Aliens Colonial Marines M56 Smart Gun (foam built with $20 budget in 2 days)

narutoishere

Well-Known Member
Originally I was preparing to make a Wolfenstein gun, but after seeing some guy made a quirky smart gun on youtube,
I decided to quick-build a similar version with $20 budget and any material that I could recycle during the past weekend.
I was going to stay home through the whole weekend watching world-cup, so the timing was perfect.

I didn't have those fancy tools like dremel or a well-equipped workshop with motorized sanding.

This time I documented every step with photos as I finished the whole thing within 2 days.

The foam "gun" turned out rather "ok", and I brought it to the Toronto RPF prop party on Saturday.
It would be better if I planned a bit carefully before I started. I forgot the most fundamental thing about construction -
center of gravity. It became too heavy on the drum side and the front handle could not support and it broke off,
even though the total weight was less 5 pounds.

I improvised the size and made two rectangular tubes with foam which were long enough to fit a plastic bloomstick through
them as backbone and handle bar. The length was about right in comparsion with the pulse rifle. I then patched them with
craft foamie. Details were stripped down to minimal as I made reference with some photos that I have googled. The two
triangle racks were made with leftover sidetrim from the large foam sheets. For both handles, I used a pair of foam bicycle
handles bought at Dollarama. As with the brake, I made it with foam. The magazine drum was a DVD holder; I made the cover
with foam. The muzzle was cut from a calendar tube and covered with foamie. The front handle was the bottom of the bloomstick
and its support was a plastic center-stick cut off from the DVD holder. I added "fins" to the stick to make it look like
somekind of supports.

The cocking-handle was a paper-towel tube filled with paper-towel and wrapped with foamie and I placed plastic caps from
old medicine canisters on both end (and I had a lot of empty pill canisters that I had been keeping for the District 9 gun).
The ammo counter was the same one that I printed for my pulse rifle sometime ago; I just added one more digit to 395 instead
of 95. I brushed the entire thing with a coat of mod podge and I let it dry for 2 hours in the backyard (mod podge smells
quite pleasantly actually) before I spray-painted it to black. I bought most of the materials at Dollarama (a local dollar
shop), except the large foam sheets and spray paint that I bought them at Walmart next door. I don't shop at Michaels ever;
Michaels overprices everything.

From shopping to completion (including drying and painting), it took me a weekend to finish while watching world cup.

About foam sheet, I don't understand why people would need to use hot knife to cut. Foam is so easy to cut with a pair of
sharp scissors

Purchased materials:
Large foam sheets (4 large square sheets): $9.99 (walmart)
Craft foamie (30 small sheets): $3 (dollarama)
Bicycle handles (a pack of 2): $1 (dollarama)
Bloomstick: $1 (dollarama)
Wood craft stick (a pack of 6): $1 (dollarama)
Krylon black spray paint: $3.99 (walmart)

Recycled materials:
Plastic DVD holder
Calendar tube
Papertowel tube
Cable (old power cord)
Empty tynenol bottle
Empty medicine bottles
Screws (random sizes)

Tools:
Heavy duty cutter
Heavy duty Scissors
Mod Podge (available at Walmart)
Ruler
Black sharpie (for minor touchup)
Hot glue (lots of gluesticks)
Heat gun (to bend the foam)
Mini hacksaw (to cut the wooden stick)
Cutting board
Screwdriver

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More photos...

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More photos...

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More photos... at Toronto RPF Prop Party in June 2014 (colonial marines armour courtesy from the dalek master guy... and I have forgotten his name... sorry!)

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That's pretty good for being foam and misc. stuff.

Thanks. I think using foam and recycling materials is the only economical approach that I can make something in two days with few bucks. There is a thread about making a nerf pulse rifle, the guy seems to spend a decade making it...

I know there are resin kits and just a resin kit for the tiny M56 battery would cost like $50; mine is not even 5 cents. I know someone who is spending months to make a 3D model of the smart gun and it turns out so heavy ...
 
Awesome work Stephen! From the Dalek Guy! LOL! You have to get yourself some armour from Spatz so we can run USCM military sweeps at Fan Expo in 2015...hopefully I will have the Snatry gun ready!
 
Awesome work Stephen! From the Dalek Guy! LOL! You have to get yourself some armour from Spatz so we can run USCM military sweeps at Fan Expo in 2015...hopefully I will have the Snatry gun ready!

Yes definitely, but we need more people to join at least to make up a squad, like those 501st, to flood the floor.

About the armour, did you get the movie version or the spatz camo version? I can't tell the difference. I should have taken more photos of the armour. The rifle-armour combo package looks pretty good.
 
I saw this in person at the Toronto Prop Party. It is really an amazing creation. Even more impressive now that I have found this thread and seen exactly how and what it was made from.

My only regret is not holding it when I was at the show and having a picture taken with it.

Well done narutoishere!
 
Awesome. I been wanting to do something like this for my daughter's Vasquez costume.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

How old is your daughter? If she's a little girl, I suppose you'd need to make a smaller version or a SD (super-deformed) version, which means a shorter in length but everything else stays the same size. I'd scale it down to half the length. For the drum mag, I'd use a smaller dvd holder; the rest stays the same.

By the way, does your daughter know about Aliens and colonial marines? My son thought it was a gun from anime...
 
How old is your daughter? If she's a little girl, I suppose you'd need to make a smaller version or a SD (super-deformed) version, which means a shorter in length but everything else stays the same size. I'd scale it down to half the length. For the drum mag, I'd use a smaller dvd holder; the rest stays the same.

By the way, does your daughter know about Aliens and colonial marines? My son thought it was a gun from anime...
She is 10 and we have watched Aliens countless times. She uses a pulse rifle variant I did with a nerf gun. Been wanting to make her a smart gun to complete the look. She got to meet Jeanette Goldstein this past May at Texas Frightmare Weekend. Your work really shows it can be done with foam. Been wanting to do something like this.
 
I saw this in person at the Toronto Prop Party. It is really an amazing creation. Even more impressive now that I have found this thread and seen exactly how and what it was made from.

My only regret is not holding it when I was at the show and having a picture taken with it.

Well done narutoishere!

Thank you, but that's an exaggeration. There were many professionals at the party that made real movie props and they were amazing... I'm just a basement amateur.
By the way, I have made a gundam pilot (gundam seed version) helmet sometime ago for my son using foam. I'll make a thread about how it was made. Those helmets in the market are either too big or too small.
 
She is 10 and we have watched Aliens countless times. She uses a pulse rifle variant I did with a nerf gun. Been wanting to make her a smart gun to complete the look. She got to meet Jeanette Goldstein this past May at Texas Frightmare Weekend. Your work really shows it can be done with foam. Been wanting to do something like this.

You're a great parent! I used to cosplay with my son when he was little (we dressed as characters from animes like naruto, gundam and bleach). Yeah, go ahead and make one for her, and perhaps let her participate in the making process. It's like a school craft project ... She would certainly kick-azz in any cosplay event.

By the way, I made a cardboard version of pulse rifle sometime ago...
 
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