Half-life 2 Gravity gun (cheap and easy)

[darkrainee]

Let me tell you guys a wonderfull story about how to create Gravity gun from scratch. I want to show, that everyone can make something pretty from nothing. Hope you enjoy my step-by-step ''tutorial'' .





At first, using my little toy gravity gun from action figure, i made simple blueprint to figure out sizes and shapes.

Drawing is not my best part and its always good fom me to just keep everything in mind (ofcourse i always have lots of troubles from this later).


Updated blueprint with plan for future electronics. Plastic water-pipe and the mighty cardboard.



More cardboard, building gun`s shapes


Cardboard, alluminium "air-pipe" things, bicycle handlebar.


to bee continued...

 

[darkrainee]

Ok, here we go with our terrible craft and the next step is -

More cardboard for the win


Cover all this construction with paper and PVA glue. Also the PVC pipe appeared as the front side of the gun.


Big photo gap coming next, so i tell what`s happened here: all was covered with resin, sanded sanded sanded, primed and colored somewhere with metallic. Also first LEDs are near to see how it all works together. LED`s are "hiding" in the transparent plastic water-pipes


More paint, all the LED`s, two on/off switches on the handlebar


Dont walk away far away and you`ll know what will happen next...

 

[kevinildio]

great work!

 

[RobTFirefly]

Beautiful work so far! I look forward to more.

 

[darkrainee]

And ,more is coming.

Big pipe is back. LED`s on it. To make it look more serious i put colored wires between. Also side LED`s are placed under the plastic (made of plastic scrap) box. Now we can go back and answer the question of TWO switches on the handle. 1st switches 6 of LED stripes. Second - another 6 stripes, LED in the sidebox and hidden one on the front inside the big pipe. So u can change gun power)) All the sistem in powered with 2 9v batteries hidden inside the main body (the "door" to change them is under the gun , dont shure i have a photo).


More details on the handle, to imitate the original game model idea of the handmade gun. Actually, when you make this gun u can feel some interesting ****** cause of this "made of scrap" style.


When you enter the "house" of the batteries, u also getting acces to all the LED stripes (cause i always have problems with bad wire connection...) and u can fix anything pretty easy.


Front side with LED, some metal thing (it was part of old broken computer) and lots of plastic details imitating protection of the secret orange crystal technology of the half-life universe.


Stay tuned...

 

[darkrainee]

Next one pls...

Created from scratch little pressure gauge thing. Picture printed on....printer. All other stuff is plastic pieces.



Now its time for the front manipulators. I wanted to do them unbreakable, movable and removable at one time. So i started with the metall body. Its very easy to take them off by removing the insude screws.



But that all looks not really cool, so we extend all the strutrure with plastic cover parts. I understand, that there are much more details in the front of the gun and manipulators are mo detailed in game , but i really wanted to make the gun more unbreakable so all the little metal things sorry me i cant take you with me...



Wtf cat


Final look before the last part of the story


Be right back...

 

[ApophisV]

Very nice build! I am lucky to own the 1:1 NECA replica for comparison, judging from your pics, your's is pretty spot on!

I'm going to create a Freeman costume to wear on carnival in spring, so I planned to make a gravity gun myself during the christmas holidays! Your write up surely will be a great inspirational source!

 

[darkrainee]

Why should you make your own gun if you already have one? (damn thats a poem)

 

[ApophisV]

Well, I'm going to wear the costume for carnival which involves a lot of alcohol and party and crowded places and so on (we're close to Cologne so carnival is a pretty big thing here) and I don't want my precious gravity gun to be damaged which she surely would be afterwards... Besides, the NECA gun is very heavy which would make it uncomfortable to be carried around 5 days in a row... I'm aiming for a much more light weight build, skipping some of NECA's details (which I probably wouldn't be able to reproduce untill march anyway!) but keeping their size / scale

 

[riverswamp]

Great build I hope to tackle t one day.

 

[darkrainee]

My gun is pretty heavy too. And this strange handle design and placement unstables the weight balance as hell u know.

 

[darkrainee]

Ok, lets finish this one, cause we are very close to the end.

Add some paint to this baby, trying to imitate rust dirt and scratches


and cover all this with polish to make it all shine and pretty


Now i can compare my new sweet gun with mah old portal one...seems to big, actually it is more bigger than ingame one and Neca prop, but i wanted it to be so.


Now i have nice wall night-light


Can make tonn of fancy photos


And make some cosplays



Soooo...thanks to all who was here, it`ll be great if i helped or inspired someone. Looking for your feedback, ready to answer any questions and if you want to see my other crappy projects - just say it and i probably could make another story.