Rat King Exotic Sidearm- Destiny 2 - Prop Replica Build Thread

[Sorenzo]

Time for Handle Mold Ver 2.0 before we get into the good stuff.


First task was to slice off a wedge well below the overhang at the bottom of the handle that was causing the resistance during de-molding.
I then reinserted the master and clayed up to bottom edge of the over hang, replace the mold box and poured more silicone.
(I missed a picture or 2 here, but hopefully you can follow what I did?)





I then set about removing the main body of the mold, piece by piece, cutting it away carefully with a scalpel. I made sure to re-insert the disc to the trigger so as not to lock the mold in place.



I sealed the whole thing up again and then poured in some Mold Max 30 this time, to give me a bit more flexibility when de-molding. You can see it came out perfect, to demold I'd start with the top lid, breaking way the pour spouts, then I'd remove the bottom cap, break the vacuum around the handle by pulling the silicone away and then the casting would slide right out.

 

[Sorenzo]

Next up was paint.

There was almost no sanding required on the castings, the magazine section was the only part with a seam line.

Everything was coated with Mipa 2K 4+1 Acyrfill Primer to start.

I decided that I wanted the barrell of this to be chrome, but I was not going through the misery and turmoil of vacuum metalising, so I started looking for paint options.
The first task was to give the part a few coats of 2K High Gloss, also from Mipa. This was tricky as I didn't want to over spray as the thickness of the paint could easily have hidden all those lovely details.



After much testing I decide to go with Quicksilver Chrome from Createx Colors.

THIS STUFF IS INCREDIBLE!

Straight from the bottle, 3-4 light coats with an airbrush and it's done! Blown away by how good this paint is!

 

[Sorenzo]

*MUST FINISH BUILD THREAD :facepalm

 

[Sorenzo]

Probably easiest if I break the painting down into sections.

The magazine.

Everything was coated with Createx AutoBorne Black as a primer.

I masked off the textured area so I could give it a coat of chrome. (a couple of pictures missing here, but I'm sure you get the idea)



I then used liquid mask to mask off the textured area so I could coat the whole mag in Wicked black in one easy pass. The liquid mask peels off in one go, it was a total gmae changer for this project.



Once everything was black and chrome it was on to weathering. I used multiple light washes of black, dabbing it away with a wet towel until I was happy with the result. Obviously this was done at the same time as the main body of the gun, so to achieve a similar weathering style.

 

[Sorenzo]

There was multiple levels of masking for this project and almost all of it was done with Tamiya Tape.

As before, everything was primed then coated with Wicked Black. Multiple light coats applied with a Iwata Eclipse HP-CS.

The first area masked was the trigger, so it could be coated with Quicksilver Chrome.





Before I continued with the rest of the paint job, I designed a vinyl mask to stick on top of the trigger to protect it for the rest of the process.

 

[Sorenzo]

Reference pictures and in game footage didn't really give a clear indication of how best to paint this section, so I did a bit of experimenting.

My first thoughts was that it kind of looked like a grey.black camouflage, I used the liquid mask to blank off areas then built up a few layers of different colours.




When the mask was revealed it looked HORRIBLE, but a light dusting of blank paint, softened the effect and made it much more appealing.



Further efforts saw me used different texture sponges to create a similar effect (which I ultimately preferred) I'll have some photos of this later on.

 

[Sorenzo]

The liquid mask proved it's value when it came to painting the handle.

The grip imitates a Tsukamak wrap, it makes no sense, disappearing into the body and would be impossible to recreate in the real world. I used the liquid mask to cover the gaps between the ribbon, mask the body with tape and sprayed on a nice oxide red. T

 

[Sorenzo]

In between coats drying I set about installing some rare earth magnets to the magazine, to keep it locked in place.

I experimented with different size/shape magnets, but the process was more or less the same. I glued the magnets in place on the magazine, leaving space between them, and also spaced them away from the edges. Once the were in place, I used tape to create dam and then pour some fast cast resin on top. This helped to hide the magnets into the body of the magazine.

The opposing magnets where attached to a separate resin insert piece which was then glued into the handle.




In hindsight, this should have been done before the painting process happened, but I took my time and with a little sanding and a quick coat of black the airbrush it looked perfect.

 

[Sorenzo]

The last on the painting was the weathering and the fine details. A few sections on the body require some masking, nothing too taxing, and of course the texture of the body and the handle were weathered in the same manner as the magazine.



The barrel was given a quick pass of blue to to give the impression of muzzle burn. There's not a lot of barrel exposed, so had to settle with a single colour effect, but I think it worked well.




Dry fit, looking good!

 

[Sorenzo]

I mentioned previously that I wasn't entirely happy with the camouflage effect that I painted, so this was my second attempt. I used a texture sponge to apply different shades of grey and then dusted the effect with black from the airbrush. I much preferred this look!

 

[Sorenzo]

As you probably gathered, I painted several guns at the same time, which was equally frustrating and enjoyable. It was great being able to try out different techniques, but extremely texhausting to repeat the masking 3 times over.

The last task was to clear coat everything before gluing them together. The Barrel was sealed with a High Gloss 2K Lacquer which really made the chrome paint pop!
The handle and magazine were coated in a matte 2k Laquer




2 Part Epoxy was used to join the 2, this was quite nerve wrecking, but I took my time and made sure to protect the parts with some padding while in the clamps

 

[Sorenzo]

 

[Sorenzo]

Hope you enjoyed.

 

[Bloodmike1]

HOW Much.... Take my money... I need two