Namek Dragon Balls

Nerd Corner

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Hey Guys!

I have scoured the internet in search of a replica of a set of Dragon Balls (the big ones from Namek), and haven't found one, or even a single ball!

Which leads me to the conclusion that I ought to make some.

I am pretty new to prop replication so I thought I'd ask the community.

What do you think would be the best way to replicate the Namek Dragon Balls?
They're about the size of a basketball.
I'm thinking either solid acrylic or hollow metal would be the best options to keep them from feeling/looking cheap.
Painting the stars on should be no problem at all in either case.

What do you guys think?
 
They're going to take up a hell of a lot of space. I bought a set of the Earth sized ones and they look fantastic. They basically did two hemispheres of amber acrylic with red painted stars sandwiched in the middle. I don't know how they fused them, but there's almost no seam. Maybe if you can look into buying a bulk supply of 8-10" amber acrylic hemispheres, the liquid version of acrylic cement might fuse the halves well enough that the seam isn't very visible. Probably very expensive, though.
 
Strangely enough, some recent threads have raised the issue of how to cast spheres. Some of those threads might be of some help. I would also check out Lightz post on his starcraft rifle, as he was able to get a seemless (mostly) pull from his mold by slush casting in his molds after sealing them. Indeed, this might be the best way to appraoch what you want to do. Find or make a sphere of the correct size (acrylic sphere can be found online, or you can find a large foam sphere and bondo or seal it). After this, make a two part mold and slush cast a sphere. You could cast it as an amber, mostly hollow to save on resin, sphere and then place the image on the outside (paint or decal) and then seal it with a coat of clear resin or very thick clear coat (that pourable clear coat might work as well). This size of the ball would probably require a brush on mold.

If you are looking for something a bit more simple, find a sphere of the correct size (search for acrylic spheres or check out http://www.plastruct.com/). Instead of casting it, you will simply paint it with several coats of the amber color, add in the stars as a decal, then add a thick clear coat in the same manner stated above.

Not sure if any of this is helpful, but maybe it can get you looking in a good direction.
 
I also have a set of earth balls, and I agree virtually seamless and fantastic. Yeah, the set would be enormous. I think I'll just do one, especially given that I'll have to make it. I think I may pick up something like this

http://echovalley.com/gazing-globes...es/copper-stainless-steel-gazing-globe10.html

As the base and go from there. I guess I didn't think to check because my earth set is transparent, but as you look at the show, the balls are opaque.
 
I'm thinking of making a set one day by melting down some orange pony beads like you get from the craft store. That is actually a trick used to make fake ice cubes, so I'm going to experiment and take a shot at making some chrystal items. As far as the size of the mold, I think they are a little bigger than basketballs. Off the top of my head, an acrylic light globe is one thing that may work.
 
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I'm a big fan of the stars floating in the center, hence why they're visible from all angles. For that it would have to be transparent. If you look at the earth balls though, they obscure things well enough that if you were to have a 10" diameter ball, you wouldn't really be able to make anything out on the other side.
 
True visible from any angle would be good like in the show, but you have to pick 1 or the other. Either opaque like the show or visible from any angle on the show.

Also, there's no way to make it look good from all angles. Even if they were placed in the center of a transparent ball, they would still only look correct from a couple angles.
 
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