Tutorial: Making guns with sintra
In this tutorial, I will introduce you to a relatively easy method on making pretty realistic looking, lightweight guns for your cosplay without the use of expensive tools or materials!
1-2 huge sheets of sintra (in Germany known as ‘Hartschaumplatte’)
Glue for Sintra (ask your local seller!)
Screws as decorative elements (if original design has them)
Paint (I use car paint ;>)
Cutter/Scalpel/X-Acto Knive
Respiratory mask and safety goggles for sanding & working with expanding foam
Latex gloves for applying filler, paint and expanding foam
Old clothing that covers your arms
A blade is a blade is a blade…. and expanding foam is really hazardous and nasty stuff. Read instructions on the materials, safety first etc. I wont comfort your mourning relatives if you fuck this up hard enough to kill yourself while trying to follow the tutorial and I will not be held responsible for any damage to your live, health, pets or children.
Step 1: Create your pattern
In order to create a pattern, we need an image that shows the gun we strive to make from the side. The image is opened in photoshop and resized, so the proportions fit those the gun shall have in real life!
If the gun is as huge as Ebony&Ivory, one A4 image would be too small to print the full gun, so I cut the image to fit two A4 images, printed them and glued the two images together. Now all I had to do was to cut it out, put it on the sintra, outline it and there was the center piece of my gun!
Now we will definitely need more than just this layer, right? And you can already see that I put one more piece of Sintra onto the gun.
To get the shape of the following layers, you have to cut the pattern. Parts are cut off and the shape for the next layer is done, for the next layer, the pattern might have to be cut apart etc…
This is what my pattern for Ebony looked like when I was done- I made Ivory first, so I knew exactly how many parts I needed to achieve the right thickness. (You might have to use trial & error at first)
This is the sheet with all the parts for Ebony. Duuueed…
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