HALF-LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun - Realistic Replica - 18.12. - VALVE HIT ME UP!

Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 06.07. - PAINTJOB! need criticism!

Oh no, I 100% agree that the yellow in the front is a bit too much. If you look closely, you can see I went over it the rust in the back with the purple and black again to tone down the colors. I never wound up doing this for the front (and went too heavy with the yellow in the first place). The Gravity Gun was the first prop I built after not having built anything for a few years, so I was still getting back in the swing of things and by the time I got to the stage it's in now, I didn't have time to go back and fix things. One of these days I will go back and do some repairs and rebuilds for her!

One thing I did notice while taking the photos - If you take a look at the top of the main body in the 4th photo, you can see the paint has worn away and you can see the bare grey resin along the top. I bring my Gravity Gun to events like Maker Faire and let pretty much anyone play with it, so after 2+ years of a few hundred people holding it and taking photos and generally not being gentle, it's gotten some "realistic" weathering. (That's also why it's currently missing the front arms, they keep breaking on me!) I would add rust on those 2 edges since they're clearly getting worn down a lot.

I'm glad you like the use of the wing nuts, I hadn't seen anyone else use those before! =) With the exception of some hot glue on the crystals, everything is bolted together and can be completely stripped down. In order to access the batteries, you have to pull the entire barrel section away. If you notice, one of the wing nuts is missing. It slipped out of my hand and fell into the barrel and the rat's nest of wires, and I haven't felt like taking the whole thing apart to find it!

In my opinion building your own replica should also contain parts of your own creativity and imagination so i.e. the rust in your case isn't too yellow... it's perfectly fine! :)
Who's gonna tell you what may has happened to your particular gun back in the days which may caused this type of rust. I for myself am thinking if I should go one step further and add some greenish tones aswell representing algae and stuff like that. Just a few details here and there, but I will wait until the end!

The natural weathering is quite awesome although I think I won't take mine anywhere unless a photo session tbh.
Here in Austria it's quite frustrating going on bigger conventions since there are simply none. And taking this gun for a longer trip via plane, car, etc. will definitely harm it's details (like you already mentioned). It would be a pain to repair it all the time since most of the parts are made from 2 or 3mm acrylics and quite fragile...

@supermaRiio If it helps, I pulled out the paints I used for my rust.

View attachment 499082

EDIT: I don't think the brand matters, I just tried to get the color name.

Thank you so much for helping me out on this one msleeper! :) I really do appreciate it!
I now bought some similiar colors to yours and can't wait to try them out today. Hopefully I'll get some decent results to show here.

The texture! And the rust! It's soo beautiful!

Thanks man! :)
 
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Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 06.07. - PAINTJOB! need criticism!

Glad I could help!

One of these days I am going to rebuild mine (or make a second one) and it's going to sit on the shelf. But people like playing with video game guns and it's no fun if you have a booth at Maker Faire and *don't* let people touch things!
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 06.07. - PAINTJOB! need criticism!

Glad I could help!

One of these days I am going to rebuild mine (or make a second one) and it's going to sit on the shelf. But people like playing with video game guns and it's no fun if you have a booth at Maker Faire and *don't* let people touch things!

You really did!!!

Yeah it's tempting to have a play-around-replica but to be honest somehow I find things sitting there just for displaying purposes so much more appealing than maybe some added, crappy sound effects. Dunno why, that's just me.
Can't wait to see an update from you! :)


To all of you - thanks so much again for your advice to make look rust even better. I (at least I think so) did improve it a lot but somehow my Lightroom license mocks around and so I'm not able to work with my RAW-files from the camera. Will try to sort that out and update new pictures as soon as possible. D*mn you Adobe Creative Cloud :X

In the meantime though I managed to create a short video to show you guys the lighting effect on the top vent.
The pulsing effect needs some finetuning and then it's ready to go! :) Unfortunately I put too less paint on some areas of the vent so the bright light shines trough there haha. Will be fixed! ;)
I added some silver mirror foil to the inside of the vent to get the light spreaded a bit more which helps a lot. I just need to redo this since it does look kinda crappy haha. The vent is held in place via two round 3mm rare earth magnets. Simple, but effective.

Let me know what you think!

 
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Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 11.07. - Illumination & video!

The pulsing looks cool, but it doesn't really do that in the game. If anything I would have the fade be super subtle and probably half that speed.
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 11.07. - Illumination & video!

It looks great man. That's all arduino based? I'm working on the similar effect and I keep hitting snags. It's all analog so that's a good part of it. I'm getting very close though.
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 11.07. - Illumination & video!

The pulsing looks cool, but it doesn't really do that in the game. If anything I would have the fade be super subtle and probably half that speed.

I thought the pulsing would add a neat little effect to that vent thingy, dunno if I keep it though.
Problem with fading WS2811/12B leds like they are used in the NeoPixel strips is that they only have an 8-bit PWM precision. That means they only have 8 "states" when fading down making the leds flicker if slow fading is performed. At this speed I programmed here in the video a normal fade out wouldn't work because of that so I had to create some fading-effect based on sines rather than having it linear to have a workaround for this problem.
I'd have to take a look at it to make it even slower in fade but maybe I can come up with a solution which works.

It looks great man. That's all arduino based? I'm working on the similar effect and I keep hitting snags. It's all analog so that's a good part of it. I'm getting very close though.
Yeah, it is! :) Thanks!
If you need any help, drop me a PM, I'm sure we can work that out. You use those WS28xx leds too right? If so, I could send you the code I used for this effect here.
I did include a bunch of other libraries like FastLed which makes programming fading effects like this quite simple.
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 11.07. - Illumination & video!

I thought the pulsing would add a neat little effect to that vent thingy, dunno if I keep it though.
Problem with fading WS2811/12B leds like they are used in the NeoPixel strips is that they only have an 8-bit PWM precision. That means they only have 8 "states" when fading down making the leds flicker if slow fading is performed. At this speed I programmed here in the video a normal fade out wouldn't work because of that so I had to create some fading-effect based on sines rather than having it linear to have a workaround for this problem.
I'd have to take a look at it to make it even slower in fade but maybe I can come up with a solution which works.


Yeah, it is! :) Thanks!
If you need any help, drop me a PM, I'm sure we can work that out. You use those WS28xx leds too right? If so, I could send you the code I used for this effect here.
I did include a bunch of other libraries like FastLed which makes programming fading effects like this quite simple.


I used 3mm LEDs and PLCC-2 as well. Since I'm so far into the electronics at point I'm going to power through and make it work. I will keep that in mind for future reference though. Thanks!
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 11.07. - Illumination & video!

Huuuuge update guys! :)

Hope you're all doing great and enjoying your holidays during the summer time.
Gonna show something to you... I couldn't resist and started painting the backside including all of the machined parts. I tried my best to get a nice looking weathered effect on them.
There are a few bits and bobs here and there which need some further treatment but that's a thing I'll keep until the end.

First of all I tried to improve my rusting skills and used all of your tips and hints how to get the rust look even better. And I want to thank you again!
It really came out A LOT better than it was before.

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Then I added a little switch...

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...and started priming and painting the machined parts :)

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Got no pictured while weathering so those finished looks will have to do it.
Not sure if I overdid it with the rust on the outer barrels but take a look for yourself and let me know what your suggestions and opinions about that are :) Would be more than happy to hear them!

_MG_5067.jpg


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There's definitely too much of yellow going on here on the barrel...

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Underside isn't finished yet... :)

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Aaaaaand here we go! :)
There are a lot of detailed shots but no overall one's. I will make them when the handle is ready2go ;)
I'm heading to the workshop and start working on it.

Cheeers and thanks for your time passing by!
Mario
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Looking great. Looks like it's actually sat in a puddle.
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Dude that's actually incredible! It looks like you've pulled the parts out of an old engine that's been sat rusting for 30 years!

That's some serious talent you have right there.
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Ditto new weathering is super rad!
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Looking great. Looks like it's actually sat in a puddle.

Dude that's actually incredible! It looks like you've pulled the parts out of an old engine that's been sat rusting for 30 years!

That's some serious talent you have right there.

Ditto new weathering is super rad!

Thanks to all of you guys, I really appreciate your feedback! Great you like is as much as I do.
I did watch quite a few workshops and videos on youtube and it feels it really paid off. I'm the type of guy who never watched any other people creating props to see their style of weathering since I always thought I can come up with techniques by myself. But during the last year(s) it kinda felt I'm not really getting better in any way - kinda frustrating.

But now, for the first time I really feel I'm improving quite a bit when it comes to weathering and I'm feeling a lot more confident :) The only problem I'm facing right now is over-doing this stuff until the point when it's starting to look like crap.

:)
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 06.07. - PAINTJOB! need criticism!

I did I miss this thread:eek? Your build is fantastic and yes, you're a machine! As for the rust, you'll have to look at a lot in real life to see how it's done.

Question: are the screws made out of the same metal as the main body? Your answer will dictate how to modify the screws...or not.

Question: what's the base metal for the gun? Again, if it's steel, aluminium or made out of another metal (let's say with some copper in it) you'll have some silver highlights where it's most handled and some greenish hue for the copper (+ brown/yellowish for the rust).
Not easy to pull a paint job, but it has all to do with layers and washes. Eager to see the next update:)
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 06.07. - PAINTJOB! need criticism!

I did I miss this thread:eek? Your build is fantastic and yes, you're a machine! As for the rust, you'll have to look at a lot in real life to see how it's done.

Question: are the screws made out of the same metal as the main body? Your answer will dictate how to modify the screws...or not.

Question: what's the base metal for the gun? Again, if it's steel, aluminium or made out of another metal (let's say with some copper in it) you'll have some silver highlights where it's most handled and some greenish hue for the copper (+ brown/yellowish for the rust).
Not easy to pull a paint job, but it has all to do with layers and washes. Eager to see the next update:)

How could you, I'm really disappointed! :D
Looking at real life rust is what I did too, did take a lot of photographs and pinned them to my wall.

Answer: The main body (if you hadn't checked the first few pages) is made from acrylic whereas the screws are stainless ones.
Or is this a sorta "feel-yourself-into-the-thing-you're-recreating-and-imagine-how-it-would-look-like-if-it-was-real"-question I didn't get :D
The silver highlights are definetely missing; had planned to get to it this weekend. Don't think I would go for some greenish tones (maybe some mud/olive colored ones if I remember it laying around in a swampy area in Episode 2).
The only thing I regret doing was using a reddish base coat for the acrylic. Could have used a silver one if my brain had worked correctly...

Thanks a lot for your feedback man - I'll hope to update this weekend or even before that!
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

If you haven't already I highly recommend Volpin book on weathering. It taught me a lot.
 
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Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Great job on the paint @supermaRiio , looks fantastic!
 
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Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

If you haven't already I highly recommend @Volpin book on weathering. It taught me a lot.

Ah yes, I heard about this book of him!
Maybe that's a good investment on the long rung. Will consider it, thanks a lot :)

Great job on the paint @supermaRiio , looks fantastic!

THANK YOU! And thanks for your great tips on the rust effect! It really did help a lot!
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Yes, it's the re-creation of life and what rust looks like on different metals that make or break a piece. You've improved your rust effect with that subtle yellow add-on. While your main body is made out of acrylic, you have to imagine it made out of some kind of metal, hence the silver or green that will appear on a normal "wear and tear" kinda use.
Love the vid btw:). Keep up the great job, it's going to rock once it's done!
 
Re: HALF - LIFE 2 - Gravity Gun Replica - 20.07. - Rusting and painting! Ton o'Pics!

Yes, it's the re-creation of life and what rust looks like on different metals that make or break a piece. You've improved your rust effect with that subtle yellow add-on. While your main body is made out of acrylic, you have to imagine it made out of some kind of metal, hence the silver or green that will appear on a normal "wear and tear" kinda use.
Love the vid btw:). Keep up the great job, it's going to rock once it's done!

Okay then I got it right haha. I have to admit I never really thought about things like that when creating replicas or case mods which is kind a shame to be honest :(
I've read it a hundred times in some worklogs but it never stuck with me. Thanks for pointing that out again to me!

Guess I'm gonna search for a few types of metal which come on the short list.

I hope so man! I'll try to do my best!!! :)
 
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