#tfnerds

Of course there are things that annoy me, like not taking responsibility for your own research, slut shaming, creepers, sloppy craftsmanship, and cattiness, but focusing on such negative feelings only breeds more of it.  The thing to remember is that people are people.  They will have their gripes, but by focusing on negativity we create an increasingly hostile community that stews in toxic thoughts. That said, there are many valid and real issues that should be discussed and improved upon, but there is a time and a place for such discussions to occur in a civilized and productive manner.  Ranting about pet peeves is not helpful or healthy for the cosplay community.  It tears us down. So, while I acknowledge that there are genuine issues that should be addressed, reinforcing negative thoughts with this kind of question is not what I want to give back to the cosplay community.  

Research

The first thing to consider before packing any big props for air travel are your airline's baggage policies.  Each airline has their own rules for checked and oversized baggage, so once you book your tickets research the baggage policies.  Wooden crates and containers other than conventional suitcases are fine, just make sure they can take the beating that baggage handlers can dish out.  Also double check that the materials used in your costume are safe for airline travel.  Some materials could react negatively with the change in air pressure or could simply be dangerous to fly with. Some airports also swab the contents of oversized luggage to check for explosives, and many paints and plastics can trigger a false positive in these devices.

The most basic measurements to have are the dimensions and weight for each piece of your luggage.  In the US, the common weight limit for normal checked baggage is 50lbs and 62 linear inches (length +  width + height), though the numbers may differ depending on the airline.  Anything over 50lbs will be considered oversized, and the upper limits of what the airline will accept varies depending on the airline.  The oversize baggage policies can sometimes be buried, so make sure to research thoroughly if it looks like one of your pieces of luggage will fall into this category.

The Cases

For my Jinx guns, I determined early on that I would have to build crates for each of the three guns in order to travel safely with them.  Since I also had a bit of a time crunch to get everything packed and limited tools (jigsaw and electric drill), I decided to build simple crates out of wood.  

The case for Zap was by far the smallest and quickest to put together and pack.  I made a well padded carrying case out of 1/4” plywood and scrap 1x4” boards for Zap that fits inside my normal checked luggage, and opens easily with a latch and hinge should security feel the need to inspect the prop.  For fun, I added some paint and labels indicating that the piece was a prop. :P

The cases for the other two guns were more of a project to put together.  I built the crates for PowPow and Fishbones out of 1/2” plywood and 1”x 4” boards with plywood lids that would be screwed into place.  When big props like these are your babies, you want to make sure that they are packed well in solid containers.

Since Fishbones is already a massive prop (45” long), the box ended up being about 48-50” long from the get go.  There was no way it would be considered standard baggage, so I had to assume it would have to be treated as oversize.  Seriously, you could fit a body in that thing.

A video posted by @britthebadger on Oct 28, 2015 at 8:13pm PDT

Boyfriend for scale. :P

I did a test fit of Fishbones to lay out how I wanted to pad the crate and painted on up arrows and fragile warnings with some additional artistic flair on the lid. After finishing up the crate, complete with rope handles at each end, I padded it with mattress topper foam and packed Fishbones in, carefully encasing the prop in bubble wrap and more foam.

Anyway, after building Fishbones' crate and weighing it (about a 48lb crate to hold a 10lb prop!), the overall dimensions of the crate were just outside of the outer range of an acceptable piece of oversize luggage for the airline I was taking. :(

Sometimes, it just doesn't work out, but I still ended up with a safe, solid, and pretty cool looking travel case for a very large, awkward prop! I had to ship it in the end, but sometimes, pieces are just too big to travel with easily.  Regardless, the crate did its job well and Fishbones arrived at our destination and home again safe and sound.

While Fishbones ended up simply being too big to fly with, PowPow's crate dimensions worked out in our favor.  While my PowPow is 24” long, I'm able to detach the front of the barrels, which made packing and crating this gun far more reasonable.  The dimensions came in under the size limit for normal checked baggage and we managed to just barely squeak by with a total weight of 49lbs!

The Traveling Process

So, regardless of the fact that the dimensions and weight of PowPow and the crate were considered conventional baggage (not oversized), it is a gun prop that could bring up some confusion with security, so we made sure to leave extra time in case of any snags with checking the crate.  When we arrived at the airport for our flight to the event, we were honest and up front with the people in the check-in line and asked if there was a way that we could make sure that the crate would be handled carefully and so that if there was a problem with the contents, the prop wouldn't get damaged or the lid of the crate pried off.  Luckily for us, they said we should just have it checked through the oversize luggage area (we were still only charged for normal size baggage) for special handling and we were able to open the lid and they could go through their security measures without issue.

On the way back home, we went through the same protocol of asking where we could take the crate so that it could be checked out and be a-ok.  We were well received and were directed to some folks at a security station that could handle our situation.  This time, we were very glad we had some extra time since this airport's security team took the crate through some extra measures and were a bit concerned by the large lithium ion battery I had installed in the prop (for the spinning barrel mechanism).  Unfortunately, when I had made the prop originally, I had not been able to incorporate an easy way to remove the battery, so there was no easy way for them to inspect it. Luckily, since we were up front with the contents of the crate, had brought it to them to check out, and explained the situation in a calm and collected manner, they let PowPow be checked onto the plane with us on a judgment call.

Overall, flying with PowPow and Zap was successful!  However, I would recommend that if you are traveling with large props, you will want to be able to disassemble and separate potentially questionable portions of the prop, such as large brick-like masses that could look suspicious to an x-ray machine and make sure that whatever materials or chemicals you end up using in building your prop are considered safe for air travel.

Photo by On Impulse Photography

Creating the Base Frame

The first step was to design and figure out the dimensions of the frame.  I wanted to have the main sitting area of the corner raised off of the ground about 5” and large enough for me to sit against the wall with my feet stretched out comfortably.  With some H31P, we started out by making a 4'x4' square of flooring out of 3/4” thick plywood and 1”x 4” boards.

The pieces were all cut with a jigsaw since it was the only powered cutting tool we had on hand.  We used wood glue and 2 1/2” and 1 1/2” wood screws to fasten all of the pieces together.  Once the base frame was put together with some additional bracing pieces at the back-most corner (where the majority of the weight and stress from sitting would be), we covered the plywood with some thin 1/4”  finishing plywood for a nice, smooth, splinter-free finish, then trimmed it down to the 3/4” plywood with a router and flush trim bit.  Since I would do a lot of sitting in the corner leaning against the wall, I decided to include two rock-themed headboards,The two headboards were then cut freehand out of 1/4”  plywood with the jigsaw.

With the floor frame put together and the base headboards cut, it was time to add some reinforcement to the headboards!  I added a horizontal 1”x 4” plank along each headboard positioned to sit just above the baseboards of the wall as well as a few vertical supports. The supports were secured with 3/4” screws and wood glue and then covered over in white felt fabric (with spray adhesive) to minimize potential damage to the drywall.  I also made sure to cut a hole for the wall outlet with the jigsaw so that I could still use it!  The headboards are not physically secured to the floor frame, but are kept in place by the supports on the back and are wedged between the floor frame and the wall.

Next up on the list was to cover everything with squishy foam padding!  I bought a queen size mattress topper from Wal-Mart and stapled it to the headboards, making sure to leave enough allowance to turn the foam over the top edge.  For the floor frame, a friend of mine provided some 1/2” upholstery foam to add some extra cushion under the mattress topper foam.  Again, the foam was stapled in place.

With all of the foam in place, it was time to start working on the fabric covers!  While I could have created a simple fabric cover, I wanted to play around and have fun with making this cuddle corner into a cute little tide pool.  I dug through a bunch of my scrap fabric from old projects and started patching the pieces together and figuring out good combinations of durability, color, and texture.  I ended up doing a ton of appliqué with a tight zigzag stitch to create the mussels, barnacles, anemones, starfish, and other sea creatures that call the tidal zone home.  I also decided to gather some fabric to create some seaweed dangling from the top of one of the rock headboards for some critters to hide behind!

Once all of the applique was done, it was time to get it secured.  I carefully stretched the fabric over the foam and wood forms and then stapled it in place.  For the floor frame, I tucked under the raw edge of the fabric before I stapled the fabric down to create a cleaner edge.

With the fabric in place, all that was left to do was to push the pieces together into the corner!  Take a look!

All that was left was to deck it out with more pillows, blankets, and other soft things!

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.

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

Anyway, on to the rest of the build.  Fishbones is a BIG prop, I mean...gun, I mean...sharkzooka, I mean...rocket launcher. :P 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!  

 Photoset by Costographer