When Portal came out last fall everyone went nuts over it, including my girlfriend Shauna and me.
I enjoy building props (as evidenced by my cars, hurf durf) and she enjoys (surprise surprise) cosplay. She immediately decided that she wanted to do a Chell costume along with a giant, soft, huggable, wearable Weighted Companion Cube suit.
I got all sorts of excited about the project back in February and I stared my portal gun build. I planned on making a very realistic version of the gun, with more parts and details than those seen in the actual game, the goal was to make it look like an actual piece of equipment. After one trip to Home Depot I had the nozzle:
Flash forward to about a week ago and I haven't done a SINGLE GODDAMN THING to forward the project. A sci-fi convention was coming up at the end of the week that Shauna and I were planning on attending, and her costume was ready... all she needed was the gun. Originally I planned on using a sculpted styrofoam buck for the shape of the front and rear shells. I would paint the bucks, smooth them down, cover them with fiberglass, tear out the foam, fill the fiberglass with resin, and have a nice, shiny replica of the gun's shells. That didn't work. Fuck. So I tried plastering and plasti-dipping footballs. That didn't work. I bondo-ed a bike helemt... same thing. FUCK. So here I am, one day before the convention and my girlfriend doesn't have a portal gun for her costume. Well shit!
I ran out to Sam's Club and found a bottle of laundry detergent that I felt was close enough to the shape I needed. I cut it up, painted it white, then bolted/glued it to a 4-inch PVC gun core I had made. I used a smalled fabric softener bottle for the front of the gun.
The end result was pretty satisfactory. I finished adding some tubing at the convention and then we were off to the costume contest. We're sitting in this side room, waiting to go on and Shauna sets the portal gun on top on a bench. A little girl somehow knocks it off the bench and the gun splits in two, with tons of paint chipping off the shells. I managed to patch it back up and make some quick repairs, but the state you see it in now is due it being partially smashed then brought back from the dead.
BEHOLD!
I wasn't too happy with the end result, it worked for a pinch convention but I'd still like to revisit the build sometime and make a smoother, more accurately-shaped gun. Less long, more round!
About two weeks before I got to work on the gun, Shauna started constructing the Weighted Companion Cube. She started with 3" foam for the main cube, using a TON of hot glue to 'weld' the thing together.
She worked day and night on that thing, while I played CoD and putt off working on her gun. Blegh.
Anyway, she finished building the cube at the convention on our hotel room. We were lucky because, since the cube was 'squishable' we managed to get it out the door. Here is then result of that:
Entrance to the cube:
Being worn by my roommate, Jer:
And here are pictures from the actual convention, with Cube, Gun, and Chell costume!
Aaand this is how we got it home:
So... whaddaya think?
I enjoy building props (as evidenced by my cars, hurf durf) and she enjoys (surprise surprise) cosplay. She immediately decided that she wanted to do a Chell costume along with a giant, soft, huggable, wearable Weighted Companion Cube suit.
I got all sorts of excited about the project back in February and I stared my portal gun build. I planned on making a very realistic version of the gun, with more parts and details than those seen in the actual game, the goal was to make it look like an actual piece of equipment. After one trip to Home Depot I had the nozzle:
Flash forward to about a week ago and I haven't done a SINGLE GODDAMN THING to forward the project. A sci-fi convention was coming up at the end of the week that Shauna and I were planning on attending, and her costume was ready... all she needed was the gun. Originally I planned on using a sculpted styrofoam buck for the shape of the front and rear shells. I would paint the bucks, smooth them down, cover them with fiberglass, tear out the foam, fill the fiberglass with resin, and have a nice, shiny replica of the gun's shells. That didn't work. Fuck. So I tried plastering and plasti-dipping footballs. That didn't work. I bondo-ed a bike helemt... same thing. FUCK. So here I am, one day before the convention and my girlfriend doesn't have a portal gun for her costume. Well shit!
I ran out to Sam's Club and found a bottle of laundry detergent that I felt was close enough to the shape I needed. I cut it up, painted it white, then bolted/glued it to a 4-inch PVC gun core I had made. I used a smalled fabric softener bottle for the front of the gun.
The end result was pretty satisfactory. I finished adding some tubing at the convention and then we were off to the costume contest. We're sitting in this side room, waiting to go on and Shauna sets the portal gun on top on a bench. A little girl somehow knocks it off the bench and the gun splits in two, with tons of paint chipping off the shells. I managed to patch it back up and make some quick repairs, but the state you see it in now is due it being partially smashed then brought back from the dead.
BEHOLD!
I wasn't too happy with the end result, it worked for a pinch convention but I'd still like to revisit the build sometime and make a smoother, more accurately-shaped gun. Less long, more round!
About two weeks before I got to work on the gun, Shauna started constructing the Weighted Companion Cube. She started with 3" foam for the main cube, using a TON of hot glue to 'weld' the thing together.
She worked day and night on that thing, while I played CoD and putt off working on her gun. Blegh.
Anyway, she finished building the cube at the convention on our hotel room. We were lucky because, since the cube was 'squishable' we managed to get it out the door. Here is then result of that:
Entrance to the cube:
Being worn by my roommate, Jer:
And here are pictures from the actual convention, with Cube, Gun, and Chell costume!
Aaand this is how we got it home:
So... whaddaya think?
Last edited by Boomerjinks (2008-04-25 14:33:29)