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. 

Unfinished prop: Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device

Oh hey, so remember that nice smooth, really cool looking shell I put loads of effort in to making?

Yeah, well you can forget it.

Turns out that as it dried, because I hadn't properly kept the two sides apart, the whole thing had curled in on itself, making it much narrower than the foam base and way too small for the barrel of the gun to fit through (which I was beginning to suspect it would have been anyway, so there's a lesson learned right there, don't spend loads of time and effort making something amazing without first checking it will fit on the most fundamental part of the prop at the end. Hurr).

So! A lot of weeks working, restarting my education and moving in to a new flat later, I'm now going to present a whistle stop tour of how to make a portal gun relatively quickly and as cheaply as possible!

Materials: LD45 Foam
                 Hotglue
                 Cardboard (Oh yes)
                 Plastic drinks bottles
                 Expanding insulation foam

There's a few steps that aren't photographed, so bear with a quick text explanation.

After learning that the gun's barrel is one of the most fundamental parts of it, especially in the creation of a fake gun, I decided to start there in order to not repeat my previous mistake. to make the barrel I simply cut the tops and bottoms off three two litre bottles of cola ( which makes a wicked drain cleaner, just so you know ) and slid the three together to form a strong cylinder. I then wrapped a sheet of LD45 foam around it making sure the seam was at the bottom to be as out of the way as possible and attached it with hot glue.

The next stage involved measureing everything up and working out where it would fit along the barrel. Some reference pictures later and I'd measured out where everything ought to sit.

 

What you see above is, from left to right, the enlarged section of the barrel that sits before the front shell and underneath where the main chamber is visible. I'd already cut this out and covered it with foam by the time I'd taken the picture. Those two flat sections serve as the front and back of the larger section which has the gun's handle on the rear and has the larger shell sitting on top. I basically cut these pieces out of cardboard and attached foam to their exterior.

Just a sheet of cardboard cut to fit and glued to the edges of those two panels.

And then a nice foam wrap, with the seam on the bottom (although in retrospect,I should have put it on the top as that's where the shell sits. As you can see, I used a craft-knife to cut away a portion of the foam to expose the clear plastic to act as the visible portion of the chamber. The only issue here is that if you look inside you can see the dried hotglue used to attach the foam through the plastic. I'm going to have to mask the clear portion, then spray the inside of the barrel for a better finish.

Once I had the sizes of everything the shells would need to fit around, I started with simple ' U ' shaped lengths of cardboard that I then drew the basic shape of the shells on and then cut out. In order to make the shells 3D I cut cross sections of how the shell should be and stuck them on at intervals, the plan is to fill them in with expanding foam which I can later cut away, carve and fill. Above is the front most shell.

Pictured is the completed base for foam for the front and rear shells.

And there we have the two covered in expanding foam. Hopefully, once it's fully dried and set I can just carve it into the basic shape, sand it down (using my recently found skills in that particular area) and then fill it in before painting.

I'd actually tried the expanding foam thing before, but that went horribly wrong. I didn't include the 'fins' to give myself basic guidelines (and more importantly: keep the foam attached to the cardboard) and the foam wound up falling away from the base inside itself and having a hard, exterior layer of foam coupled with a gooey interior mess that was no good to anyone. This time I moistened the cardboard a little to help the foam stick and didn't use too much.

I've also managed to get it on my jeans both times and this stuff just does not come out, so I'm looking forward to soaking two pairs of jeans in acetone to try and shift it.

So, what did we learn?

1. Jesus Christ, John, for once in your life would you just stop and actually think about what you're doing before you go and spend weeks on single piece that can't be used, CHRIST.
2. Expanding foam is a cruel mistress, make sure it'll adhere to the surface, don't use too much, don't use too little, make sure there're no oversized pockets of air in which things could go terribly wrong... And that's just the application.
3. Whenever you're doing something that's basically a lot of shapes, start with the most basic one and work your way outwards.

This post was brought to you after a solid 10 hour stint on this and an Emil costume (which you'll get to see later) so apologies if I sound like a bit of a psycho.

Of course, if the foam stuff doesn't work, I *will* go psycho, so look forward to that.

Cosplay: Full Metal Alchemist, Edward Elric's automail

Materials:     LD45 2mm plastazote foam

                      Hot glue

                      PVA glue
                      Plastidip Aerosol Spray

                      Silver Spray paint

Time taken:  One week

A bit light on pictures, this one, but that's mainly because I cranked it out in a fervour with no thoughts to documenting the process. Not too much of a problem as the process was relatively simple, but it might have given some insight for next time.

Anyway.

I decided to go with the Automail arm as a mean's to test and get to grips with the LD45 Plastazote foam since I'd already made an arm before ( in cardboard and Jesmonite, if you must know. An interesting combination with interesting results ) and with the wealth of tutorials out there to help it seemed like a safe bet that I'd be able to at least produce something.

The process was a relatively simple one, pulled mainly from the previously linked Amethyst Angel guide but with a spot of visual assistance from the Featherlight take. By creating paper templates first from newspaper, then cardstock, I was able to come up with the templates to make the parts to fit me personally.

Once I'd made these templates, the next stage was to use the templates to cut the individual pieces from foam which were then stuck together.with seam lines placed either in areas facing the body ( such as on the bicep ) or in places that would be later covered by larger pieces (such as the grill on the forearm). For more of an idea about how it was done, I'd suggest reading up on the Amethyst Angel tutorial. The main variation between my version and hers is that mine was finished by coating the foam in layers of PVA, before moving on to give it multiple coats of spray applied Plastidip and finishing it with coats of silver spray paint.

On the whole, I'd say the process is a relatively simple one, the biggest annoyances were in the labour intensive parts (mainly the fingers) or in the actual manipulaton of the materials ( the shoulder covering pieces, despite extended periods of being held into shape only hold a vague version of the curve I'd like them to.

On the whole, for a second attempt with new materials, I'd say it's not bad, it probably looks better in these pictures then it does in real life, but I'm beginning to realise that good photography is part of the art of good prop and costume production. Besides, I'm about to undo all my good work in your minds eye as we look at what we've learned from making it.

First up: Pores

Now this is probably one of my biggest gripes with regards to plastazote foam. Due to it's nature as a foam it is an incredibly porous material and as such it'll drink paint up like there's no tomorrow. Unprimed plastazote is next to impossible to paint without destroying your paint reserves. The piece pictured above ( in fact, the whole set ) was given multiple coatings of PVA glue, plastidip and paint and as you can see, up close the pores are still visible. I applied the PVA with a brush, but I've been told that a better technique is to actually work the PVA in with your fingers, a much more labour intensive task and considering how long the brush application took, I think if I'm to use Plastazote again an alternative coating method may need investigating.

It all comes undone where it all comes together.

Secondly, as I'm sure you can see I made an absolute hash on the joins between layers. This isn't too much of a crisis since when the arm is being worn no one will be able to see these joins unless they're getting way too up in your grill but it's still not very nice at all. fortunately the top grill-piece overhangs the edges to hde them, but a solution isn't obvious.

One idea may be cutting another piece of foam to lay over the mutliple layers, but the extra 'bulk' that would add could become problematic and take away from the design. I can't imagine any sort of tape would serve well either without being as equally conspicuous.

The dangers of an overenthusiastic glue-gun

Now, this is more of a problem on my side, than anything else and hopefully one that can be overcome by practice and technique. The large gash you can see in the centre there is where I peeled away a large wad of hot glue that had settled on the foam. Hot glue is great for joining foam, but the downside it that it's next to impossible to remove when applied accidentally.

As well as that, if you look at the edge between the covering plate and the main body off the arm you can see lots of nasty bits of glue poking out. This is the result of using to much glue to stick pieces down so it leaks out along the edges. As I mentioned it's impossible to remove without damaging the foam and seems far too rubbery in nature to be remove cleanly by sanding.

Plastidip excess

Another problem encountered here caused by a mix of overenthusiam and a lack of familiarity with the materials is that plasti-dip, much like regular spray paint, needs to be applied in many, extremely thin coats fot the best effect. it also pools in valley joins and will run, causing these marks.

And finally we have this. I'm not entirely sure what caused this but I've got the suspicion that it came about by using too much spray paint in one coat, causing the excess to run or spraying a foam piece that was still moist from the previous stages.

So, in summary, what have we learned?

1. Thin plastazote foam is surprisingly difficult to cut with a craft knife and I don't know what I insist on doing so, scissors seem to produce a better curve, but once you got a rought edge the only option is to keep cutting it down as sanding thin Plastazote isn't a realistic option
2. Thin coats of both paint and plastidip given more than sufficient time to dry. Avoid causing excess to run resulting in either pocks, trickle marks or discolouration
3. Easy on the glue, ensure a thin, even spread.
4. Plastazote does not care how many times you coat it. Either I should go for more coatings of plastidip, find another material to work with or find a more effective method of coating it.
5. Patience. Patience.

All in all, it's not a terrible piece, it'd be more than passable at a convention and as my first time I'm not to hung up about its flaws, it could definately be better, but there's definately worse.