Props H3 Pistol Build

[Liamthedevastator]

Sorry for not putting this in the title, but this is going to be PIC HEAVY

Hey all, I got a jolt of inspiration last night while looking through the forum, happened across WizardofFlight's weapon schematics, and decided to take a stab at a scratch build pistol. I am usually really anal about perfection (which has driven me from completion of any projects I've started) so I decided to settle for mediocrity so that I can AT LEAST have a finished product. All too often we look up to the masters in our community and want to create pieces just like them, which is -- in reality -- extremely daunting and ultimately discouraging. It's taken me since I joined (almost 6 years now) to figure out that I have to make this armour for myself.

I really owe the credit to briciius and his "Artifact Halo Armour" build for getting me going on a simple project. The customization and soul that he has put into his armour is what made me realize that perfection is relative, and that it's the journey and discovery that matters.

tldr; I'm back, and with photos. Check it out!

FIRST UPDATE 10/09/12

I started off with a printed copy of Wizard's pistol schematic and measured my hand and the picture to determine my scaling factor. After that it was a matter of transcribing the pistols basic dimensions to a larger piece of paper (via my brothers broken ruler+protractor set from elementary school). Pics or it didn't happen

That's where I'm at currently. The plan is to start tracing the dimensions out onto paper to be cut out with cardboard. Once I have the basic shape I'm going to pour most of my effort into bondoing the details in. It's going to be non-functional (no moving parts or lights) but I want to make it as realistic as possible, but not necessarily game accurate. I'm excited, hope you guys like the WIP!

 

[Liamthedevastator]

**Double Post for Update**

UPDATE 10/10/12

I realised last night that having a tempered glass desk is incredibly helpful, and 1 lamp relocation later: light table!

This was super convenient, but I bogged my progress down with an inefficient process of tracing and cutting. I started by tracing the main drawing onto regular computer paper. After that I realised, "hey, this stuff is gonna rip really easily ". I meandered around my room until I found about 600 sheets of cardstock from a while ago, and had to RETRACE all of the traces onto cardstock, THEN cut them out.

Anyways, here is the tracing process:

Bada-bing

Bada-BOOM!

And after transfering the first trace to the cardstock...

Templates for cardboard

I am thinking I should have the basic form cut and assembled today, so stay tuned! And quiet down, you guys are too loud

Keep it real, 405th

 

[SquishyShoes]

Looking good amigo, keep it up.

 

[Inheritor95]

Great start! Everything is looking good!

 

[Jason 078]

Nice. I'm making my own too. Good luck, brother.

 

[Liamthedevastator]

Looking good amigo, keep it up.

Gracias brosive, I plan to update this more regularly than my other WIPs

Great start! Everything is looking good!

Thanks mate! I'm really excited about this project.

Nice. I'm making my own too. Good luck, brother.

And Best of luck to you sir! Throw up a link to your WIP if you want, maybe we can trade tips and tricks.

Alrighty, so I've had a small change of heart. In my first post I noted that I would not be making this with any moving parts or lights... well I've decided to make working triggers and such like Tactonyx's weapons. I figure I'll just design it all into a sort of sealed 'sub-frame' and mould it directly into the gun. I'm not sure HOW i'll do that but I have to have a finished product first so I'll keep it in my mind. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

 

[Mstruvmgc]

Looking good so far

 

[Liamthedevastator]

Looking good so far

Thank you sir! I just read through RedShirt's Splazer build and holy gamoly, I want one of those

Small progress, big update!

10/11/12

Cut all of the cardboard out, and assembled the slices (7 in total) to make the form of a Halo 3 pistol!

It feels so good to be able to hold this thing in my hands, and have all of the edges line up, and it being properly scaled.... wow. Lots of work to go but I'm hella stoked on this.

I'm on to the scope and hammer building now, and it all starts with measuring the scope piece:

It's honestly insane how I have to scale this photo to my first reference and then scale THAT to my real-world proportions... so much work, but so much fun! Thanks to Cereal for pointing out that projects should be fun and exciting; I'm already finding that this project is way easier than other ones i've started!

Thanks for the support so far folks, I'll try to keep you updated, but my days off are over for a few shifts now, hopefully another update by Saturday!

 

[Rysjin7717]

Nice start to a build brah keep up th' good work.:cool

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[Mstruvmgc]

I know what you mean! Redshirts Lazer is amazing.

oooooo pictures yay!
Pistol lookin good sar far cant wait to see it finished

 

[Liamthedevastator]

UPDATE 11/14/12

First off, just finished Elfen Lied.... best anime I've ever seen (not that I've seen many anyway). I highly recommend you guys watch it. All the episodes are free to stream at animefreak.tv. If you install adblock you don't have to watch the stupid Excel ad they always play

Anyways, I ended up chopping the Gun a bit to make way for the hammer and sight. Turns out sawing cardboard a) creates a lot of heat and I burned myself slightly on my swiss army saw, and b) IS REALLY HARD TO SAW.

Anyways, here is the project in it's current state! Hoping to get this worked on more:

Next up is to glue the hammer and sight to the body, reinforce everything with hot glue, then resin coat, then straight to bondo!

Thanks for looking, hopefully I have more updates soon. I have a hard time focussing on things... any tips or tricks to staying focused and finishing a project?

 

[Liamthedevastator]

UPDATE 11/16/12

So as you can see from the last photo in the above post the lines on the sight were not quite lining up with the main body of the gun. To remedy this I decided to shave off cardboard with my dremel. I took off about 2.5mm and now it lines up perfectly! And I now have a ghetto 'Debris Management System' for dusty dremel work!

Those bits of bent wire provide small contact support for the gun so that it can have optimal circulation while curing. Stoke to try this puppy out!

It was really nice cuz it brought the whole cutout to straight which made everything fit nicely. I've since glued the sight and hammer to the body and removed all the support tape. Out of boredom I built a 'fume box' for when I do the resin coat on this puppy. I'm really please with how it turned out, and it was very convenient that I happened to have all of the supplies i needed!

Hopefully resin soon and then a TONNE of bondo work to do. I'm thinking of making a sealed sub frame that would allow functioning feature, since I plan to cast this. Stay tuned, keep up the good fight Spartans! I still haven't played halo 4....

 

[Rysjin7717]

Liam, I'm lovin' this very inventive where did th' idea for th' curing box is that hose connected to anything th' black hose.

 

[Liamthedevastator]

Liam, I'm lovin' this very inventive where did th' idea for th' curing box is that hose connected to anything th' black hose.

Thanks mate! The curing box was necessary because it is too cold where I live to get a proper cure if I resin outside and leave it there, so I need it to be inside where its warmer. Due to the nature of resin fumes though it's necessary to get those out of my house somehow, so that place hose has a small electric fan that draws air through and ejects it out the side.

I'm going to build a quick cardboard window insert where the fan can sit outside and the fumes won't come back in and kill us all in our sleep

Edit: I went to do the resin coat and BAM all my resin was dried up. I have thus decided to skip the resin stage and go straight on to bondo, which I am doing now. All I can say is this: never again will I bat an eye at somebody's bondo work; this stuff is hard to work with. One simply can't understand the challenge until they attempt it, so here is a big shout out to folks who use this material. Anyways, photos will be put up eventually, but I want to have a big update for you folks.

 

[Liamthedevastator]

UPDATE 18/11/12

Went out to the Home Despot and bought one of these puppies today:

It was super handy doing the first pass of sanding, but the dang thing is really big and not so easy to maneuver, so I'm going to pick up a couple of block sanders to do the detail work. And some Razor blades too! I hear that's a good tool:cool

Anyway, here is the current condition of my build. as soon as I can get all of the cardboard covered up with the first layer of bondo I'm going to start filling out details. I'm going to draw up the plans for my internals. Oh, yeah and start making the clip

 

[Rysjin7717]

Liam, yeah that stuff will kill ya nice power sander. Keep up th' good work.

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[Rysjin7717]

Hey Liam, happy new year brah to you & yours
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