Tank Girl Prop Replicas: Danger Ball, Bottles

OK- so while I wait for my parts to come in for the Equalist Electrified Glove kits from Avatar: The Legend of Korra I figure I can go ahead and start working on the other projects I want to create!

Namely: Tank Girl Props!

First up will be the Danger Ball. Working on the file now (pic to follow.) I HOPE to incorporate a twist action that will push the blades out of the body, but that will wait to be seen.

After that, I'm going to see if I can figure a way to make the two bottles from Tank Girl: the Water and Power drinking bottle and the one used to suck the water from the guys body.

The water bottle won't be hard to design, though will have to look around for one item to be able to be sure I'll be capable of producing them.

The one that gets stabbed in the guys back won't be hard to build/design, but the main part that fills with water will be dang near impossible to find nowdays; I don't think they've made those bottle in 20 years! (Yea, I know what they are, if I can find the right name for them.)


Anyways, hope you all like this thread!

wow i loved that film must dig it out, good on ya

Trying to figure out the logistics of making the Danger Ball manually able to function: I've come up with one idea, but it would take a crap ton of work, the blades width would have to be reduced to fit AND half the ball would be lighter. :/

I'm also debating weather I want to make them solid, or make them hollow; If I make them solid and decide to sell them it would certainly make them much more expensive, but they would have a nice weight to them.
(They're 3" round.)

Opinions folks: Do you think I should bother to try to make them semi-functional, or make them as normal spheres that you can insert the blades into?

i cant remember what the blades look like have you got any screenshots of one ??

*snip snip*

Here's a reference collage I did of the Danger Ball: the green is a quick guide I made for then.



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Here's the scale inside the ball itself; for a rotation mechanism to work it would require the bottom half to rotate, which would require the majority of the bottom of the sphere to be hollow.



another idea is to turn the bottom into a push button so you can push the blades out by pushing your finger into the bottom circle; it wouldn't require the bottom half of the sphere to be empty but Id have to figure out how to make it work without turning it into overkill to build. (No guarantees on it having anything that moves; I want to add it, but it's more likely to be a solid sphere. )

love tank girl, im sure i saw a bottle today in Staples that reminded me of the tank girl bottle, i will see if i can get a pic

I am officially naming the device used to suck the water out of the guy as the "Portable Organic Water Evacuation Recycler" - or P.O.W.E.R. for short.
Cause it's confusing with two bottles in the topic and really- who doesn't like a sweet acronym.

TheAtomicSoul said:

I am officially naming the device used to suck the water out of the guy as the "Portable Organic Water Evacuation Recycler" - or P.O.W.E.R. for short.
Cause it's confusing with two bottles in the topic and really- who doesn't like a sweet acronym.

Click to expand...

lol thats many awesomes

Minor update: I decided to go with a removable cap so you can interchange having or not having blades. This will also make it easier to keep up with them (I figure if only the blades are removable they'd get lost easy.)

The little bump on top will be a red LED; it didn't light up in the move, so I'm not too worried about it lighting up on the prop.

just found these on propstore

The gold on the ball looks to be goldleaf.

I have a suggestion for how to make it open.



So my theory is, have the ball made in 3 main pieces; the top, bottom and blades. There would be a pin that connects the top and bottom, but allows it to turn as well. I figure some super strong rare earth magnets would help to connect the two pieces from the inside, but you could do something like have the pin attached to one hemisphere, have it poke through the top of bottom where it gets capped with a nut or washer or something. That would then get covered by an end cap detail piece. Anywho, so the real mechanism of it, would be the blades, they would float on the center pin, with a spring, which you could probably snag out of a pen, or something else if you need it wider. The blades would be held inside by the top piece when the top and bottom are twisted out of alignment, once their put in alignment the blade will shoot out of the slits. The tricky bit with this is getting the blades back inside, since you'll need to get them inside and passed the thickness of the top half. I'd suggest having some sort of tool that you can use to push the blades back in. Having a tool won't be very canon, but it'll stop you from having any weird bits on the final piece that are there just to retract the blades.

you'll also need some sort of registration to keep the blades from spinning with the top, I suggest having the bottom half have slots for it to slide up and down in, that way they won't get out of alignment.

Sorry for the delay in response folks!

Question: Does this look like the ball itself is three inches tall?



Pobbrett: I wasn't sure if it was a faux pas to post pick from there in full; I saw most of them, looks like just oen spot really needs fixed

Contec: I agree!

Gibbtall: There's several ideas I've had on making it functional, and they each have drawbacks.


Honestly, I've devised a way that it could be made so you could turn the base and the blades extend out, but this method would make the sphere hollow and honestly, feel cheap.


What you drew was one of the first ideas I had; it's the simplest, but has a big flaw: this could become an actual weapon! (Similar to why switch blades are illegal.)
For something people may carry around I'd rather not have the blades spring loaded. DX

I've thought of having it in reverse- similar to how "switch blades" are sold now- where you manually push the blade out, and the spring pushes it back in.
The idea is the blade would be pushed out by pushing your finger into the bottom plug, and it would pull them back in when you remove your finger. The good side of this is that there is no concern of someone trying to catch it and have the blades stab through their palm! XD


Asthetic wise, the blades comming out would be pretty sweet-- but when it does, it'd leave the area under the blade empty as there cannot be any wall on the outside between the sections in the upper half. I don't know if anyone but me would care however.


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OK, so I've come up with a way for the majority of the bottom half of the sphere to be structurally sound, however I'm having trouble trying to figure out a good way to add structural integrity to the top: Namely, how I can keep the six separate top sections from being at risk of breaking off!

Main thing I'm thinking of doing is combining the top and bottom halves of each of the six sides which will allow the integrity of the bottom piece to add strength to the top.


This way would allow the blades to all be connected, the model built in two halves, and imploy end caps on both top and bottom to help hold it all together.



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Hmm, or maybe not. The end caps are about one half inch round, so your finger wouldn't be able to fit inside it like that...

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Edit again: I've come up with an idea of how I can make the blades move, not come out of the sphere, and have the end cap be the button you press to make them move. I'll post new images when I have time to rebuild it!

Do you plan on making the blades out of metal? I've seen some Assassin's Creed hidden blades that were made out of styrene or 3D prints, they wouldn't be as strong, but they would be safe. I totally understand your problems with my plan, but I think I can show a way that would fix a few issues. I'll whip up a 3D model to explain.

Viola. So I'm figuring that this is sort of a 3D printer project, but no reason you couldn't make it out of other stuff. If you DO go the 3D print route, I'd suggest leaving it hallow and then filling it up with some sort of putty or something, that way you'd save on printing costs but still have the weight. If you're making multiples then you could print it with holes to still save on printed material, then cover over the holes prior to molding. The only thing this is missing is the outer details and the center pin+spring.

You would also have control over the spring tension, so you could get one that isn't so strong as it blows the whole things apart, or at least doesn't force the blades against the top piece to the point of breaking or grinding down their tips.

Gibbtall
We may speak in different terms but it seems we're thinking on the same level. This is about the same idea I have, but I will make the bottom round detail section a button you push up against with your finger so the blades will press against a light spring to keep them from coming out otherwise.

No worries on the 3D printing costs; I always work the final model in a way that'll not only keep the cost down but make it easier to mold.

BTW: What program are you using? It looks a crap load easier to work technical models in it then Maya.

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I haven't had time to work on this again yet, but will try to do so this coming week.

I'm using Alibre, it's certainly not my first choice for 3D modeling, but I'm at work and that's what they have. I tend to use 3DS max. Alibre (or I figure other CAD modeling software) is kind of hit or miss for modeling, sometimes you can do stuff a lot easier, sometimes you're severely limited. For this specific project it was pretty good, but i can see it having major problems when doing the outer detail. The problem is that CAD software works with NURBS instead of polygons, so getting the base forms in Alibre then moving it to max is kind of a pain, you'll end up with an object made of triangles, that don't follow any proper pattern.

TheAtomicSoul said:

I am officially naming the device used to suck the water out of the guy as the "Portable Organic Water Evacuation Recycler" - or P.O.W.E.R. for short.
Cause it's confusing with two bottles in the topic and really- who doesn't like a sweet acronym.

Click to expand...

It's technically called a 'Saver', but I think I like the acronym better...
Anyone ever seen a screen-used one of these come up for sale? I have the drinking bottle, and would love to get my hands on the Saver too...

Rik1138 said:

It's technically called a 'Saver', but I think I like the acronym better...
Anyone ever seen a screen-used one of these come up for sale? I have the drinking bottle, and would love to get my hands on the Saver too...

Click to expand...

Ah- I didn't know it had a name!
I've found an expandable container that is ~sorta~ similar, but not 100% exact. I'll probably make one of it anyways, even if it's not perfect.