Playing the BSG board game. I always play as Baltar. Always.
Got my Desmond Miles tattoo done by my friend Adam late tonight. Freehand Sharpie all the way. Made my Apple of Eden earlier this week. Ready for MTAC tomorrow!
Part of our Fallout group got some great pictures snapped by MageTV at ConNooga 2013.
From left to right: charlesfosteroffdensen inwasteland raider gear, me in the armored Vault 101 suit, my wife in her Vault 101 dress, and Galacticat in raider Painspike armor.
Check out MageTV’s Facebook page for tons of costumes from ConNooga and lots of other cons!
Here are a few pics of our Fallout Vault group at Chattacon 38.
This is my wife’s first time costuming at a convention, and she designed and sewed a Vault Dress based off of the vault suits. Since she’s with me, she kept with being from 101, and since she went the cute girlie route, I made her the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion so she could have some bling.
We need to figure out a good prop for her to carry next time!
Vault Dwellers unite! Geek Media Expo in Franklin, TN - 10/27/12.
I’d seen pictures of Chris & Amy’s Vault suits online and from a distance at DragonCon and AdventureCon, but never gotten to talk to them until GMX. Their suits are absolutely amazing, and they are both super cool people!
Chris made a badass shish kebob that I am really jealous of. Every detail of it is exactly how I had planned out in my mind to do one. I didn’t carry my sniper rifle in because the crowds were a little tightly packed, and big props seemed to just be getting in the way. Plus the guys doing weapons checking were taking forever and had no clue how to peace-bond weapons. They put about three or four on my scoped magnum, to which I went to the bathroom and snipped all but one.
Check out more from my fellow vault dwellers here:
GMX has come and gone, and it was definitely a lot of fun. Let’s recap:
- Hung out with lots of awesome friends
- Met some excellent new friends
- Jessica fell in love with a British Batman
- Dressed in the vault suit and had lots of creepers rub on my PipBoy
- Smelled plenty of BO and loneliness
- Watched as a group of stinky SWAT guys played MTG in the busy hallway
- Saw some fully functional giant robots, and one small one that Jessica called a Roomba and offended the owner
- Heard JPT interview a porn star for The Show
- Had some horrific images burned into my brain from room parties
- Saw plenty of puffy asses hanging out of such things as tutus and Wonder Woman underoos
- Witnessed a girl vomit on herself in an elevator multiple times
- Learned what a “Brony” is
- Got served a bowl of ketchup with my Mariott Burger (super fancy)
- Didn’t take nearly enough pictures
- Almost murdered the annoying Homestucks
- Found Waldo
How to make a Fallout sniper rifle prop gun for about $30!
While I at Dragon*Con, I met some great folks named Fran & Collin (tumblr users woggywoowoo & hobomechanist) dressed as NCR rangers. Fran had a sniper rifle that looked very spot on to a Fallout rifle, and was kind enough to pass on what she made it from and where she got the base gun.
So I got a Jakks Pacific Max Force Shadow Hawk 100 on amazon.com for about $25 shipped:
Oooh, it even comes with free safety glasses.
After analyzing the picture I took with hers at Dragon*Con:
I saw to cut off the top and bottom pieces on the barrel. I used my Dremel to cut those off, filled the bottom holes smoothly with Kwik Plastik, and again used my Dremel to buff off any text that was visible on the gun. I then glued the sumbitch together (it comes in three sections).
Next, I spray primed it with flat black (use whatever $1 can Home Depot/Lowe’s sell) a few times, then hit it with spray silver metallic paint (the good $4 Krylon stuff), and then hit it thoroughly with the cheap flat black spray paint again.
The multiple paint layers are necessary because next I used a $2 sanding block (the one that has coarse to fine all around it) and went crazy on it. I did it the same way I did the scoped pistol I sanded on (but it was already painted at the factory). This gives it that great worn out look.
Be sure not to sand too hard or too much, or orange and white will show through. This did happen to me, but I just used some acrylic flat black to touch up those spots (it doesn’t have to look neat and perfect since you are wearing it out to look post-apocalyptic).
For the final touch I added a small strip of old silver duct tape (that I yet again hit with the sanding block severely) to cover the etched in directional arrows instructing how to put the gun together, and then used some Fuller’s Earth to dirty the gun.
You can get Fuller’s for $12 on eBay ( http://r.ebay.com/cJQWKF ) and that much will get you WAY more than you could need for even two full costumes with guns).
This stuff is great to dirty up your entire Fallout costume… it is the same thing most Mad Max and Sandtrooper cosplayers use. You can create a combo mixture of all three colors for some great dinginess. My brother Jeff has Sandtrooper armor, and told me this trick: spray whatever you want to coat with hairspray (not spray adhesive, because it will forever be sticky) and then blow, sprinkle, or rub on the Fuller’s. You can get a lot of different textures out of this stuff, and when you get each part how you want it, hit it with more hair spray to seal it up. The next day I came home to find all the dirtiness was solid and would not come off on me.
I’m very pleased with how this prop turned out. Thanks to everyone who showed me how to make it along the way, and I hope this gives people some ideas on how to make Fallout rifles easily and on a budget! This will be my prop to carry around GMX this weekend.
I am still compiling info and pictures for a PipBoy build post. Only thing that sucks is that I didn’t take progress pictures, so I might just make another for it.
If you have any questions feel free to message me!
