In case you missed it, the theme for October is “casting materials,” chosen strategically, of course, to resonate with the mounting excitement about everybody’s favorite maker holiday—Halloween! Whether you’re making wearables or hand-held props, there’s probably a method, material, or technique in our archives that will inspire you to take your costume to the next level.
Check out this incredible scale model of Doc Brown’s DeLorean from Back to the Future. What sets it apart from other scale models isn’t the awesome lighting or attention to detail (Mr. Fusion, anyone?), it’s that it’s a fully-functioning quadrotor. Yep, it flies! Built using foam core and a ton of LEDs, this has to […]
We featured the papercraft form for this Space Marine Terminator helmet from MAKE regular Shawn Thorsson in the Flickr pool roundup about a month ago. It was impressive, even then, just as a pepakura model. Seeing how it turned out, covered inside and out with layers of Bondo-based resin, sanded, polished, and skillfully painted, is […]
Graphic designer Matthew Milam of Dallas, TX, made this intricate pepakura model of the “snub” pistol from Epic Games’ popular Gears of War franchise. Unlike most papercraft designers today, Matt eschews the software-based approach and lays out the parts freehand! Bit of foam core are included, here and there, for strength, as well as a […]
Cool postapocalyptic cosplay from Bellingham, Washington craftsman Ivan Owen. The roadsigns, he assures us, were “obtained through legal means,” and were formed into plates by peening against an anvil, before being affixed to a harness made from belts.
MAKE reader Ken Miller wrote in to tell us about the magical staff prop he built this Halloween to complement a very lucky lad’s wizard costume:”We built this Dragon Head Wizard Staff for my girlfriend’s 9 year old son, mostly out of parts we had lying around. It uses an accelerometer to ‘cast spells’ based on the direction you shake the staff…”
Shawn Thorsson explains the build process for his props and costumes at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. First he starts with a digital 3D model, then cuts the pieces out with a CNC machine, assembles them and fine tunes with wood shaping techniques, then casts molds so he can reproduce them. The result are authentic looking reproductions of popular costumes.
