Modelling the Elysium Carlyle Droid SMG

[scornflake]

I'm starting a design of the Elysium Carlyle Droid SMG, and thought I would post progress along the way. I'm going to go with a pic of the actual movie prop, as opposed to the original designs. The original design pics are better to model from, but they are quite different from the prop that was produced in the end.

Update March 2025:
Just a note that this has now been completed, and looks like THIS (it gets build, over here):

On with the story:
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Right now I've just been getting photos, and getting the initial stuff lined up.

It sure is nice when some of the pics you find have measurements, means I don't have to guess (at least on this side).

Think it all needs to sit in my head for a while...

 

[scornflake]

The rifle is about 595mm long. Anyone wanna take a stab at it's width? I'm estimating about 45mm?

 

[Tuckanator]

I have a chemrail that was cast of a screen used rifle. They share the same sight/scope so I can take some measurements of it tomorrow if you like. Might help to then proportion the main body width off that

 

[Tuckanator]

Some rough dimensions here also.

https://usm.propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/287/lot/73061

Dimensions: 24" x 10" x 3" (61 cm x 25.5 cm x 7.75 cm)

 

[scornflake]

Awesome. Thanks - some of those shots are from angles I didn't have. Something from the top would be nice. I hadn't even seen there's a little switch at the back, under the stock!

 

[Jediguy]

I have a chemrail that was cast of a screen used rifle. They share the same sight/scope so I can take some measurements of it tomorrow if you like. Might help to then proportion the main body width off that

I love the design of the chemrail. It's a shame weta never release the prop replica.

 

[scornflake]

I love the design of the chemrail. It's a shame weta never release the prop replica.

Yeh, I had in mind to model that one a couple of years back, and never got around to it.

 

[scornflake]

Urg. Well, Hmm. Crap. You know how you learn when you fail? I've learnt LOTS today!

About five variatons on this absolute nightmare, as I try to get my head around properly modelling an asymetric organic surface in onshape.
It's NOT easy. Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing (highly likely). It's ... painful. Hoping that in three days time I'll be singing a differnet tune and wondering what all the fuss was!

I even tried a couple of 'turn pics into 3d', in an effort to get a reference 3d model I could grab important points from. That failed .... quite spectacularly. I tried shoving the images I've got into it, cropping to 512 (the training size of the AI), cropping and removing background. Hmpf.

Off to play some games for a while. 10hrs trying to work out surface modelling in onshape has my head turned to peas.

<I whine; but really it's all good, cos surely I'm learning stuff... right? er. right?>

 

[Fett_Ish]

3D Is hard despite what people say. Keep it up and eventually it will be less hard! Can’t wait to see the progress.

 

[Tuckanator]

Awesome. Thanks - some of those shots are from angles I didn't have. Something from the top would be nice. I hadn't even seen there's a little switch at the back, under the stock!

I think that switch may be just because that particular prop was an FX firing version.

 

[Tuckanator]

I love the design of the chemrail. It's a shame weta never release the prop replica.

Yeah its my fav movie weapon (just ahead of the D9 weapons). I signed up for the preorder Weta did over 10yrs ago, I was shocked when they canned it for not having enough interest. Very gratefull I was able to get a direct cast some yrs ago.

 

[scornflake]

Hmm. Better, but there are creases around the thumb/hand joint area. Time to ask a Q in the onshape forum:

 

[scornflake]

I think that switch may be just because that particular prop was an FX firing version.

I reckon I'm going to put that in there, as an option.

 

[scornflake]

OK. So I'm struggling with onshape for the grip. Going to try something else. Here's various shots of various failures, for various reasons:

1. Using a small number of 3D control point curves, to see if I can get a front face. While it works, I still see creases and I dunno how I would follow it with a variable fillet to smooth the edges, nor join those edges nicely to the other faces:

2. Splitting a solid extrude up into pieces, in the hope that I can apply variable fillet to the edges. Didn't work because the fillets are limited in size and fail past about 3mm (for reasons unknown to me).

3. Considering/trying out a loft for the edge -> handle face. That's the bit, closest to us in the pic below. This might work, but I would need to create dozens of profiles to get the right radius around different points of the handle... Very painful to setup as each profile needs it's own sketch, on it's own plane, setup in 3d space. The below required 3 profiles.

4. Trying surface modelling, splitting the part into various faces, and then trying blends between them

Doesn't work because while I might (that's a big might too) be able to do something like you see here, it leaves the rest of the surface mostly flat. While I can model the "hand" surface (the surface of the grip that is facing us, in the pic above) using various planes and points at various depths, it's also quite painful and slow to do.


I've tried a number of different versions of the above.
All this leads me to think I'm using the wrong tool for the job, or I just don't know onshape well enough.

Don't get me wrong re onshape: it's amazing. Just for this, it seems way too hard.

Next step: try doing this part in blender using sculpting.
I'm then going to have to make sure to be able to finish the part properly in blender as well (pinholes for steel inserts, cuts, whatever else), because when I get it back into onshape it's unlikely I'll be able to perform boolean operations against the resulting mesh.

I'll definitely be modelling the rest of the gun in onshape. For most of the work, it's a great tool to use.

 

[scornflake]

After a few hours, I've managed to do this, in blender. I exported some 'basic' objects from onshape, so that I could correctly place the resulting blender mesh back into onshape:

It's shiny so that I can more easily see the contours as I sculpt it. And here is the current result, in onshape:

It' skinda hard to see, but it's in there, correctly placed.

Also, I'm moving forward with modelling some other parts now that I have the sculpting workflow more or less sorted out.

 

[scornflake]

btw: if anyone has picturs of around the bottom of that rear grip/handle, that'd be good. I'm specifically looking for the mating between the handle and the "yellow/gold" stock (the bit with 5amp ignition written on it).

I have this one, which is useful, but more angles, and closer in, would be nice. So I can see how the grip/back parts mate.

 

[scornflake]

I have a chemrail that was cast of a screen used rifle. They share the same sight/scope so I can take some measurements of it tomorrow if you like. Might help to then proportion the main body width off that

If you have confirmations on the width, that would be great. It would help me get rid of some uncertaincy. Main width is the distance between this orange dot, and its opposite. i.e: the width of the barrel at the front.

This pic is just HALF the rifle. So if you could measure across that point, to it's natural opposite, that would be very useful! ta!

 

[scornflake]

Currently working on the bottom handle interface. For want of some better phrase. This part:

You'll see i've a pretty good detail cut going on.
Now to join the handle to the "golden other thing that's behind it" piece

Gonna try to come up with some 'connectivity' here. So that when I print the model, I can piece these bits together...

 

[Tuckanator]

Sorry for the delay. Had to get it out of storage. Sending some pics and measurements of the scope via Dm.

 

[Tuckanator]

Elysium Cousar Crowe Rifle original movie prop

Armadyne security droids employed by Elysium carry this bullpup-style anti-materiel rifle by GKR, which rapid-fires 5.25x25 ballistic projectiles, as their standard weapon. Also used by Kruger's ...

www.yourprops.com

Elysium Custom Cousar Crowe Rifle original movie prop

Automatic weapon carried by Armadyne CEO John Carlyle's personal bodyguard. Aside from the ostentatious gold detailing, otherwise superficially identical to the standard Armadyne security droid GKR b ...

www.yourprops.com

ELYSIUM (2013) - Carlyle Droid Stunt Rifle

A stunt rifle from Neill Blomkamps sci-fi adventure Elysium. The Cousar Crowe rifle was the standard weapon of Elysiums Defence Force, with gold versions used by close-protection droids belonging to John Carlyle (William Fichtner), head of weapons manufacturer Armadyne. br br Made by Weta...

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