#factor makes

First up: vampire Luigi, from an ongoing story based on @profbastard 's Castlevania AU. Kept him simple and neat, and even let him be happy for once.

Next, we've got Plant Luigi from @lu1g199 's Plant Hybrid AU. Loved doing all the little blooms and blossoms. Something is on his nerves, and he intends to fix it.

Non-blush and blush variants.

After that, we've got Franken-Lu, from a story I have yet to write. Best case scenario, I have it all ready for October. He's got a lot going on, but he gets better. Eventually.

Finally, a new concept from the mind of @coffeecat1983. Dude was bouncing around a Cryptid AU concept where a subset of NYC's inhabitants are part cryptid, with Mario's entire family among them. The result is this sad little mothman who can't believe someone can look past his ominous heritage and love him for who he is.

And that's been a chunk of my day so far. If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna let the page dry and go play a game or something.

We got into the crafting process behind a homebrewed Poltergust, proudly made by someone with a tenuous grasp of engineering. I talked my way through the conversion of a cat carrier, the crafting of panels to attach, and even got a bit into the vacuum tube and flashlight.

Now, I hope to wrap things up by walking through the last few things: lights and the green goo orb.

Disclaimer

For those of you who didn't catch the first post, this is NOT a tutorial. I'm documenting my process, and if you want to use it as a reference for your own purposes, you are free to do so.

That being said, take precautions, people. Work in a well-ventilated area, lay out something to catch paint and drips of glue and sealant, and do not just stick your hands in stuff. Wear gloves. Goddamn.

With that said, on to the orb.

The Orb

What is the orb? Why is my title green? Which Poltergust are you making, anyway?

To answer those questions:

The orb is what holds (or bears semblance of holding) a certain gooey assistant.

The title is green because Gooigi is green.

I'm mashing up the Poltergust 5000 and the G-00, due to the base being a cat carrier and my skill limits with crafting stuff like this.

I mixed together two paints for the gooey interior: one green, one glow-in-the-dark starry kind of stuff. This was applied inside the orb, as well as to the outside of the inner bulb.

Oh, right, the inner bulb!

With a glass bowl, another foam disc, and some sealant, I made something for the inside of the orb. This is all painted to diffuse the light quite a bit.

Without the paint, it's kinda bright. But once things are painted and stacked up (with this inner disc given some Velcro), it gives off a soft glow goo effect.

For the attached tubes going from the orb to the Poltergust, I cut out some circles and stuck them inside the flap. From there, I cut another EVA foam dowel (painted black beforehand) into 7" inch pieces before gluing them to the foam circles and feeding the other ends into the dome. Don't worry if the circles come loose. They're meant more to keep this from sliding right out.

Now, onto the lights!

The Lights

It's crazy what several puck lights can do. So far they've enabled me to build a comically large flashlight that I push to turn on.

Now, though, we add the last of the decorations.

As mentioned in The Orb, I have a light shining through a glass bowl and some paint layers to give off a green gooey glow. Like I've been doing, I took another foam disc and carved a hole out of it, pressing the light down to get it to fit and to get the glue to take.

I ended up breaking the disc.

Nothing more hot glue couldn't fix, though.

For the circles I glued on way back, I glued some more foam inside the Poltergust to better brace the puck lights. The lights were glued on at two points, leaving a gap for me to stick my finger in to turn them on.

And with that, I give you...

A Poltergust.

Along with my dumbass cat, wondering why I did this to a possession of his.

Annnnd that's all, folks. If you need me, I'm gonna pass out on my couch until the local bar's costume contest comes around. Wish me luck!

For those who didn't see this post a few days ago, I've been building a prop Poltergust. I've got a costume to go along with it, and both are at the point where I can step out to an event right now and feel proud of myself.

After I find fingerless gloves and give the vacuum tube a couple more coats of paint, of course.

So, how did I do it? Why should you care about a ghost vacuum that can't actually suck things up? Well, I'm about to tell you the process I've gone through this week to get this bad boy ready, because I did a decent job documenting my steps and I wasn't just about to not share something like this.

Ready?

Here we go!

Disclaimer

This is not a tutorial. I am not in the business of giving Poltergust workshops. This is just me documenting my process, which you're free to riff off of for your own uses, but this is in no way a step-by-step instructional. This is what I got after gleaning two walkthroughs online and distilling them into something my artsy ass can manage. If I tried to pass this off as a tutorial in real life, I'd probably get fired.

If you do reference this for your own purposes, make sure to wear gloves, put down cardboard and other protective coverings, and do your work in a well-ventilated area. It should go without saying, but do not let your pets into this shit.

With that being said, let's get into the base of this whole thing.

The Base

Not gonna lie, this whole idea started with a cat carrier. It's been with me for several moves now, and neither of my cats have taken to it. Needless to say, I was ready to give this thing purpose.

The carrier I have has a bubble in the front, several panels to zip and unzip, and appears to be made of some kind of leather. With this in mind, I prepared the surface for painting by using a deglazer. If you can't find any (or you run out early like I did), some strong isopropyl alcohol and a bit more elbow grease will also do the trick.

Next, I went with some leather acrylic paint. It went on nicely and dried quickly, so I did a couple of coats.

As you can see in the picture above, this carrier had a nice black trim to it that I wanted to preserve as much as possible—hence, drafter's tape. I also left the straps as is, since E. Gadd has a thing for leather straps on his devices.

After the paint was good and dry, I sprayed the whole thing a couple times over with a clear topcoat. I might've picked something semi-glossy (I really don't remember), but so long as it's clear and sprayable, it'll work.

I did get a little bit of topcoat on the bubble, but this really won't matter in the long run.

Panels and Wheels

Each Poltergust I've come across has a set of wheels or cylinders on the sides. Seeing as this was a consistent choice, I figured I'd cook something up to cover the side panels of my base.

Each wheel piece is based on a wooden circle (mine are about 6.5" in diameter). From there, I glued a smaller foam disc onto the center, and then covered each disc in gray foam for a smooth look.

While waiting for that to dry, I then took a triangular dowel of EVA foam and painted that black. One calculation for the circumference of the inner circle later, and I had the outer rims for these pieces. For error's sake, I rounded up.

End result?

Snazzy. Now to apply this and the other panels onto the base. I chose a thicker piece of black foam for the accent paneling, which also went under these circles. However, I didn't immediately glue all this on.

Instead, I went to work on some other doodads.

Doodads, part one

There are a number of holes on the cat carrier. They come in sets of three, are ringed with metal, and were probably intended to provide airflow to my spoiled little fur babies. For the Poltergust, though, these holes provided opportunities for additional decorations.

All of these holes were 1" in diameter, which made some of my choices awfully convenient.

First off: bottom three. These are the reason I held off on gluing the panels. I wanted to cap them and put some lights behind them. Some little jewelry organizers did the trick, and provided a nice serrated edge that I used many times in this build.

Now, this photo is a bit out of order. I got a bit impatient and glued the side panels and these things on before I did the topcoat. As a result, I sprayed them a bit. Again, I like to think this works out in the end.

At this point, I was ready to take my foam and do all sorts of measurements and shit to get it all to perfectly align. And then I realized...

Foam is impressionable, and these suckers are serrated.

With that, I pressed my front panel into the circles, carved out the holes, and was able to slide it on just like that.

From there, I eyeballed and trimmed it down before gluing. And I got the circles hooked up as well.

Doodads, part 2

I came across some black desk feet that, with some nuts and a piece of foam glued in for good measure, made for some nice button-looking things on the side panels. Because I needed to work on the tube, though, this won't get applied until closer to the end.

The Tube and the Tools

The bones are good, but what about the tube? The means by which a ghost goes from outside to within?

This, along with lights and other device pieces, required a trip to the hardware store. Believe it or not, I spent quite a bit of time in the plumbing section for this stuff. Kinda funny when you think about it.

Anyway, tube. I went with a drain and bilge tube/pipe thing because it was long and flexible—not to mention easily cuttable with a hacksaw. It's attached to the Poltergust with a metal closet rod support, which again, was about the diameter I needed.

All good, right? Wrong!

That tube wasn't just gonna go into the hole nice and neat. After getting the metal circle around the tube, I cut some slits into it to cheat my constraint, further forcing it in by applying sealant to the circle and clamping that shit down.

Hot glue is nowhere near strong enough for this part. Given that it's metal, on the most vertical slope, and is gonna get tugged around a bit, I opted for sealant. Please keep in mind this shit is strong, so let it cure outside.

Since the sealant takes a while to cure, we can pretend I got everything in one trip and get started on the flashlight attachment. I found this PVC pipe thing that had a slideout bit of pipe, and something about the way it felt in my hand screamed "comically big flashlight". With that, a bell drain cap thingie, a puck light, and some paint later, I had Luigi's flashlight, ready to screw in or change out with a nozzle (which isn't built as of posting. I'm tired and it's daunting and I want to go back to writing.)

But like, wow. I'm a bit screwed when the batteries die, but for this? This is beautiful. See that black bit at the bottom? That's meant to screw into the thing pictured below.

Which, fine, there is a bit of a time skip with this top. But the whole idea is to stuff it with sealant, follow up with hot glue, and put it on the end of a trimmed down, painted bilge tube. To paint the tube, stick the whole Poltergust in a trash bag, poke a hole in it, and feed the tube through. Tape up anything loose, get that spray paint, and spray.

Rule of thumb: do not assume any of my steps are chronological. I'm going off of categories to make a bit of sense out of my madness. A lot of parts were painted in batches because I was waiting on something else and I wanted to save time.

But, once things are painted, glued, and sealed, the worst of the work is over.