TKSteve
Well-Known Member
I completed this prop a couple of years ago now, but seeing as I'm a relatively new member on this board, I figured I'd share.
I'm a big fan of "found" item builds, and one of the reasons I loved the proton packs from Ghostbusters was they were just that. When my little one wanted to dress up like a Ghostbuster, I couldn't just have him lugging the off-the-shelf costume gear (an inflatable pack? Please :facepalm). So I set about replicating -- in his scale -- most of the items as seen on the thrower and the pack.
I don't have a step-by-step, because this was awhile ago, but I can tell you the pack used a lot of dollar store stuff. (A dish made the circular bottom, with holes cut out for the lights, which were ringed with pill bottle tops and I used some red plastic sheeting to diffuse the lights.) A garrison-mate wired my LEDs, including an H-O train type alternate blinking on the back's four lights to simulate the movie's "chasing" pattern. (Can't really tell by those shots, but the lights alternated.)
An LED light stick (off the shelf) and set to "chase" mode made for the blue chasing light upper left on the pack, and various bits and bobs made up the rest, including a 5 hour energy bottle, mini M&M bottles, and car-cup ash tray for the bottom right dealy on the pack.
The thrower had a bunch of blinking LEDS and was basically a scratch build using styrofoam and scrap "exit sign" plastic, with a bike handgrips and other assorted accessories on there to mimic what the real prop had (I used the bottle my dremel discs came in for one part). I sprayed everything then used copied versions of the real warning labels from the real props on the backpack items.
The trap was great: again, his scale, but made from the box of my iPhone Jawbone headset, scrap ABS, and some glue-sticks. I also counter-sank a matchbox car at the bottom, so the trap rolled like the real thing.
He reprised the "role" for New York Comic Con that year, and the people flipped:
I'm a big fan of "found" item builds, and one of the reasons I loved the proton packs from Ghostbusters was they were just that. When my little one wanted to dress up like a Ghostbuster, I couldn't just have him lugging the off-the-shelf costume gear (an inflatable pack? Please :facepalm). So I set about replicating -- in his scale -- most of the items as seen on the thrower and the pack.
I don't have a step-by-step, because this was awhile ago, but I can tell you the pack used a lot of dollar store stuff. (A dish made the circular bottom, with holes cut out for the lights, which were ringed with pill bottle tops and I used some red plastic sheeting to diffuse the lights.) A garrison-mate wired my LEDs, including an H-O train type alternate blinking on the back's four lights to simulate the movie's "chasing" pattern. (Can't really tell by those shots, but the lights alternated.)
An LED light stick (off the shelf) and set to "chase" mode made for the blue chasing light upper left on the pack, and various bits and bobs made up the rest, including a 5 hour energy bottle, mini M&M bottles, and car-cup ash tray for the bottom right dealy on the pack.
The thrower had a bunch of blinking LEDS and was basically a scratch build using styrofoam and scrap "exit sign" plastic, with a bike handgrips and other assorted accessories on there to mimic what the real prop had (I used the bottle my dremel discs came in for one part). I sprayed everything then used copied versions of the real warning labels from the real props on the backpack items.
The trap was great: again, his scale, but made from the box of my iPhone Jawbone headset, scrap ABS, and some glue-sticks. I also counter-sank a matchbox car at the bottom, so the trap rolled like the real thing.
He reprised the "role" for New York Comic Con that year, and the people flipped:
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