[cosplay] Senroh Chigusa (Silver Diamond) - Tree rifle
Behold, the transformation from a harmless toy rifle into the ultimate bio-weapon...sorta. xD
First, a reference pic.
Here is how mine began its life:
As a $7.99 toy rifle I ordered off Amazon. The toy ended up being too short, so I stuck a piece of wood in the barrel to lengthen it a bit.
That black hand-hold around the trigger had to go, so I snapped it off right away. Then, using lots of masking tape and a few file folders (nice thin cardboard. Flexible, but sturdy.) it turned into this:
(I made my dad hold it for the pic. xD) The little branches around the trigger are pipe cleaners with pieces of straws over them. You'll notice that there isn't the space between the little branches and the big branch as there is in the reference pic. This was done simply because I'm much shorter than Chigusa, and thus I had to make the gun shorter too. So, proportion-wise, I decided taking the space from the middle looked the best.
Here's a closer-up of those. Later on I wound more tape around each of the straws. The paint took to the tape better than to plain plastic.
Then I reverted to childhood and mixed up some paper maché for the first time in ages. When finished, the gun looked like this:
For some reason all the paper maché pictures turned out blurry. Also, Comet sneaks his way into my pictures somehow, every time. xD
It was still awfully flat and a second paper maché-ing session mostly just made me annoyed and made a mess. So I ended up using strips of masking tape slightly crunched out to do the texture:
Also, I used some silk leaves from an ivy garland for the leaves. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of the garland. I'm sure it'll come in handy someday.
A couple coats of paint later...
And it was actually looking rather tree-like!
But just plain brown was bland, so I mixed some lighter brown and added some slight texture.
Ta-da, the finished product!
I apologize for them being so dark. >.< I think the flash rebounded on the table.
Here it is with more decent lighting:
I thought about adding some more light paint, but I'm really pretty happy with how it is now and I'm afraid if I go back and try fiddling with it some more that I'll completely screw it up. Better to leave well enough alone for now. xDD
Better view of the lighter paint texture. The kind of cool thing is that the trigger, even after being covered in tape and paint, still moves a little. So when posing I can actually sort of "pull" it.
And then the rest of these are me just being a camwhore. xD They do give a good idea of about how big the gun is.
It's actually quite lightweight, but sturdy, so I can kind of flip it around. x3
Here it is from the bottom.
And here it is from the side. I forgot to take a from the top pic, but I'm sure there will be plenty of time at the con to get pictures from lots of angles. ^^
Don't ask me why I was dumb enough to wear a dark brown shirt on the day I took pictures of a dark brown gun. That's me being stupid. xD Luckily there's no way the gun can blend in to the light brown coat or red bandages, so it'll stand out when I'm in costume. I'm thinking now that I should have gone for a lighter base color, but the lighter browns all looked too cheerful. This thing is a weapon. A weapon wielded by a monster in a dying world. Happy cheerful brown just didn't work. xD
So that's it! Next time I do a post about this cosplay it'll be me in the full outfit, possibly before the con, but probably after, 'cause I'll want to archive all the pics in one place.
First, a reference pic.
Here is how mine began its life:
As a $7.99 toy rifle I ordered off Amazon. The toy ended up being too short, so I stuck a piece of wood in the barrel to lengthen it a bit.
That black hand-hold around the trigger had to go, so I snapped it off right away. Then, using lots of masking tape and a few file folders (nice thin cardboard. Flexible, but sturdy.) it turned into this:
(I made my dad hold it for the pic. xD) The little branches around the trigger are pipe cleaners with pieces of straws over them. You'll notice that there isn't the space between the little branches and the big branch as there is in the reference pic. This was done simply because I'm much shorter than Chigusa, and thus I had to make the gun shorter too. So, proportion-wise, I decided taking the space from the middle looked the best.
Here's a closer-up of those. Later on I wound more tape around each of the straws. The paint took to the tape better than to plain plastic.
Then I reverted to childhood and mixed up some paper maché for the first time in ages. When finished, the gun looked like this:
For some reason all the paper maché pictures turned out blurry. Also, Comet sneaks his way into my pictures somehow, every time. xD
It was still awfully flat and a second paper maché-ing session mostly just made me annoyed and made a mess. So I ended up using strips of masking tape slightly crunched out to do the texture:
Also, I used some silk leaves from an ivy garland for the leaves. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of the garland. I'm sure it'll come in handy someday.
A couple coats of paint later...
And it was actually looking rather tree-like!
But just plain brown was bland, so I mixed some lighter brown and added some slight texture.
Ta-da, the finished product!
I apologize for them being so dark. >.< I think the flash rebounded on the table.
Here it is with more decent lighting:
I thought about adding some more light paint, but I'm really pretty happy with how it is now and I'm afraid if I go back and try fiddling with it some more that I'll completely screw it up. Better to leave well enough alone for now. xDD
Better view of the lighter paint texture. The kind of cool thing is that the trigger, even after being covered in tape and paint, still moves a little. So when posing I can actually sort of "pull" it.
And then the rest of these are me just being a camwhore. xD They do give a good idea of about how big the gun is.
It's actually quite lightweight, but sturdy, so I can kind of flip it around. x3
Here it is from the bottom.
And here it is from the side. I forgot to take a from the top pic, but I'm sure there will be plenty of time at the con to get pictures from lots of angles. ^^
Don't ask me why I was dumb enough to wear a dark brown shirt on the day I took pictures of a dark brown gun. That's me being stupid. xD Luckily there's no way the gun can blend in to the light brown coat or red bandages, so it'll stand out when I'm in costume. I'm thinking now that I should have gone for a lighter base color, but the lighter browns all looked too cheerful. This thing is a weapon. A weapon wielded by a monster in a dying world. Happy cheerful brown just didn't work. xD
So that's it! Next time I do a post about this cosplay it'll be me in the full outfit, possibly before the con, but probably after, 'cause I'll want to archive all the pics in one place.