Yoko's gun tutorial
This only covers the basics of the construction, if you want to know more, email me!
Materials: PVC piping, Plasticard, Foamcard, Cardboard pipes, assorted bottle caps, magisculp, PVA, Araldite, Hot glue, 2 pink belts, broom handle, split rings, toy gun (trigger), Yellow and blue spray paint, Matt Varnish, Sandpaper.
Method: To make it come together in two parts we used the screw end of a broom (obviously took the brush part off!) and cut the part it screws into and put it on the other part of the PVC piping. The top part of the muzzle is just PVC pipe with plasticard set in an octagonal shape. We put foam underneath it to keep those parts up while they were drying. To get the 'slope' from the octagonal part to the pipe I used magisculp then sanded it down. For sticking things like plasticard together we used araldite which is an epoxy. The trigger is from a toy gun! Most of the parts around it and the magazine are made of foamboard. Foamcard edges don't spry paint well so I had to gesso them. Foamboard is fine to stick together with hotglue. The bottom part with the yellow stripes is also foamboard. Knobs are generally bottle caps of various sizes. The bolt is a little peice of plastic pipe with a blob of magisculp on the end stuck on with araldite. The scope is two different sizes of cardboard tubes with thin plastic pipe joining them together. To hold them on I used bits of foam then covered it with card and joined the scope to the gun with araldite. For joining things like the strap/bipod we bought some length of PVC pipe slightly bigger than the stuff to use for the main gun will mean you can slide it over and glue it on. So just cut off a wee bit and make a connection with plasticard and magisculp. Used split rings to get the strap on. Drawing pins look good for rivets. Painting the thing was the most tedious part. We primed the thing in grey and gesso-ed any edges that couldn't be spray painted. I then used a matt varnish over the top since car paint is shiney. The yellow stipes were spray painted and touched up in acrylic. I wish I had put on the stripes on a bit of foamcard AFTER I had spraypainted the rest of it to avoid major re-touching, but nevermind. You live and learn!
