What was your first homemade prop?

S

skinny

New Member
After spending the last few days looking through the prop forum, i'm amazed at the talent of you guys and girls. Obviously you have improved your skills through years of practice. I'm curious to see your very first homemade prop....if it still exists.

Here's mine. It's the mind control device from Star Trek TOS :Spock's Brain". I made it in 1995 when i was thirteen, and thanks to a proud mother it still exists. It's made of computer keys, some broken circuit board, cardboard and scotch tape. It's twice as big as it should be, and no where near accurate. Pretty much as amateur as you can get, but it's still my favourite one.

View attachment 41578
 
When I was 8 or so, my younger brother and I played Ghostbusters and tried to make our own costumes. They consisted of our dad's old work shirts, and my brother wore a hat with what I think was a PacMan ghost. Our first props would have to be the proton packs we made from backpacks, some yarn, and empty paper towel rolls. There are pictures of that somewhere, but I have no idea where.
 
I would have been around 6 or 7 - Original Star Trek was airing - I did a communicator out of a plastic, rectangular shaped pencil sharpener - took the slide lid off (for emptying out the pencil shavings) and proceeded to tape the top edge of the lid to the body of the sharpener, thus allowing it to 'flip open'. It was red & frosted white, but I did not care, my imagination combined with something that flipped open was a blast at the time! Funny that the original prop turned out to be made from a pencil carrier - I was close and obviously destined to be into props...
Beam me up Scotty!!
 
I built a full scale cardboard Apollo capsule and flew each of the missions live on the radio as they happened. I even slept in the capsule in my backyard. And I turned off the power during the Apollo 13 mission.
 
Han solo blaster made from a black plastic mauser. Cut the bottom of the "clicker noise" magazine off and glued a piece of flat plastic on the bottom. Then glued a scope from a plastic toy rifle to the side.

Even made a super accurate holster... out of cardboard and duct tape. :D

I still have the mauser sans scope in the garage.
 
Luke ESB saber from a sink tube, some sheet aluminum, and odd bits of Blast-Tech kits. Does that count?
 
Does a Lego Halo 2 Pistol count?

As in I dumped out the old tub of lego's when Halo 2 came out and built a to scale lego replica of it.
 
I was 12 an made a Rocketeer jet pack out of the round quaker oats containers, an air jordan shoebox, and a lot of aluminum foil.
 
Mine was when Empire Strikes back came out with the At-At toy. I got one for Christmas that year and then created 4 others out of cardboard to recreate the siege scene .
 
My grandfather had the ultimate workshop. I used to have him help me or let me make things all the time. I think my first was a Landspeeder. I made a solo-ish blaster. A saber hilt and a Dark Crystal shard that I painted white and silver. It was horrible but I loved it. I also made a Jen flute out of a Y shaped stick I found. It looked like it would play and had all the finger holes and mouthpiece holes. I also made a few lightcycles.

They were all made from square planks of wood. But I would sand or paint etc. the whole time I would be at my grandparents They weren't very good, or even "replica props" at all. But it sure was fun! :)
 
It was a lightsaber made out of a toilet paper cardboard roll and a paper towel roll.

Back when I was a kid the toilet paper roll was a larger diameter so it worked out great.

I used a LEGO as an activation switch but had no clue about the rest of the design.

FB
 
Probably this:


Firstsaber002.jpg



And I "think" it was when I was thirteen too, back in 1983. :lol


A year later I also made a Proton Pack out of a black cardboard box with a backpack inside it to act as a harness, and a garden hose and wooden stick for the thrower. It had homemade "instruction" stickers glued all over it, including a giant mushroom cloud warning sticker. Unfortunately I don't have it anymore (or have pictures). REALLY wish I still had it. :(


Kevin
 
The first prop I ever STARTED was a Proton Pack. It was made from tupperware and a large amount of glue. It's been about... oh... 6 years, maybe and I still haven't finished it. I got it out about a week ago and have done some extra work on it in anticipation for the new PKE prop from Mattel.
The first prop I ever finished would have to be a to-scale replica of Mr. Mind from the Shazam comics. He's based loosely on his appearance from the comic series "52" and is made of sculpey. In the comics, his size fluctuates from that of a maggot (Kingdom Come) to about the size of hamster. I think I chose a pretty decent middle ground of about 3 inches or so.
He kind of counts as a prop. if he doesn't count, then it would be a "BIZARRO #1" medallion I made out of sculpey. It's pretty big and painted to look like a hunk of concrete, and the necklace is an old rope. Bizarro Superman wears it from time to time and I haven't seen too many replicas of it anywhere.
 
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I had a ton of legos and constructs (not how they're spelled) and i was always trying to build a ghost trap or a terminator endo arm out of them but it never quite worked as the parts just wouldn't go into the shapes i needed.
 
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