Having a girlfriend who’s interests parallel my own is mostly great. When she comes in the room and says she’s decided for this years Dragoncon to dress as RGB Fright Features Janine…well it’s great too.
I want to make a prop replica of this accessory for her cosplay.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I was thinking of trying to do a resin cast but I have little experience in that field, and might want to try something a little bit more user friendly.
Any thoughts?
Craig
I would advise steering clear of resin, as it would make it rather heavy and maybe a bit too brittle for what you’d be needing it for.
Instead I propose building the large-scale replica using plastic water piping, some scratch-built boxes and possibly a strap to serve as the arm hook.
The first step is going to be to establish the scale, use your girlfriend’s height to scale up the figure of Janine, and that will give you a rough conversion for enlarging the figure’s accessory. Once you’ve got the scale sorted, sketch out a top and sideways views on graph paper to produce a full se of plans to work from. 
Thanks for the tips. Should be a fun project. I will be updating the progress has we go.
Craig
It reminds me of the thing used at certain restaurants to get lobsters out of a livewell.
EDIT: After a quick Google search, apparently they are called ‘lobster tank rakes’.
Except those have a 90-degree bend between the rod and the four tines, whereas this has them all parallel.
Wooden dowels can be your friend for this one.
Alex
Alex thanks! I might have to pick one of those up.
That is basically a pitch fork. I agree with kingpin though. You should try to scratch build it using PVC and other found items from your local hardware and maybe even an electronics surplus store if you have one near by.
You should look for something like this. This one is very expensive but its all I could find on a quick Google search. Its a plastic pitchfork.
http://morewinemaking.com/products/unifork-food-grade-pitchfork.html
I actually had already bookmarked that same plastic pitchfork. I might pick it up, I think it would look really cool. I am going to scratch build the base and than maybe cut down the handle of the pitchfork and attach.
I recently finished up a replica based off of a G1 Transformers Prowl toy gun for a friend. It’s made with a combination of foamcore, styrene, putty and PVC which is the way I’d recommend you tackle this project. Check out my build-up on my website here: http://www.bloody-plastic.com/props/prowlblaster.html. This looks to be mostly boxes and hard angles which should be fairly easy to do.
PVC piping, MDF, and some wood dowels should do you nicely.
I googled toy rake, and came up with quite a few options, even with the same number of tines. That might be a good start.
The part before the “rake” looks like a garden hose nozzle to me. I;m sure you could find a cheap plastic one.
If I were building it, I’ve be thinking of starting with those two, put a garden hose end mender on a handle/box built from styrene/mdf/craft foam/eva foam, or combination of those.
Maybe pick up one of those cheap battery powered micro led light sets from ebay, and add soem lights to it to make it look more like it does something.
Ooh, Gareee’s suggestion just gave me an idea. How about if the four wavy tines were all rotating individually?
Alex
Yeah Alex that would be awesome. I’m fairly new to prop building but I have been brainstorming for 2 days. I will figure something out. I think finding (or making) a pink flightsuit will be the hardest part.
I recently color-stripped a navy blue flightsuit and dyed it charcoal grey, according to mburkit’s recipe in this thread…
http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16153
Matter of fact, I dropped it off at my seamstress’ house this afternoon to have the patches attached, and she said she would send all her dye jobs my way from now on, a nice compliment considering I am color-blind.
Surely there’s got to be someone who’s done pink before? I’m just not sure what flightsuit you’d want to begin from…
UPDATE:
Here we go. Someone who did the entire cartoon cast, including a light pink jumpsuit for Janine made from something originally white. Hit them up to see where they got the white one.
http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26803
Alex
Look for pinkghostbuster here (she has a rgb pack build thread) Pm her.. she has a hot pink jumpsuit prefect for Janine, and can give you the web store link for them.
Be careful with PVC piping, as it can add weight really fast.
There is also difference type of PVc.. you don’t need high pressure, so you can get the cheaper lighter low pressure pvc pipe. (Keeping in mind that its also not as strong) The black abs pipe next to it in stores is lighter and stronger, BUT its harder to cut cleanly, and is more expensive.
Plus, being black, it can be harer to paint than white pvc.
I can agree with Garee on the harder to paint. What I did with my thrower was i lightly sanded the black PVC pipe that i got and then primed it with white rustoleum primer then went back over after it dried with the gray rustoleum primer. It did a pretty good job of covering with no issues.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. It has been really helpful. Like I said I wil update everyone on progress.
I think for the gun/prop I am going to use the RGB nerf gun as a base. I have one that has a few cosmetic issues, so I am thinking a nice bright yellow paint job with some brand new GB logo decals will be a great start.
