Please, ma'am; the dog ate my Arpeture Science Handheld Portal Device!

Alright, not ate more smashed up.

Unfortunately, due to both unfortunate dog impacts and the huge rush I engaged in towards the end of the project I'm lacking photos of the finished project. I can still walk you through the main processes involved.

So above we have the expanding foam once it's expanded and set. It's really surprising how much mass you get at the end of it as the large shell's gone from being a bit larger than the cardboard base to two thirds the width of the table. Adding the fins on to the base really helped the foam stay in place and you can even see where those fins are in the foam's ridges. It also seems like moistening the cardboard a bit helped the foam stick and not applying it too thickly has had it dry nice and solidly.

The foam's surprisingly solid once it's set properly. I had to resort to using ridged knives to carve the foam rather than cut it with a stanley knife as I'd originally intended to. I started the cutting process by cutting along the edges of the bases.

Once I'd got the basic shape of the shells sorted out it was just a case of cutting the foam down until it was the right thickness and more curved than lots of flat edges.

Once I'd gotten the shells to the right size it was then a case of adding extra details on such as the ridges at the end of the barrel. Not pirctured below is the handle.

With the shells cut I used filler to fill in any overly large abcesses.

Now, in a perfect world I wound have had time to sand these too a smooth finish, apply a thin layer of paperclay and then sand that smooth. Unfortunately I was really short on time, so the quick and easy method to create a smooth and slightly solid surface was good old fasioned paper maché. One thing I learned about paper maché is that it should never be spray painted. Due to it sticking closely to whatever surface it's applied to, any sort of gloss finish really highlights an uneven surface. Whilst a matte finish with poster paint may have sort of hidden the faults a glossy finish really highlighted the flaws, as seen below.

 

Ugh.

Past this point, there wasn't a lot left to do, I sprayed the main body of the gun with black spray paint which gave it a surprisingly good colour despite the body not being coated with plastidip. The gun's 'arms' were simply made of cardboard strips with foam wrapped around them also sprayed back and attached to the front shell and midway down the barrel.

So, what did we learn?

1. Dooooooooooooooooogs!
2. Estimate the time required for a project if you're doing it to a deadline. Double it, then double it again. 

All in all, the most important thing I've learned in this project is that I should focus on the core aspects of an item and then work outwards into exterior details once I've got the solid foundations made, otherwise you wind up with the shell situation from earlier and not enough time to finish things up well.

Also, the expanding foam seems like a material that could be used in a lot of other projects.

Also, dogs.