Monday, June 20, 2011

Building Alucard's Casull part 1

It's the fictional gun I've longed for. Hellsing Arm's .454 Casull. Alucard's gun from the Hellsing manga. We've been redoing the siding on the house using pink insulating foam. There's plenty of extra of foam laying around -- and how hard could it be? There is a company that makes the official prop model on line. I saved the diagram from their website and printed it life size. At 13.5 inches it needed to be printed on 2 sheets which I taped together. I don't feel bad about it because this reproduction prop is not sold in the US. I begin work on my costume prop. Alucard's casull from Hellsing.   

And I very quickly found out what not to do.

For more pictures on this build go to the  deviantart gallery. This project has it's own folder.
I taped the printed diagram to the pink foam and began to cut.
The pink foam blank. It's cut into the rough shape. I really screwed this up. 
I didn't realize how bad this was at the time. I made the body too narrow and the grip was shaped all wrong. Here, I glued a block of foam under the barrel to make up the width. Next time I need to pay more attention to the printed pattern.

The trigger assembly. I figured the tiny pieces of foam would crack so I coated them with clear tacky glue it dried flexible.  And then I glued the pieces ogether. I had to cut these out separably because there was no way to cut it out of one block. Well maybe someone with a real steady hand could do it -- but not me.

I tested some glues and decided on the tacky glue, 
Another mistake--  tacky glue can't be sanded. Next time I'll use wood glue or gorilla glue. I hear you can sand them both. 

 I made sure to have a sharp blade, any dullness at all and the foam "tore" instead of cut. I have since read that pink foam can be sanded and dremeled for detailing!


Grey primer spray paint test. I was pretty sure the spray paint wouldn't work. I already had the paint around, so I just had to try. And just what I expected to happen, happened. The foam melted. This means I'll have to go out and buy foam safe paint.

EDIT. The spray paint that says universal paint has been tested on a scrap and it too melts foam. I don't like the way acrylic covers


I tried to fix some of the problems by gluing bits and pieces in place, I think now it would have been simpler to redo the blank. I didn't realize how bad it was yet.


Here's were I realized the back of the grip was not even close to the right shape, the rear of the grip is completely wrong. I gouged out too much while I was trimming. I'm gluing in a piece of filler and trying again.

And here's the bit glued in to the back of the grip. I also started to glue on some of the detail pieces. I decided to glue them down before painting. The grip looks better but there's still more to do.
For loads more pictures go to   http://maglorius.deviantart.com/gallery/30569123




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