BaudrillardBoy
New Member
I don't have a ton of pictures of the build process, but I wanted to share a project I recently completed. My girlfriend is really into the band My Chemical Romance and Gerard Way's comics, and so I decided to make her a replica ray gun from the Killjoys comic and various music videos from the band's album Danger Days. I'll be giving her the finished product on Christmas. Here are the originals for reference:
View attachment 567013
Luckily, my girlfriend had pre-ordered the album and owned a resin replica that came with it. It looks like this:
View attachment 567015
It's definitely okay, but I wanted one in metal. It just feels like a plastic toy, and I wasn't a fan. It also has some weird distortions in the original sculpt that kinda cheapen the effect. I decided to cast it in aluminum. I'd never cast anything in aluminum before, but I figured it was the most reliable way to get the result I was looking for.
Here's the mold in progress. You'll notice I sculpted rounded handles, as I hated the squared-off ones on the original. They were just so uncomfortable to hold, and I planned to wrap the handle anyway.
View attachment 567018
I used cheap silicone from Home Depot. Like an idiot, I kinda forgot to spray the piece with mold release, so I screwed up the paint something serious. Oh well. This just upped the pressure to make the metal one extra fantastic.
The finished mold with plaster mother:
View attachment 567032
Despite my general incompetence, I actually got a pretty great wax:
View attachment 567023
I knew I was never going to get an immaculate as-issued piece as a consequence of this being my first metal casting, so I decided to embrace the used universe aesthetic and customize the piece. I'm a sucker for visual narrative, and decided this would be the character's gun much later than we see it in the comics or music video.
Here was the system I used for the sprues. I made four guns total because I (correctly) guessed that there would be major issues with at least a few of them.
View attachment 567025
This went into an investment mold made of plaster, sand, and perlite. The investment mold went into a kiln for a few days to burn out the wax. I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of the actual metal pour because I was, you know, pouring metal.
And here's what I got:
View attachment 567028
Yeah, the finish ended up being kinda gnarly. I was starting to get nervous about my ability to fix this up. The best casting I got is on top, and it got some serious flashing on the end of the barrel as well as some shrinkage on the bottom of the barrel and some serious distortion/shrinkage in the handle.
Here's the gun after a first pass of a flap disc:
View attachment 567030
Don't worry, I was not using those goggles as safety goggles. They were just for filing and sanding, since my eyes get irritated really easily.
After many, MANY hours of bondo, sanding, and filing, I got the following:
The front sight had to be re-carved, and most of the lower handle is pure bondo, and a lot of the scribed lines were re-filed by me. I had to use a cold chisel to recreate the vent sections and switch thingy. It sucked. But it looks solid. This is the first stage of weathering. I had been using red-brown primer to check for irregularities throughout the re-surfacing, and I sprayed some red enamel on top of it. After looking at a lot of reference for aged enameled metal, I sanded off most of the enamel in the exposed areas to give it a more matte finish, with shininess persisting in the more recessed areas.
Here are the final shots:
You'll note that the gun is asymmetrical, with the right side being a lot cleaner. This was due to some unfixable issues with the casting. I looked at some early concept art of the gun and sculpted/filled a few areas to make it feel solid and intentional. Guns shouldn't be perfectly symmetrical anyway, or at least that's what I tell myself. I decided to paint the white areas in acrylic and expose the red paint underneath them, because the characters basically customized their own guns. I believe there's a shot of them getting plain white ones out of a vending machine, and I always assumed that most of the details would thus be hand-painted. It was kind of risky, because I wanted it to look like a well-loved object rather than simply a shoddy shortcut on my end, but I think it came across well.
In the music video this character dies in a facility belonging to the Evil Authoritarian Baddies, so I decided that this object would have been recovered by them and filed/archived before being stolen back by the resistance or whoever. Thus, I decided to make an evidence tag to go along with it. Nothing super fancy, just printed stickers on some scrap mat board. I wanted it to look a bit cartoony, so I cut all the parts freehand.
Gratuitous selfie with an improvised costume to go along with the retro cyberpunk aesthetic (don't judge me; I couldn't resist):
I think it turned out pretty well! It makes such a difference to feel the weight and coldness of the metal and see it glint in the sunlight in the distressed areas. The photos definitely don't do it justice. Hope y'all like it! Now I just have to figure out how to wrap it...
View attachment 567013
Luckily, my girlfriend had pre-ordered the album and owned a resin replica that came with it. It looks like this:
View attachment 567015
It's definitely okay, but I wanted one in metal. It just feels like a plastic toy, and I wasn't a fan. It also has some weird distortions in the original sculpt that kinda cheapen the effect. I decided to cast it in aluminum. I'd never cast anything in aluminum before, but I figured it was the most reliable way to get the result I was looking for.
Here's the mold in progress. You'll notice I sculpted rounded handles, as I hated the squared-off ones on the original. They were just so uncomfortable to hold, and I planned to wrap the handle anyway.
View attachment 567018
I used cheap silicone from Home Depot. Like an idiot, I kinda forgot to spray the piece with mold release, so I screwed up the paint something serious. Oh well. This just upped the pressure to make the metal one extra fantastic.
The finished mold with plaster mother:
View attachment 567032
Despite my general incompetence, I actually got a pretty great wax:
View attachment 567023
I knew I was never going to get an immaculate as-issued piece as a consequence of this being my first metal casting, so I decided to embrace the used universe aesthetic and customize the piece. I'm a sucker for visual narrative, and decided this would be the character's gun much later than we see it in the comics or music video.
Here was the system I used for the sprues. I made four guns total because I (correctly) guessed that there would be major issues with at least a few of them.
View attachment 567025
This went into an investment mold made of plaster, sand, and perlite. The investment mold went into a kiln for a few days to burn out the wax. I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of the actual metal pour because I was, you know, pouring metal.
And here's what I got:
View attachment 567028
Yeah, the finish ended up being kinda gnarly. I was starting to get nervous about my ability to fix this up. The best casting I got is on top, and it got some serious flashing on the end of the barrel as well as some shrinkage on the bottom of the barrel and some serious distortion/shrinkage in the handle.
Here's the gun after a first pass of a flap disc:
View attachment 567030
Don't worry, I was not using those goggles as safety goggles. They were just for filing and sanding, since my eyes get irritated really easily.
After many, MANY hours of bondo, sanding, and filing, I got the following:
The front sight had to be re-carved, and most of the lower handle is pure bondo, and a lot of the scribed lines were re-filed by me. I had to use a cold chisel to recreate the vent sections and switch thingy. It sucked. But it looks solid. This is the first stage of weathering. I had been using red-brown primer to check for irregularities throughout the re-surfacing, and I sprayed some red enamel on top of it. After looking at a lot of reference for aged enameled metal, I sanded off most of the enamel in the exposed areas to give it a more matte finish, with shininess persisting in the more recessed areas.
Here are the final shots:
You'll note that the gun is asymmetrical, with the right side being a lot cleaner. This was due to some unfixable issues with the casting. I looked at some early concept art of the gun and sculpted/filled a few areas to make it feel solid and intentional. Guns shouldn't be perfectly symmetrical anyway, or at least that's what I tell myself. I decided to paint the white areas in acrylic and expose the red paint underneath them, because the characters basically customized their own guns. I believe there's a shot of them getting plain white ones out of a vending machine, and I always assumed that most of the details would thus be hand-painted. It was kind of risky, because I wanted it to look like a well-loved object rather than simply a shoddy shortcut on my end, but I think it came across well.
In the music video this character dies in a facility belonging to the Evil Authoritarian Baddies, so I decided that this object would have been recovered by them and filed/archived before being stolen back by the resistance or whoever. Thus, I decided to make an evidence tag to go along with it. Nothing super fancy, just printed stickers on some scrap mat board. I wanted it to look a bit cartoony, so I cut all the parts freehand.
Gratuitous selfie with an improvised costume to go along with the retro cyberpunk aesthetic (don't judge me; I couldn't resist):
I think it turned out pretty well! It makes such a difference to feel the weight and coldness of the metal and see it glint in the sunlight in the distressed areas. The photos definitely don't do it justice. Hope y'all like it! Now I just have to figure out how to wrap it...
