I have been posting a lot more thoughts on Twitter lately, Please add me for fun, hijinks, and general misbehaving geekness !   @weaselhammer

Casey Jones Mask

I have always loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , way back before any movies or cartoons Started I was hooked on the comics.  MY favorite character besides Donatello was Casey Jones and I have always wanted a mask replica. My friend Alan made the Pepakura mask first for me, he always does really good pep work, and this made my job so much easier! The Pep model  had no name to give credit to, and I cannot find who the creator is . I have had the file on my computer for quite a while.

  I coated it on the outside with polyester resin. This sealed it and helped it keep its shape for the next steps.

I slushed the inside with Smoothcast 321 urethane resin to give it some thickness to work with, then I took a sander with 80 grit paper and knocked down the high spots.

With just a little bit of body filler and spot putty, it took shape fairly easily. I wet sanded it to 1,000 grit before painting it  with white enamel.

 All that is left is the leather straps to hold it on and a golf bag full of blunt objects ! Easy build !

Dragonball Z Scouter

This is a prop I have wanted to make for myself for a long time. My blog is soon to pass 9,000 hits and to commemorate the occasion, I felt this was the perfect opportunity to tackle this build. I did most of it in one day so it was pretty easy.

I kinda went off this pic for reference, but since pretty much every scouter in the series is a little different, I basically just made it how I wanted it

  

IT"S OVER 8,400 !!!

First I made a frame of sorts out of Sintra, cut a hole for the recess area and made a little box to be glued under the whole so I could add the vent piece later

 

 

 I then made a pattern for the sides from cardstock and traced those on to thin styrene sheet to wrap around the frame, and glued them in place

I used cardstock again to mock up the lens and the lens arm to make sure it would fit my face good

I then made the lens arm from Sintra and styrene and glued it in place. I left a slot in the tip to slide the lens into and used a screw to fasten it. this also allows me to adjust the depth of the lens. I also cut some strips of Sintra and shingled them on top of one another for the vent. This was painted separately and glued in later for a clean look.

 I used Eva foam for the ear padding. It was the right color and easy to cut and shape into what I needed. Inside is a plactic earpiece that hooks onto the ear kinda like a bluetooth headset. The scouter looks huge on the foam head because the dummy head is way small.

I tried tinting the lens blue by soaking it in hot water with blue fabric dye, but unfortunately since I used a dense acrylic instead of PETG plastic, the lens didn't take the color at all. I used a Prismacolor marker to do it red for the picture, rubbing it in with a paper towel to keep it from looking too splotchy. I will make another lens from the proper plastic later and try again.

Iron Man / Boba Fett crossover helmet

 This project idea came about while goofing off with 2 builds,  I had taken  an Iron Man faceplate that I recently finished from a pepakura model done by my friend Alan, and rested it on an unfinished Mandolorian helmet for a picture, and this is how it started !  I was inspired by all of the really cool projects coming out of the As You Wish Helmet Project and wanted to do something like it on my own. Unfortunately, I had no idea that one of the well known artists selected for the project had the same idea, only our 2 helmets are very different.

Basically, I took my Iron Man Mask and did some basic trimming, the mask was made a little bigger than normal, so it matched up pretty good. I then heated it up a little and epoxied it to the Mando helm.

 Here I have done the basic filling and sanding using ApoxieSculpt and Bondo

 I cut out "ear" holes for the ear pucks that I made

 The Ear pucks just plug in to the holes for easy mounting

 I shaped a piece of styrene with a little heat and trimmed it to finish off the top vent/scoop

After drawing the rough shape of the scratch marks, I used a dremel to carve them out

Then I scored the panel lines in with a hobby knife, and carved them in with a hobby saw, a hack saw blade would probably work as well

I had to fix alot of spots where the polyester resin didn't cure properly. I carved them out and filled it in with body filler.

After several coats of filler primer and lots of sanding, I wet sanded the helmet with 1000 grit before painting it dark hunter green. During this project, I always considered the "balance" between Boba Fett and Iron Man asthetics. I chose to do Fett colors, but keep it glossy like Iron Man usually is

I transposed the gold and red in Boba's helmet to keep the iconic Iron Man gold faceplate. I painted the "ears" red to maintain a Boba color scheme

I did the cheek bones in navy blue, that was kinda tricky to mask off properly

I decided to do the Fett kill stripes and masked those off

And here it is assembled ! I brushed in black acrylic paint into the scratches and wipe the excess from the surface

 My camera phone can sometimes make the perspective look off and distort the picture a little

 My Boba Fett helmet was my first real prop build, and here it is with my newest build. This picture was taken while it had the bright red ears, I repainted them the darker red in the other pics after this was taken.

I hope you like it and thanks for looking !

Boba Fett / Iron Man crossover helmet wip

For thos who  are unfamiliar, the "As You Wish" movement headed by Art Andrews of the Dented Helmet and The RPF is raising money for the Make A Wish foundation by having a large group of talented artists make unique helmets from a raw Boba Fett helmet cast which will all be auctioned off at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando this year. There have been so many awesome and inspiring builds from this fundraiser that I wanted to make something along those lines also. This is not  affiliated with the "As You Wish" fundraiser, just inspired by it. Maybe one day I will be lucky enough to be asked to participate.  Here is my work in progress of my Boba Fett, Iron Man crossover, I will post another full blog on it when I finish it. Progress can be seen on my fanpage www.facebook.com/VectorSigmaCreations

The science is done, and I've made a new gun, for the people who are still alive !

 There are so many well documented builds of very well made Portal Guns, I will just highlight my build as some things may be unique to my project. I have wanted to tackle this ever since I saw Volpin's first build a few years ago, and finally decided to give it a try myself.

I started off making the barrel pretty much how Volpin made his, using pvc and Apoxiesculpt

For the rear chamber, I glued together 2- 4" couplings and cut them down the middle. I made it an oval tube by adding a strip of styrene on each side as seen here

I made the rear shell out of insulation foam that was glued together into a block, then sculpted into the shape I need with a knife and 60 grit sandpaper. I sealed this with Smoothcast resin before skimming it in bondo and sanding smooth

The barrel "nozzle" was made from a pvc reducer and a 2" coupling. the center band and lip was formed with Apoxiesculpt. The center detail was cut from an end insert for a roll of butcher paper !

I made the center light tube from an acrylic rod for rolling out clay, bought from Michael's and made the caps for mounting the l.e.d's from pvc adapters.

I made the rear panel fron 1/4" acrylic, painting the inside surface black. I bought the drawer pull as a handle from Lowe's.

I cut the claws out of styrene by hand

The ends of the claws were made from styrene also, the gaps filled in with Apoxiesculpt

I mounted the front led board into the barrel nozzle, and the speaker into the main barrel body

here is a mock up with trim plates installed

All put together, I used bendable wire as armature for the rubber tubes to help them keep shape

I still need to print out the proper decals for it

The lighting and sounds came from a kit from a member of the RPF named Crix (not Volpin), It has startup, shutdown and the 2 different sounds for each color, along with an idle sound. 

 

Finally ! I'm making a Portal gun !

I haven't posted much lately so I wanted to offer up a teaser of my latest project. I know there are alot of Portal replicas out there already, and I know my humble build is nothing compared to such awesome builds such as Throwing Chicken's and Volpin's builds, and with the release of the Neca replicas, It's almost pointless to make one. However, I wanted to make one for myself as a guage of my skills compared to other very talented prop artists. So far it has been a humbling experience, but it is also helping me achieve a new level. This is what I have so far, and I will be sure to write up a full post when it is done !

Go Wolverines !!

I just thought I would share a statement from my friends at The Replica Prop Forum about the hacking incedent.....

On Jan 5, 2012, our domain was stolen. On April 20, 2012, we finally got it back.

On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 we will transition back to therpf.com.

If you visit thereplicapropforum.com on or after that date, you will be automatically redirected to therpf.com     Pass the word ! All is clear !!

Sailor Jupiter's Diadem

My sister really wanted me to make this for her costume she plans, so here it is, I really didn't need much time for it, probably less than 2 hours total

I first made a pattern on cardboard. I never use corrugated cardboard, I get sheets of this stuff from work that is like cereal box cardboard, only much thicker. It is much easier to shape into curves smoothly and is great for patterns.

I used the pattern to make cut the shape out of Sintra, then after sanding the edges smooth and shaping it in near-boiling water, I glued strips of half-round styrene to the edges to make it a little more ornamental. I tried at first shaping the sintra with my new heat gun, but even at low setting it wanted to buckle the Sintra.

This is the basic Diadem built, I changed the green gem to the oval one in the final picture as it was more accurate. after a few touch ups with some spot putty, it was ready for paint.

And of course the finished product, after applying the gold paint, I gave it 2 coats of clear, and glued the gem on.

I probably should have brushed the dust off of it before taking the picture, but you get the point !