Creating a baby Metroid in a tank

[Nightfalcon4]

Hey everyone,

I'm new here and had some ideas I needed help planning for. I work as a repair technician for game consoles at a local game store. I want to create some personal pieces I could display and something I really want to make is the Baby Metroid from the Metroid series in it's tank. But I also want to make that tank a hidden frontloading NES or SNES (or both?) I have big dreams for this project. Like wanting to make the baby chew on an original Metroid cartridge for NES or a Metroid II cartridge for the gameboy.

I want to tackle the tank first, that will house the baby metroid and the game system(s), but I need help finding a large clear acrylic or plastic pipe to act as the middle portion of the tank where you can see the Metroid. The top and bottom, I was planning on making out of something like PVC or custom building them with plasticard(styrene) and bondo. Maybe carving them out first out of something like insulation Styrofoam then coating them in protective layers of plastic or something. I still don't know what to look for when trying to find that clear pipe. I need it to be about 8-12 inch diameter and about 18-24 inches long, preferably a thickness of 1/16-1/8 inches. Any ideas? I plan to post project pictures, though I have a pretty crappy phone as my only camera, but I still would like to show what I can do and possibly inspire others to try it as well.

Thank so much for reading

 

[Xtafa]

A quick search for 'acrylic cylinder' on auction sites brings up plenty of results that match your dimensions. Not too pricey either. I'd like to see the end result.

 

[ataris121]

the question is what are you going to fill the tank with? Water will degrade most things you can make a sculpt or cast out of. As an idea I would suggest an optically clear plastic/epoxy that you can tint blue. Make in a mold thats a half to an inch smaller than your "tank" and fill the gap with simillarly tinted water and add a bubble effect. the acrylic/water/acrylic should fix any optical effects. Also, you can cast a stand out of the same plastic to suspend your metroid mid tank.

 

[APropOr2]

A quick search for 'acrylic cylinder' on auction sites brings up plenty of results that match your dimensions. Not too pricey either. I'd like to see the end result.

This is true - I would also do a quick yelp seach for a local plastics company. Thats what I did for my Metroid Containment Unit and it is working like a charm.

See my latest post to see the build progress. Hope you got to have fun with yours!!

 

[division 6]

I've seen some face hugger tanks that are actually 2 cylinders with a gap between filled with water and an aquarium aerator on the bottom so that the model was left dry inside.
Cheaper and less hazardess than encasing it in resin.
There's an article on it in Modeler's Resource #58 (fall 2004) pg 58 - 61