My girlfriend's latest cosplay is Salvatore the Magnificent from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice by Nippon Ichi Software and she ordered Salvatore's weapon from the special move The Great Gun King, which is a giant golden gun as name suggests with wings.^^' Salvatore summons it into battle and rides the bullet fired from it straight towards the enemies. The bullet then rams into them, sending them flying. Luckily my girlfriend wanted a handheld version so I didn't have to start planning a surfable projectile.^^ You can read more about her cosplays and other stuff on her two blogs: Miss Mii and Rosy Predictions. Miss Mii is a 4H-youth company she founded and the site is where she shows off her crafts and sells them, if you're interested in cute and original clothing, this place is worth checking out! Rosy Predictions is her personal blog where she ponders about the wacky ways of the world^^
Salvatore just about to jump onto the summoned gun and fire.
I used a toyrevolver found in the BR-toystore as a base as it had the best fitting looks and it wouldn't break that easily. I usually do prefer wood and metal over plastic, and this gun being metal was just what the doctor ordered^^
Marshal-revolver from a BR-toystore in Tampere
First thing I did was dismantle the crip as it wasn't what I wanted, I still have the parts though, migh need them in a future project^^ Next I used a metal saw and cut the trigger-guard from the front and used a file to shape it into the wing that points forward. I saw no need to remove the guard and do a wing from wood, as the shape came out pretty nice and it wouldn't break or chip off like wood could. I then cut off some pieces off some extra plywood, which I had (always save extra pieces!) from my still ongoing project, into the new crip-pieces.
Speaking about stuff not breaking, second day of the build (yes, I was in no hurry) I find the main gun-piece on the floor, it had fallen from the piece-box, probably one of our cats had bumbed into it, causing it to fall, breaking the hammer. It wasn't a huge loss, I suspect it might've snapped anyway at some point, which would've forced me to file and repaint it.
After a little bit of trouble with fitting the tight pieces and glueing I continued to sanding the crip into a more tolerable shape. I also filed the front sight in half and started working on the main-wings.
The wings were my biggest concern, because in order to achieve a firm and lasting result the wings had to be made out of one single piece. I also couldn't drill any holes into the main body as I don't own a drill, yet^^' Thus the wings had to be able to stay in place with glue alone. I did add a spare nail into the wing with the intention to use some wire to pull the front tip of the wings tightly against the main body, keeping it steady, this was the only added method of keeping the wings in place, apart from the glue. Therefore a lot of weight landed on making the gap tight enough to hold the wing in place even without the glue but loose enough so that the stress wouldn't break the wings in half. The final wings in the picture to the right were in fact the fifth wings I had to make, because the previous four were not good enough. (good thing to have a lot of saved extra pieces of plywood, right?) I then sanded/sharpened the wings so they would look good and rough-sanded the main body so that glue and paint would stick and then the final assembly started.
The painting was tricky, the brown paint I bought from the crafts-shop Tiimari was perfect and easy to work with as it could be mixed with a little bit of water to make thinner layers. But the gold-paint from the same shop was horrible, it was a spray-can-gold for Christmas-decorations. Few layers and drying later the gold-finish would just peel of with touch into powder, making the gun look like it was brass-coloured instead of gold. Luckily I remembered that model-paint left a very nice finish with the metallic paints. I went and bought gold number 94, the most basic of gold out there. After the first layer I couldn't help but to feel like a fool for even trying anything else, because the price for the gold paints doesn't show in the quality. Spray-can cost 4.50€ while the modeling-paint was 1.95€... And they both last pretty much as long, as you don't have to worry about wasting the model-paint if you can hold your brush, but with the spray-can, you're most likely going to miss your target anyway and have the furniture-protecting paper all nice and golden. Oh yes, the spray-paint seems to be perfect for paper, as the newspapers I used didn't lose the paint like the actual gun did~.~'
All and all, this was a nice project, my girlfriend was very pleased with this, which is the main thing, though I'm such a perfectionist that if the work is not as good as I can achieve with my skill (or lack of it) I'm not even going to bother handing it over to the client and asking for compensation.
Well that's about it really, it took me around a week and a half to make it, and I don't think my girlfriend's magnificent outfit is going to lose in competitions because of the prop^^
