Xbox 360 Arcade Stick mod

Haven't updated this in awhile. Looks like the last post was around September. Whoops. :p So here's something I've recently modded.

I wanted an arcade stick for my future 360 to play the sillyness that is Cave's bullet hell shooters. Looked around on the web and they're pretty expensive, but I found a used Street Fighter one on Craigslist for $80 and just got that instead.

I didn't like the art and wanted one with custom art, so I went at it.

I unscrewed the back panel and took a picture of the wires to help me with what wires go where when I but everything back together.

The panel that has the buttons and the joystick on it is metal and the Street Fighter art thats on the metal panel is one big vinyl sticker. I removed the vinyl sticker and washed the surface down with soap and water to clean and removing and oils from the surface. When dried, I sprayed the panel a couple of times with primer then laid down a couple of layers of white paint.

I took some 220 grit sandpaper to the buttons and the joystick ball to remove the gloss coat.

After priming the buttons and the joystick ball, I put down two coats of this. :)

Yes, you see that correctly. Its spray glow-in-the-dark paint!! I found it at a Micheal's on sale. :) :)

After laying on two coats of glow-in-the-dark paint, I sealed it with clear coat, which didn't hinder the glow-in-the-darkyness. There was one button that was stubborn and the glow-in-the-dark paint kept splitting apart. I think some moisture got in somewhere and caused the splitage. Because of the new layers of paint and clear coat, it caused the buttons to scrap the sides of the button housing and the button did not pop back up. With a exacto knife I scraped down the sides of the button housing to make it bigger. All in all, I am quite pleased at how it came out. I was surprised that the switches in the buttons weren't like the switches in arcade cabinets but that makes sense since thats a lot bigger.

Took a pencil and drew on the art to the white control panel, then colored everything in with prismacolors and other markers. After I let it dry for a bit, I then sprayed two coats of clear on to seal everything in.

Put everything back together and this is the final product. :p

Picture of the glow-in-the-darkiness. This picture is the best I can do with it being dark and all, sorry.

I'm not really all that satisfied with the art, but it will have to do for now. Down the road I'm gonna properly scan in the monkey artwork, color it in photoshop and see if I can get it printed on vinyl as a decal.

Update on papercraft Link: Completed Link's tunic and chest belt. I am putting papercraft Link on hold right now to focus on a different build and will update this blog later on.

Next Blog post: Working (unfinished) retractable Taokaka claws.

See you next time!

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Mini Ninjas version 1.5

This is a little post on some upgrades to the Mini Ninja's Samurai armor I have done since Dragon*Con.





These pieces are shoulder pieces that connect the front to the back pieces of armor. I originally had these covered with joint compound but since these pieces flexed a lot the joint compound didn't stay. So for the modified versions, I took off all the joint compound and decided to go with craft foam. I then sealed the craft foam for painting with a glue mixture of fabric glue, sobo glue and water found at Amethyst Angel's website. After 7 or 8 layers of sealing the craft foam, I painted the pieces to match the other pieces.



The masks needed some ventilation so I put in some holes around the mouth to hopefully help with the ventilation. Its not pictured here, but I also extended the sides of the masks so it covered the ears and more of the jaws.


Next are the flags that you see the samurai have in the game. When I was researching the samurai armor, I saw how the flags were attached to the armor and used that method.

What you see here is the pattern I made to construct the boxes for the flag poles.


Using some papercrafting and origami experience, I made these out of 3 layers of wonderflex.


Painted, drilled some holes.


All flag boxes are held to the back of the armor with some bolts I got from Home Depot that I had to slightly modify. I also had to layer some craft foam together to fill a 3/4" gap between the armor and the boxes themselves.


The flag poles are 5/8" dowel rods which I just painted black and they go straight down the back of the armor. The flags themselves are being done by Bethii Chan.


This is a papercraft project I decided to start during sometime during the week of X-mas. I won't be giving much information away but I will tell you that this is a Dark version of a character and what you see here is nothing near finished! I found the pattern online so I don't take credit for it, and thought it would be a challenge so I went on a printing spree. :p You can take a crack at guessing who this character is if you want.