Team Fortress 2 Level 3 Sentry Gun

Ahh, the level 3 sentry gun. The holy grail of Team Fortress 2 props. It only took me about a decade to get around to....

Immediately after finishing the "level 1" sentry gun (I use "level one loosely as I look back on it somewhat unsatisfied with the proportions and scale, but more on that in another post) I went to work on the level three, which looks like this: 

I paid slightly more attention to scale and proportions, but like my first version, ultimately didn't make any blueprints or anything. I just eyeballed it from a few screen shots.

I also didn't think 8 years ago people would be reading my blogs, so my photos are horrid on this project and are taken with a flip phone in a messy garage and/or bedroom up until a certain point. This sentry gun survived (Mostly) 5 moving trips during my time in college and right after. I refused to let it go, and was adamant about finishing it one day. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it. It might take me 8 years, but I do it dammit!

21 year old me started on the base, using the same materials and techniques as the previous sentry.

I made the miniguns out of an MDF frame with lots of supports, and a thin wrap of styrene for the skin. Then the well for the ammo belt feed and other details and layering were made. I skimped on photos here. That, or they got lost long ago. 

It started looking imposing at this point, especially at low angles. TMI. 

Like the previous build, the canister was made out of a polypropylene trash can. Glue and paint doesn't stick to it particularly well, so it needed a lot of sanding and reinforcements to bite the paint and glue. 

The missile pod was made from sheet styrene, as well as the support arms and shroud around the canister. This all had to be as light as humanly possible as the design is not only back heavy, but that little support arm is made from MDF... not the strongest stuff in the world. Not to mention it would later be supporting thick cables, a few layers of sealing and paint, plus the giant ammo belts that plug into the back end. The "holes" for the missiles are solo cups. I wasn't exactly the worlds wealthiest 21 year old, and this whole project only cost me around 100-200 bucks in the end in raw materials. That's about $2.08 in sentry gun monthly payments over 8 years. I can live with that. People do dumber things with their coin....

Getting a little bit ahead of myself, I began to seal and paint everything. Which, could have been worse since it sat like this for years. 

Then after school I found myself on the move quite a bit. During one of the last moves, I left the miniguns in my hatchback during the summer. They baked in the car and were in direct sunlight for at least a day. Styrene as you might know is a thermoplastic, and warps considerably in high temperatures. One of the skins on the cannons became warped to high heaven. the other less so, but noticeable still. I ripped the un-salvageable one apart. 

I had forgotten how tough I made these. It didn't just de-laminate at the frame like I was hoping. The parts supporting the styrene were everywhere, and as a result everything broke to some degree when taking it off. 

Even though it wasn't as bad as it looks, it still took me half a day to salvage what I could without remaking the whole thing, which I was quite happy with considering if one of those supports was off or the circles weren't concentric, the whole thing would wrap together nicely and be structurally or cosmetically sound enough. 

I used thicker styrene this time, so the heat wouldn't distort it. At least in my state's temperature range. A bit more fussy to do, but worth the peace of mind. I taped it in place and let the glue dry. 

I cut the hole for the frame mount. Its harder than it looks, because if the hole is too small, it obviously won't sit. If the hole is too big, or crooked, a gap might show and there is no way to patch it and still preserve the curvature that is supposed to be there. I simply marked and measured, using masking tape edges as guides. Great success. Is nice. 

 I caked on some wood glue and hopefully it will last many years. 

The holes for the magazine well was much easier to measure and cut. After copying the other gun, I glued the salvage magwell on top of the new skin and cut out the hole. 

Welcome home, you 8 year old piece of MDF.

I once again had non-distorted miniguns! The other side needed moderate filling and sanding to preserve.

I skimped on photos for the rear most legs. Surprised? Anyways, this was kind of a pain. I didnt want to just use a plate or a saucer. The feet in game have a very angled but subtle look to them. I cut one out on a scroll saw, adjusted it as needed, and made a bunch of copies. I did some half-assed math to do this, but more than anything I'm pretty sure I just got lucky that it all fit together. The inside circle doesn't matter since its getting cut out for a PVC coupling. 

New guns mounted, new feet taking shape.

These rear legs....were a complete pain. No amount of screenshots could give me the correct angles at which they meet. They are kinked on at least 3 axis' and nothing is perfectly horizontal or vertical to reference off of. It took a lot of temporary gluing and real world fitting/frustration to get these right. 

Time to paint (Again) and make some ammo belts! Before I forget, Those rings on the barrel are made from 1/2 inch MDF. Except for the white ones, which are styrene to keep the weight down. 21 year old me didn't own a hand drill, and certainly not a drill press. They were ALL drafted by hand and cut by hand on a scroll saw. It was a ton of work. The styrene holes were sanded out with a dremel. 

Not only was the old paint showing its age, but the company that make the paint doesn't offer it any more so the new parts wouldn't have matched. It all got sanded, primed, and painted. Again. Which is a few days of work by itself. 

The ammo belts were hastily made from EVA foam, and were the only rushed part of this build. I wanted to get it ready for a local convention, called Silicon Valley Comic Con. Do I need to mention for the Nth time that I didn't take pictures?

The results are nothing short of spectacular. Not only is this fun to have at a convention, but this bad boy greets guests in my living room. Every day. So worth it. 

Photo by Asian Treehouse Studios.

Photo by Neeko Cosplay Photography

Photo by Kiel of Kairu Photography

I entered a costume contest for my first time. I wore my soldier costume instead of my engineer, and brought the sentry.... 

The result was my first award! hooray!

Yeah, I don't think I can top that, but this isn't the end of my sentry gun builds...

Destiny Phaeton Class Jumpship V2

With the sheer amount of hand cannons I had been churning out since January, I decided I needed a change of pace. I decided to make a small set of jumpships from the Destiny universe, in a 5-6 inch scale much like the deluxe micro machine star wars vehicles from back in the day.

The ones that caught my attention were the aspect of glass, the kestrel class ships, and the phaeton class ships. With the kestrel class chassis being smaller and more complex, I started with the other two, which had similar engines anyways that I could share on both ship types. I began to make both ships, side by side, starting with engines from the "Aspect of Glass".

I got about 90% of the chassis done, but then decided I wanted to finish the phaeton class chassis first. The Phaeton engines would have been relatively easy to sculpt, but a complete pain to cast/replicate. The resulting ship is a hybrid of the two. 

I started off cutting out the tiny styrene bits for the engines.

Some of these layers are fairly thick, so I had to laminate certain thicknesses together to get a "stepping" effect between panels. 

When I had two sets, I carefully assembled them with super glue.

Details were added, and all beveling on the corners were done carefully with an Exacto knife. 

Unfortunately, the intakes and details weren't symmetrical so I didn't bother casting one engine any trying to modify one into the opposite side. I simply just built them both up.

It was a tedious but rewarding process.

This little intake scoop goes between the engine and the pylon, and I even beveled the tiny insert that sits deep inside. 

For the final touch, I added the remaining panels and fins! Its so cute and tiny. 

For the first time, I decided to try and build upon a 3D print. Well, I guess it technically isn't the first time since I did that for the Hawkmoon, but that was built off someone else's work and I certainly hadn't planned it from the get-go. This one would be all me and have my name on it

I purchased this 3D print off someone on Etsy, which is just a two part print from the low poly game file. I could have spent a year trying to sand it down to perfection, Or I could do the sensible thing and hack off the side engines, cut the chassis in two, hack off the bottom engines, and cast the thing in resin to get it out of PLA as fast as humanly possible.

Oops.

This is how I oriented the parts, then I poured silicone. I didn't take pictures, and you're not missing much,  The molds were quick and terrible, meant only for 1 pour. 

One of the side "gills" was deformed from printing so I re-make it in styrene, as well as the other nose panels and scribed some details. 

I continued on, using different thicknesses of styrene.

I got excited and did a test fit with the engine, and primed it up. 

There are "Modules" that go in front of the rear tails, one is pictured here. It was scratch built in styrene, later to be mold/cast. The Tails were resurfaced with some crisp styrene detail. Molding it would ensure I wouldn't have to make the same piece twice (Everyone hates that..) as well as good symmetry. 

There are two inset triangular sections at the mid-section of the ship that I wanted to re-make. Thankfully the Aspect of Glass chassis I made earlier had these same details on them.

I used some clay and made a dam around the details, and made tiny silicone molds of the area.
When they cured, I flipped them over, made a dam around the mold bits, and poured some resin. 

I continued with the styrene at the fins, and inset one of the cast details in place of the old one. The original one on the right was ok, but they left side had been nearly sanded out completely from getting rid of the 3D print texture.

Another important thing in this photo are the modules towards the top. The one on the left is the styrene made master, the darker one on the right was cast from a teeny tiny silicone mold. 

I clayed up the engine for molding, and poured the silicone. Possibly the smallest two part mold I've made to date!

The chassis got the same treatment, but first I had to  re-make the engines on the underside, add panel lines and plating everywhere, and clean up the entire bottom half. I didn't take pictures, but the master is on the left, and the first cast is on the right. 

First test assembly:

I prepped up a few ships for painting and put down the base colors.

A few days later I had a fleet!
I made the stand fairly quickly out of MDF, I'll end up molding that shortly too.

Thanks for reading!

Want a jumpship of your own? I'll have resin kits in the store soon.

Still not sure how big/little these guys are? Scale insert here.