With a successful armour build under my belt and the first HCUK con visit done, I felt it was time to look at Spartan V-84’s armoury. Looking at the pictures of us that came out of MCM Expo, I couldn’t help but feel that the plasma pistol/M6G dual wield combo I was packing (my partner in this endeavour, Spartan S-24 had dual plasma pistols) were somewhat upstaged by the rifles – and in one case a rotating machine-gun turret! – carried by our comrades. So the search was on to find a method we could reliably use to make our own weapons.
Even before the armour was finished I’d looked at a sliced MA5c, but for what it was it looked horrendously complex. Then one day, a video popped up on my Facebook feed from the Page of Da Frontline Trooper, showing the progress on his latest project, the Promethean Binary Rifle. And just like that a little light switched on inside my head.
So after a few months of searching DIY stores, I finally spoke to a guy who had bought and carved a couple of weapons from some stuff at Wickes. I got the details, toddled off there one evening with S-24, and we came back with two sheets of polystyrene loft insulation in a rather fetching peach colour.
This isn’t the same stuff as Da Frontline Trooper uses, primarily because we haven’t been able to find the Styrofoam stuff he uses unless we want to buy it in job lots for a couple quid!
Anyway, enough chatter, on to the pictures!
Not the most exciting of pictures, but here’s the sheet of insulation that I started with
Here’s the template I used. It’s from Da Frontline Trooper’s Facebook page, scaled to life-size proportions by S-24 and printed out on a large-format printer (courtesy of his company and a quiet Friday afternoon in the office). I made shallow cuts around the outline, then peeled off the template and made the proper cuts.
Which left me with this:
I then started marking up where details needed to be added. For reference I used the template from DFT’s page, various images via Google, and the assault rifle from one of my action figures.
After several hours of careful cutting, carving, and referring to my references, I ended up with this! (excuse the poor photo, my phone died, so this was quickly snapped with my tablet which managed to capture almost nothing but glare)
Now that was where I planned to leave things. S-24 was planning on doing a battle rifle, and had started the same afternoon as me. But since he was jetting off on holiday the following morning, he had to shelve his build pretty early on. Which left his template just sitting there on the side, begging for some attention….
Even before the armour was finished I’d looked at a sliced MA5c, but for what it was it looked horrendously complex. Then one day, a video popped up on my Facebook feed from the Page of Da Frontline Trooper, showing the progress on his latest project, the Promethean Binary Rifle. And just like that a little light switched on inside my head.
So after a few months of searching DIY stores, I finally spoke to a guy who had bought and carved a couple of weapons from some stuff at Wickes. I got the details, toddled off there one evening with S-24, and we came back with two sheets of polystyrene loft insulation in a rather fetching peach colour.
This isn’t the same stuff as Da Frontline Trooper uses, primarily because we haven’t been able to find the Styrofoam stuff he uses unless we want to buy it in job lots for a couple quid!
Anyway, enough chatter, on to the pictures!
Not the most exciting of pictures, but here’s the sheet of insulation that I started with
Here’s the template I used. It’s from Da Frontline Trooper’s Facebook page, scaled to life-size proportions by S-24 and printed out on a large-format printer (courtesy of his company and a quiet Friday afternoon in the office). I made shallow cuts around the outline, then peeled off the template and made the proper cuts.
Which left me with this:
I then started marking up where details needed to be added. For reference I used the template from DFT’s page, various images via Google, and the assault rifle from one of my action figures.
After several hours of careful cutting, carving, and referring to my references, I ended up with this! (excuse the poor photo, my phone died, so this was quickly snapped with my tablet which managed to capture almost nothing but glare)
Now that was where I planned to leave things. S-24 was planning on doing a battle rifle, and had started the same afternoon as me. But since he was jetting off on holiday the following morning, he had to shelve his build pretty early on. Which left his template just sitting there on the side, begging for some attention….