Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures of the processes but I thought i'd share my experience with people.
I've been wanting to do something for a friend of mine as a house warming/birthday present for his home office.
So I decided to recreate the Hunters Knife from the Destiny game.
Rather than just make the knife I wanted to do a collectors/display item, something that maybe would be put as a remembrance piece from being in the Destiny wars
As I recently bought myself a 3D Printer (Kossel XL) I decided this would be a great project to start with.
First of all I managed to get a few screen shots from the net and from the game itself and started to model it up using the free webbased program Onshape, I would highly recommend this software as its easy to use, you always have the latest updates and its free. As the model was pretty big I split the model up into manageable parts so that the 3D printer could handle the size easier. I printed it in PLA as it is pretty easy to print without to many headaches.
Once all the parts were printed I glued them together and started the mind numbing process of sanding and filling. When I was doing this process I kept finding the piece kept snapping and splitting and was very fragile, plus it was very light, this wasn't really what I was looking for so I got in contact with my brother-in-law who works in the prop industry for movies and TV and he suggested maybe doing a cast of it in resin then it will be a lot more durable. Not knowing the process or where to get materials I passed it over to him who did an amazing job in creating copies of my original printed piece.
A few weeks later I got back the Resin casts of the knife and boy were they good, they had a decent weight to them and didn't snap every time they were touched.
The next process was painting, I have been wondering how to get the effect of the chipped steel look, after searching the web and asking around I came across a video by Punished Props on youtube (about 3.18 in) on using mustard as a masking fluid. As i didn't have mustard in the house I thought I would try toothpaste, so with nothing to loose I thought id give it a try.
I sprayed a matt dark grey under coat onto the knife let it dry then applied the random design using a cotton wool bud and toothpaste onto it. Once i was happy with it i then did a very light coat of chrome over the top and let it dry over night. The next day I took the knife and started to wash off the toothpaste under the kitchen tap and wow was I amazed how good it looked.
With a bit a weathering I got the knife looking all used with dried blood and grime.
The grip from looking at screen shots looked to be just wound up thong of some sort and I remembered I had some paracord lying around somewhere. I removed the white core from the paracord so it would be flat and randomly wound it around the handle of the knife. When it was done it looked to new so i also weathered it up to give it a well used look. I then gave the whole knife a light spray of matt clear coat to seal it all in.
As I wanted to use this as a display piece I was thinking of making a display case from bits i had laying around the garage then my wife pointed out when we were walking around IKEA ( I know living the dream) I managed to find the perfect display case inwhich was a bargain at only £12.
I also managed to find the Destiny logo and hunters logo patches on eBay which would finish the display off. I've now found out my mother-in-law has a sewing machine that can do this sort of thing so ill be asking her in the future if she could do these for me.
Once I had placed everything in the case i felt it was missing something, So I decided that dog tags would be a nice touch so rather than use traditional metal dog tags I designed some custom tags again using Onshape. As I little bit of personal touch I decided to add my friends gamer tag to the tags. I then printed them using clear and clear orange ABS and the result was awesome. I didn't do anything to them other than print them. They looked futuristic and had a bit of a battered look to them.
The knife was attached to the display case using fishing line (which pretty much disappeared when it was mounted) and all the other items were attached using sticky back Velcro (hook side) as the backing of the frame was like a felt material.
The end product turned out great and I was surprised that it turned out so well.
Plus my friend loved it which was the main thing.
I've been wanting to do something for a friend of mine as a house warming/birthday present for his home office.
So I decided to recreate the Hunters Knife from the Destiny game.
Rather than just make the knife I wanted to do a collectors/display item, something that maybe would be put as a remembrance piece from being in the Destiny wars
As I recently bought myself a 3D Printer (Kossel XL) I decided this would be a great project to start with.
First of all I managed to get a few screen shots from the net and from the game itself and started to model it up using the free webbased program Onshape, I would highly recommend this software as its easy to use, you always have the latest updates and its free. As the model was pretty big I split the model up into manageable parts so that the 3D printer could handle the size easier. I printed it in PLA as it is pretty easy to print without to many headaches.
Once all the parts were printed I glued them together and started the mind numbing process of sanding and filling. When I was doing this process I kept finding the piece kept snapping and splitting and was very fragile, plus it was very light, this wasn't really what I was looking for so I got in contact with my brother-in-law who works in the prop industry for movies and TV and he suggested maybe doing a cast of it in resin then it will be a lot more durable. Not knowing the process or where to get materials I passed it over to him who did an amazing job in creating copies of my original printed piece.
A few weeks later I got back the Resin casts of the knife and boy were they good, they had a decent weight to them and didn't snap every time they were touched.
The next process was painting, I have been wondering how to get the effect of the chipped steel look, after searching the web and asking around I came across a video by Punished Props on youtube (about 3.18 in) on using mustard as a masking fluid. As i didn't have mustard in the house I thought I would try toothpaste, so with nothing to loose I thought id give it a try.
I sprayed a matt dark grey under coat onto the knife let it dry then applied the random design using a cotton wool bud and toothpaste onto it. Once i was happy with it i then did a very light coat of chrome over the top and let it dry over night. The next day I took the knife and started to wash off the toothpaste under the kitchen tap and wow was I amazed how good it looked.
With a bit a weathering I got the knife looking all used with dried blood and grime.
The grip from looking at screen shots looked to be just wound up thong of some sort and I remembered I had some paracord lying around somewhere. I removed the white core from the paracord so it would be flat and randomly wound it around the handle of the knife. When it was done it looked to new so i also weathered it up to give it a well used look. I then gave the whole knife a light spray of matt clear coat to seal it all in.
As I wanted to use this as a display piece I was thinking of making a display case from bits i had laying around the garage then my wife pointed out when we were walking around IKEA ( I know living the dream) I managed to find the perfect display case inwhich was a bargain at only £12.
I also managed to find the Destiny logo and hunters logo patches on eBay which would finish the display off. I've now found out my mother-in-law has a sewing machine that can do this sort of thing so ill be asking her in the future if she could do these for me.
Once I had placed everything in the case i felt it was missing something, So I decided that dog tags would be a nice touch so rather than use traditional metal dog tags I designed some custom tags again using Onshape. As I little bit of personal touch I decided to add my friends gamer tag to the tags. I then printed them using clear and clear orange ABS and the result was awesome. I didn't do anything to them other than print them. They looked futuristic and had a bit of a battered look to them.
The knife was attached to the display case using fishing line (which pretty much disappeared when it was mounted) and all the other items were attached using sticky back Velcro (hook side) as the backing of the frame was like a felt material.
The end product turned out great and I was surprised that it turned out so well.
Plus my friend loved it which was the main thing.
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