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Photo by On Impulse Photography

“Three
guns means never having to say, ‘I’m sorry’”-Jinx

You
know what? Fishbones was the last of Jinx’s guns I had to make! Due
to the time crunch for getting everything ready before PAX Prime
2014, I only ended up having ONE WEEK to put together this giant
lovable shark rocket launcher.  It was incredibly hectic and
stressful to get everything done on time and there are definitely
points that I would like to improve on for this prop, but we got it
done in time and Fishbones came out of the maelstrom of crafting
looking pretty good!

You can
check out the past articles I wrote for how I made the main costume, Zap, and PowPow! In the meantime, let’s dive into the making of Fishbones! <3

References:

First
off, I had a very limited time frame to make a decent quality and
durable prop, so I had to cut time requirements wherever possible.  I
had already made some drawings of my own from different references
and I ended up pulling most of my inspiration from the 3D model,
which helped a lot.

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Luckily,
I was able to save a lot more time by obtaining a set of pdf
blueprints for Fishbones
and raw casts of the jaws from Volpin Props!  I’ve loved his work for a very long time and his castings and
build for Fishbones’ jaws are simply beautiful!  Check out Volpin’s
blog article for how he made his Fishbones replica
 for some truly beautiful work and detailed information! <3

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Anyway,
on to the rest of the build.  Fishbones is a BIG prop, I mean…gun,
I mean…sharkzooka, I mean…rocket launcher. 😛 When I was first
planning out the scale of all three guns, I knew that I was looking
at something like a 40-45” long prop.  I started out with drawing
out the pieces I would need at the right scale.  At the end of the
build, this prop ended up being 45” long and about 10-12 lbs.  Not
too shabby for a time crunch!

The Tube:

Lucky
for me, Fishbones’ core shape turned out to be pretty simple.  It’s a
tube with stuff around it.  So, naturally, it seemed like a good idea
to start with building the base tube.

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After a
lot of thinking through easily available tools and materials along
with the time limit, I opted to make my tube out of a combination of
4” and 6” mailing tubes, EVA foam, and fiberglass.  The mailing
tubes would be lighter than PVC pipe and I used 1/2” thick EVA foam
for spacers and wrapped around the 4” mailing tube to create the 5”
sections.  I beveled whatever edges needed it with a dremel.  The
fiberglass was to strengthen the tube so that it would be suitable to
drill into for the plates and fins.  Once the fiberglass was on, Ian
helped me out a ton by sanding it smooth.

The Plates:

I cut
the plates out of 6mm Sintra with a box knife and heat bent them
around an 8” and 6” tube form.  I made sure to leave extra room
between my bent plates and the tube so that I could add in EVA foam
spacers between them for attachment and the “floaty” feel.

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I
decided to use the 6mm Sintra because it was already pretty thick and
sturdy and I wouldn’t have to spend tons of time sanding to get the
surface smooth and paintable, and I used apoxie sculpt to create the
base beveled edges and sanded the bevels down smooth.  I used a 1”
drill bit to create the holes in the big top plate.  The shoulder
rest was a simple bent piece of Sintra and I added some cushy EVA
foam to it for comfort.

The Fins:

I
wanted to create the fins out of a light, easily sandable, yet
durable material.  Since I didn’t have time to create hollow fins, I
elected to first create the fins out of EVA foam blocks, then coat
them with fiberglass.  This would also allow me to drill into the
foam to install attachment posts for the fins to the rest of the gun
later on.

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I
started by creating foam blocks for the fins and shaping the bevels
with my dremel and sandpaper.  I then applied a layer of wood glue in
the hopes that it would help prevent the foam from soaking up too
much of the fiberglass resin.  I’m not entirely sure if it helped,
but it didn’t seem to hurt.  I then went about adding on the layer of
fiberglass.  The rough fiberglass surface was sanded down and I used
Bondo to help fill in the low spots.  The top tail fin also got some
Sintra plating, and I carved the handle for the gun out of some scrap
wood.

Paint and Assembly!

At this
point in the build, I had maybe two days left before the first
morning of PAX Prime.  Before starting anything with the paint, I did
some dry-fit test runs for the plates and fins to figure out the
height and how many EVA foam spacers I would need between the base
tube and each plate.  For added security, I also included posts of
threaded rod that would be secured and glued in place on the inside
of the base pipe, go through the EVA foam spacer, and through the
plate to sit flush with the top of each plate.  The fins were also
secured in the same way, but the threaded rod extends partway through
each fin and is glued in place.  Five minute epoxy was my best friend
through this process.

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Once I
had my attachment points planned out, I pulled an all-nighter until
about 10am the next morning without any caffeine to do the paint job.
Since I didn’t have an airbrush, all of the painting had to be done
by hand and fast.  I mixed my acrylic paints to get a good range of
blue and purple shades and added a very slight wash of metallic
silver. I got about an hour of sleep and then continued working to
finish stitching the belt that goes around the big plates and the
shoulder strap.  Thanks to some amazing help from Ian, we got the
rest of the gun fully assembled the morning of the first day of PAX
Prime as I was getting my tattoos painted on by Makeup by Crystal!  WHEW!

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And
there you have it! I was very lucky to finish Fishbones in time for
PAX Prime 2014, but I did it! It was an incredibly stressful process
and not one I would like to go through again, but I certainly learned
a lot from it!

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 Photoset by Costographer

Thank
you for reading! I would also like to extend a special thank you to
Ian for helping me with sanding, priming, sanity and handling me
during the creation process of Jinx and over the weekend of PAX Prime
2014.  Building, carrying, transporting, and managing so many
different pieces for this costume would not have been possible
without him. <3  If
you want more updates on my work, you can subscribe to
ThoseFuckinNerds on YouTube, or you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as “Britthebadger”. I also stream my work on Twitch, so if you have any questions you can come watch and hang out, or
message me through my other social media.

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