{"id":667,"date":"2011-03-29T18:39:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T01:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=667"},"modified":"2011-03-31T18:57:22","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T01:57:22","slug":"building-the-%e2%80%9cnormally-this-weird%e2%80%9d-death-ray-weapon-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=667","title":{"rendered":"Building the \u201cNormally This Weird\u201d Death Ray Weapon part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is\u00a0the challenge: how to construct a detailed prop with virtually no budget. Well, there are some strategies for accomplishing such a task.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you have a lot of money, time and resources\u00a0every part can be meticulously designed, rendered or blueprinted . You can take the designs and manufacture every item on your prop by hand or subcontract it out.\u00a0 Or you can do as our little team did\u00a0for the Death Ray prop built for \u201cNormally This Weird<\/a>,\u201d the Sci FI web series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started with\u00a0concept sketches. This was a guide for the shapes and possible relationships between the various design elements or shapes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Death Ray weapon concepts.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nate Stipes and I began searching Goodwill Stores\u00a0and Dollar (discount) stores looking at everyday objects.\u00a0 Our first goal was to get things for free as Nate did with a broken Electrolux vacuum cleaner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Basic Electrolux with barrel added<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
We needed some sort of chambers on the top. What might look kind of like the drawing? With some imagination, we found them in the form of two Coffee canisters!<\/div>\n
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Chambers from coffee canisters.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

We needed a gun barrel.\u00a0 Here we had to buy some two-inch PVC pipe for strength and rigidity at the base. For the smaller section, we found a $3 high pressure car wash sprayer \/ nozzle from Goodwill. Diane Cook added disks made from yogurt\u00a0 cartons and quiche packaging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Water pressure nozzle, yogurt container bottom and "O" rings form part of weapon barrel.<\/p><\/div>\n

Coca Cola caps and cut off wood dowel rods became trigger buttons and knobs.\u00a0 Plastic food containers formed unique shapes at the front and rear\u00a0of the gun.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Cola bottle caps and food packaging (with yellow LEDs added)<\/p><\/div>\n

One half-inch PVC pipes and couplings from Home Depot became \u2018steel\u2019 and \u2018brass\u2019 power tubing and fittings. Plastic canvas from Michael\u2019s Art Supply became vent grills or detail pieces.\u00a0 The top \u201cpower condenser\u2019 was created from a coffee creamer bottle, toothpaste cap, and a blinking LED light and mounted with some Velcro tabs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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PVC pipe and plastic "canvas" mesh.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The\u00a0light sequencer was\u00a0created by Diane Cook\u00a0from the\u00a0side of a Log Cabin syrup bottle.\u00a0 With a coat of spray window frost it became a cool detail.<\/div>\n
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Props literally from trash. <\/p><\/div>\n

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Various items used in Death Ray. Can you find them on the prop?<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The roll around base was from a $6 Goodwill chair.\u00a0 We simply lengthened it with some metal water pipe.\u00a0 A cut up pencil holder became the green “plasma chamber.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the most fun design solutions was the use of two paint rollers covered with plastic vacuum hoses for the gun handles and fire controls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Finished Death Ray Weapon prop.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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As seen in Normally This Weird<\/p><\/div>\n

If you have little cash but some time and imagination you can take ordinary items, broken appliances, even trash and make a pretty cool Death Ray Weapon (prop, that is!)<\/p>\n

Photos: (c) 2011 by David Stipes\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is\u00a0the challenge: how to construct a detailed prop with virtually no budget. Well, there are some strategies for accomplishing such a task.\u00a0 If you have a lot of money, time and resources\u00a0every part can be meticulously designed, rendered or blueprinted . You can take the designs and manufacture every item on your prop by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,70,34],"tags":[8,64,68,80,67,69,66,65,71,78],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-prop-building-2","category-visual-effects-techniques","tag-david-stipes-productions","tag-death-ray","tag-diane-cook","tag-education","tag-nate-stipes","tag-nathan-blackwell","tag-normally-this-weird","tag-prop-building","tag-squishy-studios","tag-visual-effects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}