Half-Life 2: OSIPR2, or AR2 Pulse Rifle (Pic Heavy)

[Pingu1978]

Loving this so far Tactonyx.
Just got back from SFX Weekender convention in the UK, and as much as I love the Galactic Knights star wars crew I'd love to see more game characters and weaponry.
Half Life is my favourite game ever, played since the start so I'd love to have a go at this sort of thing on the cheap for next years event. Hope you don't mind me using this as some extra inspiration.
Can't wait to see this progress!

 

[Chronos]

TOO COOL!!! Just saw this! I ALWAYS thought that would be the sweetest video game gun to make.

They should make a half life movie.

Quit rebooting everything. THERE ARE OTHER GREAT STORIES OUT THERE!

Agreed! I love what I'm seeing so far. Very cool! :thumbsup

Thread Subscribed.

 

[Slukaj]

Ha, you beat me to the punch! I started work on one of these about 6 months ago, but was forced to scrap it over lack of references!

 

[Tactonyx]

Hey, thanks guy's
Sorry progress has been slow, I got a commission that's soaking up all of my time, leaving little time for the pulse rifle. I managed to get the barrel shroud lathed while I was making munitions for this other project.

Now I need to make a mold and cast this. After the shroud is made, the next step is making the ammo. Probably won't get to this 'til next week, but by then you can really expect to see some progress. Standby...

 

[guybrush]

Again, nice work, can't wait to see further progress. As you mentionned in the other thread, I would be overly glad if you provided some measurements, although you don't need to reveal the complete blueprints ;-).
For now, I just grabbed your first image and rectified it back. That serves me as a blueprint

I'm currently wondering what material to use. I have no experience with foamboard. I'm thinking of a cardboard skeleton, fill it with PU foam, sand it down and resin/bondo over it. Any opinions on that?

Greetings

 

[Tactonyx]

Sorry Guybrush, I didn't know anyone posted in here until now. My AR2 has deviated so much from the blueprints that they're no longer the same size, or much is referenced from it, but I think the AR2 blueprint measured 34 to 42 inches long (1050mm to 1200mm).
As for materials, I prefer using expanded pvc foamboard over others simply because it's less work than bondo and sanding, plus I have a hard time getting a consistent straight edge when I work with bondo, or any other sculpting materials.

Sorry for my long abscence with this project, I've had several other projects soaking up my time that made working on this project very difficult. I'm wrapping up the GS-221 CARB project and I hope to be working on this by the first of June, and hopefully I'll get it done before July (But is that likely going to happen?)
Here are some progress pics of my AR 2 thus far

I intentionally left the stock out of the photo, because there is some work on it that I don't want to reveal yet (specifically on how it comes together and details on the stock)
As you can see, I have most of the lower reciever completed, and yes, checkering the grip was a huge pain in the butt. I originally was going to stick a M16 style grip on it, but I decided against it and wen't with the alien reinterpratation feel.
Also I got another project along the lines of the AR2, It's appeared only once in the HL2 series, and the barrel is about 1 and 1/8 inch thick. Yes it's a beast. I'll show pics of it in this thread, since I don't have an official name for it. I don't have the peices ready to show yet, but theres something for you guy's to look forward to.
But yeah, once again, expect to see this thread moving again here shortly. Thanks for all of your interest, and as usual, questions, comments and critiques are welcomed.

 

[Tactonyx]

I bet everyone thought this project was dead? It's not.

Here's most of the major componenets. I got a few more peices made since I took this pic, but this should give you guy's an idea on far this has come along. I replaced my lathed peice of wood with a worked pvc pipe for the barrel shroud, and I have a smaller pvc pipe substituting the clear acrylic tube that I ordered and had not yet recieved. I plan on "frosting" the clear tube and sticking red and orange LED's to make the magazine "plug" and barrel glow.

Here's the AR2 without the horizontal components

I bet most of you guy's didn't even know that this was part of the AR2

Here's the power core. I still need to carve out the details on the back.

I don't know why, but this is my favorite part of the gun. The striker, or hammer, whatever you want to call it, has very minute writing at the base. Very difficult to do, and very hard to see, but it's there and it looks awesome. Too bad my camera couldn't pick it up, I guess that's what happens when you use white materials.
Thanks for looking at my pulse rifle guy's, and feel free to leave any comments.

 

[Jokerjack350]

looks amazing cant wait to see it finished

 

[TMBountyHunter]

This is looking very lovely

In some of my other threads and on other sites I've mentioned that it was one of my earlier projects, but I had to put it off until better references surfaced. Now with the discovery of excellent references, I can now proceed with construction.

Just curious what new excellent reference is this? The in-game models haven't changed since 2004 and they're definitely not the best kind of reference. The world model is very low poly and low detail, and the view model is only 30% complete with eye-tricking texture because of video game resource saving trickery. There's nothing in the Raising the Bar book either :|

The lack of proper reference is pretty much what stops me from attempting HL and HL2 props. I would have made a gravity gun years ago but there's just no detail at all in the game for what the business end looks like.

 

[Tactonyx]

Thanks guy's

@TMBountyHunter
True nothing new about the AR2 came out since 2004, But I first played HL2 in 2007 and decided to make the AR2 after Volpin revealed his first portal gun. It took me a while to dig up enough references to get started. I've managed to dig up a couple of pre E3 AR2 photoshop pics that showed an exploded view of the AR2, revealing a lot of great details. I also primarily used model viewer to study 3 models: AR2 view model, AR2 world model, and the AR2 mounted gun. I took tons of reference pics and did color adjustments on them. You'd be amazed at what details pop out when you change the contrast slightly. I know that my AR2 isn't perfect, but I'm pretty confident that I managed to get it at least 95% accurate to the one in game. I will admit, there's a couple of spots on the AR2 that I'm not quite sure on, but I'll let Valve be the judge of that.
I can safely say that this is the hardest project that i've done, mostly doing research and figuring out on how to make some of the components come together. I've considered waiting for Episode three or Half-Life 3 to come out before building the AR2, in hopes they'll release a more detailed AR2, but I loved the gun and I had to have it.

 

[TMBountyHunter]

Awww, I was hoping for some super awesome new reference. Oh well.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Tactonyx]

Wish more pics had come up, it would have made this a whole lot easier to make. Now we know why we don't see a whole lot of AR2's floating around

On a brighter note, making excellent progress on the AR2, Changed the magazine up a bit, I'll show you guy's what I did when it's done. For now, let me give you guy's a helping hand:

Who needs to manually reload a rifle, when the rifle can do it for you?

 

[dstilgar]

This is awesome. I've always wanted a prop of this gun.

 

[Tactonyx]

Heres the new and improved mag:

It'll have a little door that can open to reveal some of the details inside of the mag. Plus, I was thinking of sticking lights in this, kinda like the mags in-game.

@dstilgar
Originally, I wasn't going to mold this. I was going to paint it up all pretty and hang it on my wall. I've gotten so many requests for a copy of the AR2 that I've decided that I'm going to get it molded, though don't expect anything anytime soon. I got the AR2 completely done, now all is left is the molding part. Since I'm going to mold it, I can't fully finish the AR2 until after molding. So heres a treat for you guy's while we wait,
the exploded AR2:

Thank you for taking the time to look at this. Questions or comments are welcomed.

 

[Johnnymuffintop]

I MUST say, I am loving this.

 

[dstilgar]

You said that you found some good references. Any chances we can get a link or some files? Thanks. This is too awesome.

 

[Tactonyx]

An update on the AR2.

I did have a guy that said that he would mold it, but the deal fell through and right now the Pulse Rifle is just sitting in a box in my storage room. I would like to mold this so I can build the AR2 machine gun off of the copy, but if there isn't enough interest in the project, the I'm going to go ahead and finish painting it.
If I'm going to mold it, it's going to happen in October, but before then I would like to see if there is enough interest to get this project off the ground. If you guy's would like to get yourself a copy of the AR2 Pulse Rifle, let me know.
Here's a link to the Interest thread: http://www.therpf.com/f13/half-life-2-ar2-pulse-rifle-152525/#post2333837
If you guy's have any questions or comments, feel free to ask.

 

[NormanF]

I want to build one of these over the summer because it is such a cool weapon. This is the best I have seen.

Sent from my Apple Newton

 

[Tactonyx]

Thanks Norman

 

[JRedmond3]

Looking good