My Steampunked NERF guns (with pictures)

TohruRokuno

New Member
As a hobby, I steampunk NERF guns. The ideal plan would be to one day sell them at conventions or online, but for now they're still "works in progress" until I'm satisfied enough to part with them.

The first one up is the Nerf Titan AS-V.1, which fires an 11-inch missile designed for only this gun, and is the largest NERF projectile on the market.
It was marketed as a stand-alone (Big Bad Titan, in red and blue), combo'd with the Hornet AS-6 (Hulk Abomination Blaster, in green), or with the Hornet AS-6 and the Scout IX-1 (N-Strike Unity Power System, again in red). Since it was designed to link to multiple blasters, it has a lot of unattractive attachment points and such, along with an extra trigger to allow firing of all linked blasters at the same time (the "Unity Power System"), and limiters in the triggers to prevent firing over a 45 degree angle.

For my mod on this one, I went with a minimization theme, removing all the elements of the Unity Power System as well as the trigger limiter. To fill the holes, I covered the outside of the opening with painter's tape and filled it with hot glue from the back. Simple, but fairly effective. The main color of it isn't a traditional steampunk color, instead it's Duplicolor T282 Deep Jewel Green I had left over from an aborted Nintendo DS repaint. Comparison shots are to an unmodified Titan launcher. The paint's far from perfect, but it's fun to mess around with for now.

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This picture is a size comparison to a NERF Maverick REV-6, just to get a scale of the Titan. It's meant to be rested on the shoulder and fired.

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The next blaster is close to finished. It's based on an old-production Buzz Bee Tek 10 (mine has a copyright of 2003, and is dramatically different than the newer model). This one has some weathering and battle damage, but still needs dry brushing. The marble-esque treatment on the top slide is done with Krylon Fusion Nickel Shimmer, dusted with Krylon Fusion Hammered Finish Copper, topped with Krylon Paper Finishes Webbing Spray before clearcoating. The handle is wrapped with Sears Country Living Holiday Ribbon I got on clearance last year, folded in half and with the wire reinforcement removed. The handle wrapping is for aesthetics, along with cushioning, as the stock handgrip is very uncomfortable. The center detail in the barrel assembly is a button from Jo-Anne Fabrics.

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This next model is the Buzz Bee Double Shot, a break open double-barrel blaster. It has a good cool-factor because the darts are loaded in shells, which are loaded into the barrels. When it's fired, the darts fly out and leave the shells. When you break it open (to reload and reprime the mechanism), springs eject the spent shells. This one's a fairly basic paint, and still needs a lot of work to be complete.

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This pair are Nerf Reflex IX-1, done as a steampunk "Ebony and Ivory" pair. The silver discs on the back are buttons with a stylized crest on them, and a banner underneath saying "Salzberg". The black handgrip was done with Krylon Fusion Textured Finish Black Metallis, while the white handgrip was done with Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Gloss Ivory, which was very frustrating to work with.

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This pair are not my paint work, they were done by my best friend. These he feels are finished. They have a LOT of drybrushing work on them, which he keeps promising he'll teach me how to do. The longer model is another Buzz Bee Double Shot, while the shorter one is a Nerf Maverick REV-6.

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The last two are upcoming projects. The yellow one is a cut-down and internally-modified Buzz Bee Mech Tommy 20 and the green one is a lightly-modified Buzz Bee Ultimate Rapid Blast. Both of these are known as "flywheel guns" as they fire by pushing the dart between two wheels spinning in opposite directions, similar to a pitching machine. These models were both designed to run on 4.5 volts (3x "AA"). The yellow one is running on a 9V and the green one (due to a different design) has 1 AA and a 9V, for a total of 11.5 volts. They're waiting for paint inspiration, and the green one will be made 3-4 inches shorter in length.

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I have a few more in the works as well. A couple Nerf Firefly REV-8's, a rare Nerf Gyrostrike (sadly with only 2 mega darts and without the ammo loading system), a Larami Rapid Fire 20 being converted to CO2, and a Nerf Stampede ECS (which runs on 6 D-cells stock, and is pictured with the 35-shot drum magazine from the Nerf Raider CS-35) are the highlights of the "To-Do" list. I get less incentive to take stuff outside and paint it in this Wisconsin fall/winter weather :( One Firefly is half-painted, I'm waiting on parts for the Rapid Fire 20, and the Stampede is in black primer right now.

As I get more parts (brass bits and pieces, gears, etc) and start practicing on my dry-brushing, these'll start looking better and better. I'll post updated pics when I have new stuff to show.
 
A good beginning on the paint, but you won't need your friend to teach you how to drybrush, just experiment on a piece you can easily discard later like a toy from the dollar store for example. Just take your paint, apply some to the end of the brush then grab a piece of non laminated corrugated cardboard or boxboard and begin sweeping the brish back and forth across the board in even strokes until the paint becomes tacky like drying glue, once you've got it there, brush some onto your model making sure you go Perpendicular to the travel of your detail. Once you have your first coat down, add a touch of white, silver, gold, etc to your paint to lighten it one to 2 shades then rinse and repeat your brushing it over the board then onto the model. With every lighter shade, brush less onto the model which will build up your detail layers so by the time you get to your lightest shade (which is normally just pure gold, silver, etc.) you're only taking one or two strokes across the model, mainly on barrel ends, sharp corners, or any other surface that would realistically have a lot of wear next to it.

Once you've got drybrushing down, take a dremel and gouge a few scratches and nicks into the barrel ends, hammer top, etc and mimic your drybrushing on a smaller scale to really give your stuff a gritty, used feel. Hope this helped a bit. Keep working at it! No one knows everything when they first start!
 
I'll have to get some brushes and try that. The Tek 10 that I did (the one with the wrapped handle) does have Dremel gouges and scratches in it, they just blend in too well with the nice paint.

I got bored earlier today and started working on the Ultimate Rapid Blast. The internals weren't very friendly for a minimization, so I decided to make it more ergonomic by putting the internals into a Nerf Alpha Trooper CS-18. The Alpha Trooper comes with an 18-shot "Clip System" drum, which is the only reason to buy it. The gun itself sucks. Mine, in stock form, jammed solid repeatedly due to poorly-designed internals. So, Dremel time to make one bulky flywheel gun fit inside a sleeker Clip System gun. This should be interesting.

The Alpha Trooper: http://nerfgunreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Nerf-N-Strike-Alpha-Trooper-CS-181.jpg

(for some reason it won't let me hyperlink or attach images or anything.)
 
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