Props and Costumes

Because we are getting closer to Phoenix Comicon 2012, I thought I would post up some of my previous prop and costume builds from years past before I had a blog to post them on. Ill be doing one blog a day on a different prop or costume each day up until the con. Since I wont have a table there this year I though this would be a good way to show off some of my collection.

First up, my first prop ever built. It is Darth Vader's lightsaber from Return of the Jedi. It is all hardware built from a sink tube,a trailer hitch cover used to make the hilt and many other random parts. This is about as accurate as you can get other than owning the real deal. And as it stands its the only Star Wars prop I have ever built.

Ray Gun Redesign

From the beginning, the makers of Voyage Trekkers wanted to have a unique ray gun for their series. Unfortunately do to time constraints when filming season 1 there was not a lot of time to spend on making custom weapons. Now that season 2 is in production the creator/director and the head of the art department came to me to redesign the ray gun from season 1. The ray gun from season 1 was basically a nerf gun repainted. My job was to improve upon the current ray gun, making it more unique to the series. This is the build up to that gun.


Original unmodified Nerf gun. Same model used in season 1.

These are all the parts I will use from the original gun.

With a Dremel tool I cut off parts of the handle and pieces of the main body.

Then I cut a strip of 1/16 ABS plastic and super glued it in place of where the handle was cut.

Next step is to fill all the gaps and unwanted areas with epoxy putty.

Once the epoxy putty was completely dry I added a thin layer of filler over all those areas to smooth everything out.

Once the filler is sanded smooth, the body of the gun is sprayed with a coat of primer.

Next step was to mark the cut in the trigger and drill it out.

Certain found objects used in this build had to be molded because of only have one available (3 guns were to be made) or because I needed them cast in a different material than what the found part came in.

Inner part of the body was cast in clear so it could be lit with LEDs.

PVC tubes were cut and mounted under the barrel of the gun.

Automotive wiped blades were cut up and used as fins and other details on the ray run.

3 coats of automotive grade white paint applied.

Black parts hand painted in and entire body clear coated.

Once the paint was fully cured the entire gun was assembled and the custom LED wiring placed inside. Here is a look at the season 1 ray gun compared to the season 2 ray gun.

 

Voyage Trekkers: A Qwest for Sight

One of the Voyage Trekker props I was asked to improve upon was the Lt. Jayda mask. The original mask that was sculpted by Brian Blackwell for season 1 was cast with the eyes solid, therefor the actor could not see anything. This is where I come in... but I think before I get into the modifying of the mask we should all watch the first episode that featured Lt. Jayda.

Now on to the new eye constructing. This is how the mask looked when it arrived at my shop, 0% visibility. A second mask that was a bad pull out of the mold was also dropped off as well for testing purposes.

 

First thing I did was purchase a set of acrylic ornament balls at a craft store that were the correct size to Jayda's eyes. Then I cut out the eye from the second mask that was the bad cast and used it to trace an outline on the acrylic ball so I knew where to cut. Making sure to label the top of the eye and which eye it was so there wouldn't be any confusion later on.

Once the acrylic ball was all cut and the edges smoothed out I test fitted it over top of the eye on the screen used mask.

The next step would be making the eye black, but still allowing the actor to see through it. I tried several different methods, but this way seemed to be the best fit overall.

I first cut out a piece of 4 way stretch black cloth that was slightly bigger than the acrylic eye piece.

I stretched it around gluing it every 1/4 of an inch with gel super glue making sure to keep the fabric tight.

This is how the final result came out. Completely black with about 90% visibility.

The next step would be attaching the new eyes to the existing mask. So what I ended up doing was drawing a line about 1/2 of an inch in on the original eyes that would act as a cut line.

Then I used a sharp hobby knife and cut on the line drawn.

Once the middle piece was removed I applied more super glue gel to the remaining section of eye and glued the new eye in place.The same steps were repeated for the other eye.

I didnt do a whole lot with this project, but what I did do will hopefully make a world of difference for the actor playing Lt. Jayda. Here is the final product with his new peepers.

What a revision already?

So there was something that was just not right about the finished Casey Jones mask. I ended up having a friend look at the movie on bluray and he noticed the brow was different. So that meant back into the garage to work out some changes.

The brow was cut in a "V" shape, heated and pushed forward.

Then the back was refiberglassed and more filler applied to smooth it all out again.

A couple more hours and some paint and I was finished... again. I still need to drill the strap hole before molding, but that will come later.

The class is pain 101, your instructor is Casey Jones

Ever since I was a kid I have always loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My favorite turtle when I was a kid was always Leo, but the older I got I related to Raph more. I always loved the scene in the movie where Ralph first meet Casey Jones. After watching the movie yesterday, I'm thinking why hasn't anyone built a screen accurate replica mask yet? Well the time is now.

Start off with some reference:

 

I figured the easiest way to build this mask would be to use a program called Pepakura Designer. Pepakura Designer allows you to create paper craft models from 3D models. Now personally I hate working with paper craft, but the class is pain 101.

To start off, I contracted a very talented artist to 3D model the mask, as I am not that familiar with 3D software. Within a span of 24 hours he came back with this:

 

I was absolutely amazed at how fast he was able to produce this. Unfortunately the amount of polygons in this rendering was too high for Pepakura Designer, so we had to lose some of the detail. But all in all even with the loss of detail it was still perfect for a starting point.

This is how it looked once it was imported into Pepakura Designer, unfolded and ready for print.

 

Next step, print, cut, score and glue.

Now that I have a 3D paper model I can start the wonderful world of fiberglass.

Some features were lost when the file was converted to a lower Polygon count, so I had to do some cutting and shaping to get the correct look back.

Pieces of cardboard were added to fix the nose area. Then it was fiberglassed, filled and smoothed.

Next step was to add the brow lines. To do this I cut the shape I wanted out of ABS and then epoxied and screwed the pieces into place,

More filler was added to cover the screw holes and hide any seems. The same thing was also done for the nose.

 

Lots of filler and spot putty.

 

Primed and ready to cut the mouth slits.

For this I designed a template in Adobe Illustrator, lined it up, taped it down and cut it with a Dremel tool.

More spot putty.

Finished piece primed white. There are some minor changes I still want to make which I will show later when I am finished.