Honus
Sr Member
I can't hammer form brass sheet over an acrylic egg.
I can't hammer form brass sheet over an acrylic egg.
Ah sorry you want to render it in Brass.
I was thinking it would be a lot easier to work the acrylic by engraving the pattern into the surface of the acrylic egg and then if you wanted to go all out you could have the egg electroplated or if your budget wasn't able to stretch to that you could have used metallic paint and clear coated the acrylic egg to get the metallic effect.
Best of luck with whichever method you choose, I've always loved the Hellboy film props.
I was thinking it would be a lot easier to work the acrylic by engraving the pattern into the surface of the acrylic egg and then if you wanted to go all out you could have the egg electroplated or if your budget wasn't able to stretch to that you could have used metallic paint and clear coated the acrylic egg to get the metallic effect.
Best of luck with whichever method you choose, I've always loved the Hellboy film props.
Honus
Sr Member
Yep, it's going to be brass, stainless steel and aluminum construction. I want to use brass for the egg shell so I can silver solder the pivots directly to the inside of the moving plates. I just don't think plastic pivots would be durable enough. The other reason is that the outside of the egg shows two different gold tones so I'm going to use a combination of 14k and 18k gold plating to achieve the proper appearance. 18k is a bit richer/darker than 14k and I can adjust the color by changing the plating voltage and time.
KrokoHunter
Sr Member
Awesome ... I sooooo wanted to do this prop as well since I saw the movie the first time ... but I'm nowhere near having the craftsmanship for this particular project right now .. but I'll get there some how.
You should take a look in the "Art of Hellboy II" book ... it has a flattened illustration of the ornamental decoration of the outer shell .... should be helpful ... and an awesome book
You should take a look in the "Art of Hellboy II" book ... it has a flattened illustration of the ornamental decoration of the outer shell .... should be helpful ... and an awesome book
Last edited:
Honus
Sr Member
Starting this back up again since I'm now done with the Horus helmet and my friend's animatronic wing project is well under way. Does anyone possibly have any additional reference material? Any info would be greatly appreciated. I've been scouring the web on a fairly regular basis for the last couple of years and really haven't found much- just a few pics in the movie art book, a few screen grabs and behind the scenes stuff but not much else.
Last edited:
Honus
Sr Member
Quick sketch I did a while back for the general mechanism to make the elemental egg open. Basically a twin rod/servo mechanism. The problem with this is the rods want to be straight so the servo arm needs to be slotted to accommodate. I've since pretty much scrapped the idea of a slotted servo arm in favor of a gear drive.
Last edited by a moderator:
Honus
Sr Member
Here's the gear drive idea for the Hellboy egg. A friend gave me these really nice miniature roller bearing slides. I'll use them to support a servo driven gear rack that will move the control rods/tubes. This mechanism has to be very smooth and very quiet. I can control the servo speed in order to get a really nice fluid motion.
Last edited by a moderator:
Looking forward to watching this unfold. :thumbsup
