth? by this point?) layer of paint came out darker.

Then began layering the paint. I wanted to give it more depth, and give it the proper look the gun actually had, so I used darker layers of paint in certain areas to do just that. It matched the look of the gun I had working with the 3D model, so I was determined to make it work. (Definitely looks better and less strange after weathering!)

Here was the final gun. There were some issues on timing of when this was to be sent I won't get into, but as always, I will give a wrap up discussion on the gun.

I am pleased with my attempt to 'weather' the gun. I wanted to make the paint job look like this has been a gun that has been around a while, suffered through a lot. A gun with a perfect paint job, without the look of weathering, just looked... kind of dull, actually. Like something was wrong with it. Hard to explain, maybe, but I hope my thought is coming through. XD

I realized I somehow didn't take a picture of the scope when it was 100% complete. You can't see it from the final angle, but there are actually pieces of orange plastic carefully mounted in the front and back of the barrel of the scope so you get the real feel of looking through a scope! (Let me tell you, it was a hysterical attempt trying to find that bright orange plastic. I finally located a weird bottle of orange cleaner at Wal-Mart that I cut up, leaked everywhere on the way home, made everything smell like orange-disgusting...! Still have it though! :3)

What I am unhappy with was my inability to get certain parts of it 100% flat. I wish I could have my awesome client ship it back, give me a month or two with it, as now I'm sure I know how to fix that problem. Other than that, which still makes me frown, I'm quite pleased with it. (I also would have loved to install glass over the computer-y parts, but that was extra time and money.)

My client was pleased, and I am as well.

Fortune's Railgun: Part 1

Those of you who know me know how I love big props, so when a client asked me to take on a several foot long railgun... I was all ready for it! First, one of my friends, upon hearing that I would be doing this from Metal Gear Solid 2, was awesome enough to loan me a PS2 CD that has all the character sketches and 3D models on it. How I needed this, as the reference pictures I could find were generally terrible! So sitting for several hours in front of my TV, I built this full sized paper replica of the gun.

It is 5 feet long, 22 inches tall, and 2 inches wide. I decided that it would be built out of foam insulation for lightness topped with resin for strength (and several dozen layers of gesso between them!)

Here was the gun mostly cut out of foam. The scope is not going to be out of foam - it will be metal and PVC pipe, but it is currently remaining there so I can sketch things out to proportions. Speaking of proportions, the proportions of the gun are slightly off. The actual gun is easily six feet long, but for the size of my client it had to be reduced in places to make it work. I believe it will be next to unnoticeable in the final product.

Now one thing you might notice are the red lines on the paper gun. Originally I thought I was going to include a wooden skeleton for stability on the inside of the foam, but realized that this solution would not work and instead resin would be used to strength the gun.

Here is the gun completely cut out. A drill and my jigsaw finished what the bandsaw was unable to.

Here the gun has been sketched onto the foam. The wiggly lines indicate where the gun needs to be carved into while the clean areas are the most up-raised parts. I am really excited about this project. Next up is carving all of those details into the gun.

Demyx's Sitar: Part 5 (Original Creation)

I was cutting it close by working on it until nearly the day of the convention it was supposed to premiere at! But you can see the bottom string-attach knob has been put on, the edges of the front panel have been done.

Here's an interior view including the speakers, iPod, and terrible (hidden) paint job.

The top half of the front being glued to the foam.

Neck, with everything glued in. Tuning pegs ACTUALLY turn. Unfortunately, also can be pulled out. But won't fall out.

The bridge, cut unfortunately out of solid oak. (I would never chose to do this again.)

The paint job on the backside (beautifully sanded, if I do say) of the sitar. I am very proud of it.

 I'm not happy with it, but the curved sitar bridge.

The final shot of the sitar before it went into active costume phase. I am still so proud of this prop.

The sitar in its final glory, with me in costume. I was lifting it strangely in this shot to get the whole thing into frame. I finally chose fishing thread as my choice of strings so they would be somewhat invisible, and I love how the flash reacted with them.

Several things I would do differently, and have done:

1) Resin and fiber glass.
2) Non-wood bridge.
3) Smaller

They are small to list, but would have vastly improved this prop. Future models have been far superior, but this is still the one sitting in my living room, proudly displayed.

Demyx's Sitar: Part 4 (Original Creation)

After more hours of carving and sanding than you could possibly imagine, this is the side and back views of the not-yet-finished backside.

Neck of the sitar, sanded and painted with seven or nine layers of gesso! And hanging from the ceiling to dry.

After gessoing the plywood front, I chose my color and did the dark blue interior. Note that the edges haven't been touched yet.

The beginning of gesso the still not finished-being-sanded base.

The tuning pegs...

The dark part of the neck, along with the frets.

Demyx's Sitar: Part 3 (Original Creation)

Wooden knobs I picked for the top of the sitar to hold the strings.

That'll be the main bulk of the body of the base.

All the layers of the foam that will be sanded down into the curved backside of a sitar. This is going to take a very long time...

 These are the speakers I chose to go inside of the sitar so it would play music, and my iPod to work with them. The cases have switches on the inside.

This is the general set up I decided on that would work, using a headphone splitter with two speakers.

Demyx's Sitar: Part 2 (Original Creation)

Back in the saddle I go!

I tried to get a picture of the neck on the foam before I cut it, but you just couldn't see anything. After almost 8 hours of drawing, cutting, and sanding. This involved pencils, someone holding me up, a turkey carving knife, and the bandsaw and 4 types of sanding devices.

Now, 2010 me has a lot of in sight I didn't back when I first made this. Like, size proportioning. This is the artwork I worked off of:

This is how big it turned out:

Live and learn.

This is the neck after being sanded down to round out the tips, curved it, etc.

Demyx's Sitar: Part 1 (Original Creation)

I had been thinking on this costume for a long time before someone agreeing to cosplay with me made me decide to go for it. The sitar, to date (re-writing this in Aug 2010), is my largest prop. It is also the most time consuming but one of the most fun and still my favorite. So let's begin.

 

Detail of the bridge on the Sitar. Close up of the reference pic I have. Note: This is NOT going to be flat! I merely drew this on for sizing purposes, and where it will go in the end.

Best picture of the outline of the front of the sitar, drawn onto the plywood. This is JUST THE BASE of it, which comes above my hip! I mean, the pictures I am using for a reference say that this sitar is ... HUGE. It comes inches over Demyx's head... and I am still making it in proportion to myself and the pictures. This is going to be such a pain to carry around -.-;;; damn me and my accuracy.

Poor pic of the outline, but cute pic of Shannon, my eldest sister giving a size relation.

Here's the outline of the Sitar, cut and sanded.

 In progress shot of the neck. You can see my careful mathematics being jotted down on the wood. XD.

 Neck is cut and sanded!

 Both pieces together. There's going to be foam behind those both. You can also see the 3/4 of an inch border around the base of the sitar that will be light blue. On the neck, this will be foam instead of wood.