Looks like I haven't posted since January...... Whoops. Had some personal issues I had to deal with earlier on in the year. I could of posted something on the Taokaka retractable claws but I haven't labeled them as 'working' and 'final'.
The Taokaka claws did go on a 'test run' at Katsucon and for the most part didn't really work as I saw it in my head. Adjustments are currently being made and I'm feeling pretty good on the retractable claw's second outing. When I can label them as 'working' and/or 'final' I will definitely post something here.
For those of you that don't know, Noel Vermillion is from a fighting game called BlazBlue. I was given the project to make her 'Handguns' about a month before Dragon Con.
The guns are made to the proportion of the body of the cosplayer and not the character so the guns do not look really out of place. With the image above, I took the image into Illustrator and traced the image and sized the tracing to fit the length I was given for the cosplayer. That length is, palm of hand to the top of the ankle ball as seen in one of the character sheets of Noel.
*I forgot to take pictures at certain steps, so sorry in advance if you would like to see certain pictures at certain steps*
The two guns are made of 6 layers of 3/16in foamcore. Not craftfoam or insulation foam, foamcore. Thats foam squeezed in between paper, also know as foam board and comes in different thicknesses. I settled on 6 layers because I researched on average how thick real handguns are and settled on a width of 1-1/16in.
After printing out the tracing to scale and cutting out the template,
I traced all the required pieces on foamcore.
And began my journey of cutting.
Here is a look at all the layers of one gun. The layers are different because the guns would have a working slide (the part that slides back when you fire a real gun to let the bullet casing out of the gun). The small piece in the middle of the picture is the trigger.
Since I have had experience cutting foamcore back in art school, cutting all the pieces out was not difficult for me, except when it came to small pieces. That became kinda tedious. My advise to fellow foamcore cutters is to ALWAYS have a fresh unused blade otherwise the foam will start to ball up when cutting with an xacto knife and/or utility knife. DO NOT try to cut through the foamcore with one cut, do it in a couple. It looks cleaner and nicer. Patients grasshopper.
The trigger is two layers of foamcore with a piece of plastic in the same shape sandwiched in the middle to help with being rigid since the trigger will face pushing and pulling forces. The hole in the trigger is for the 1/4in dowel so the trigger can pivot. The piece of plastic that is squeezed between the foamcore are the for sale signs you can buy at Home Depot.
Here, I am test fitting all of the layers together to see how everything fits.
A look at the trigger mechanism. Used a nail as a pivot pin. The piece of foamcore at the top to help cushioning, but I later found out that piece was actually not necessary.
Assembled Slide. Took my dremel to the sides to round the edges to match how the reference looks like. That guck you see is actually something called Apoxie Sculpt. Great stuff. Its a two part clay that dries rock solid. Depending on how thick you make things it sets around 6hrs and fully cures in 24. Fully sandable, drillable and paintable.
Check out their stuff.
I forgot to take pictures of how all the trigger mechanics work before I closed it up so all I have for you is a picture of how things look like from the outside in...... As you can see, there are two other dowels there to help with guiding and keeping the moving dowel in place when the trigger is pulled. I used rubber bands as the way to help the trigger return to its normal position and I do have to say, Works Pretty Well. :D The only thing is I wished I added another rubber band to that. Oh well. :p
A look at what one gun looks like when all the layers are glued together. About 98% of the whole thing was glued together with Sobo glue. Again I took the Dremel to the handle of the gun to round out the edges. The parts in black were painted before I glued on the final two outside layers. All of the exposed edges of the foamcore was then covered in Apoxie Sculpt and then sanded down.
Here is a picture of the nubbin at the handle of the gun and before I fully covered the exposed edges with the Apoxie Sculpt. I did not hide the edge where the nubbin meats the gun because there is a break in color there and you wouldn't really know.
After things dried and the edges painted white I took some Apoxie Sculpt and sculpted the circle crater thingy. As you can see in the picture, I used a piece of round foamcore as filler.
When things fully cured, sanded and painted everything. The gun on the top is how things look like when the Apoxie Sculpt cured and as you can see it has not been sanded down yet.
The handle piece is also a piece of foamcore. Dremeled the sides to round the edges. Applied Apoxie Sculpt to the rounded edges, sanded down then painted red. The holes were then filled w/ hotglue to look like a screw then painted sliver.
A look at how I attached the slide to the body of the gun.
Done.
A video of how the final gun with working slide looks like.
Feel free to leave me a comment if you have any thoughts, comments, questions. If you want the tracing of the gun in illustrator, contact me and I can probably provide you with an EPS file. ;)
I also completed the head of of Link on my life-sized papercraft of Link. This thing is gonna be crazy tall. :p
Until later, KEEP ON CRAFTING!! Thanks for reading. :D
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