Justice League - Trailer Batarang Build

[hydromatic93]

So I felt like trying my hand at making the batarang from the trailer, and as I don't have a 3D printer or laser cutter I made a stencil from a trailer frame and made it from plywood.

I took this screenshot, but the batarang in half to mirror it and made a somewhat 'passable' outline in photoshop.


I took some scrap plywood (about 5mm thick) lying in the shed, traced the shape onto it with sharpie and used my dremel and hacksaw to cut it out just outside the lines. Used the sanding drum bit to clean up the edges, and started to sand down a sharper edge to be the 'blade' part of it. I was only doing 1 face of the batarang so I basically sanded 50/60 degrees along the edges. Sanded the entire thing to 240 grit sandpaper and made a mold.




Used Pinkysil silicone for the mold and EasyCast Resin to cast a prototype cast, don't have easy access to Smooth On products so these are essentially their Australian equivalents. I cast 1 version of it, traced on the groove and carved it out with some sculpting tools I had, molded another one and cast 2 semi-identical halves out of it. These were super glued together and the edges were sanded down to fix up any imperfections.






Getting ready to make a proper 2 part master mold, just doing some wet sanding first.

 

[Sundowner]

That's great! After I saw the trailer I started looking to get one of these too!

 

[teragon]

I believe they're the same as the ones seen in Batman V Superman, so you can use references from that film too if that helps ! But nice work so far !

 

[hydromatic93]

Thanks. the only bad thing I can really notice about it is that it is a bit thick at around 9mm. The length from tip to tip is 19cm and the height is 7.5cm, which I believe are the LxW other builders are using. All ready to mold now, wetsanded to 1600.

 

[hydromatic93]

So I finished the master mold, but goofed up a little bit :unsure. As you can see, I actually forgot to put in a pour in funnel and 'vents' for the tips of the batarang. I realised basically just after the 1st half cured that I left them out. I was able to roll up some clay and thankfully it worked fairly well. I had to cut in the vents/channels though at the tips with an exacto and wasted a cast due to some bad bubbling at tips (was missing the bat ears and a wing tip).



The next 3 actually came out pretty decent, minor bubbles and some cleaning on the edges. I used some black resin tint as a test to see how it looked, actually kind of like it.



Next update should have them painted, probably 1 will have metallic blades and black body and another will be shiny metal blades with 'dirty' metal body. Should be ready to sell soonish

 

[hydromatic93]

So some things have changed, decided that the actual batarang was too thick and that the seam lines on the top (at the ears and 'shoulders' i guess) were coming out badly and sanding them down cut into the face groove. Decided to take one of them, sand it down a bunch so it was about 5-6mm thick instead of 1cm, added in some new groove lines further down and made the blade edge a bit longer. It's not going to be screen accurate as the edge is not completely curved and is missing some sharper lines,but should look great on costumes and such.
Redoing the mold with more vents and a better box shape.

 

[hydromatic93]

Just did a first cast for the thinner model, the mold is a lot easier to use (vents working well and easier to clamp shut) and requires only a little resin (about 50ml). Came out very smooth and had very little cleaning up in regards to seam lines and excess plastic, should be ready to paint soon.

 

[FastballSpecial]

Very cool! QMX is supposed to be making one but no clue when it will come out.

 

[hydromatic93]

Thanks, it sucks I wasn't able to make the initial design more accurate but they should work fine for costumes/some displays. Just had a look at QMx's and it looks so shiny (blade edges are chrome).

 

[hydromatic93]

Finally finished this version of the batarang, tried 2 different paint jobs and I prefer the hand painted one (prob because the spray paint was fiddley to work with). I lightly brushed the whole thing in black and dry brushed along the edges to make the blade parts, and added some weathering.



I might make another more accurate version one day using QMx's one as reference, the actual blade part looks like it is seperate (ie sandwiched between 2 'metal' bats, rather than 1 piece of metal sharpened).

 

[BROTHERFOSTER]

Very nice!