Hello everyone,
This is my first experience with movie prop building, prior to this I've only built small scale decorations for Warhammers LOTR figurines, such as a (not so movie accurate) Helm's Deep, Weathertop, or Dol Guldur.
But after seeing the Avengers for the third time, I though it would be cool to dedicate my movie room to Marvel's heroes, and super heroes in general, so after finding this forum and quite a bit of research I started with a few things : Thor's Hammer Mjolnir, Cap' shield and Iron Man helmet.
I'll keep Mjolnir and the shield in this thread, because I can't focus on one prop at the time, since I have to wait sometimes weeks before getting the parts I need, so I progress at the same time as I get what I need !
Mjolnir
I got the idea from here, I started with the licensed toy I bought on ebay, rather cheap and good looking !
Once I got it, I filled it with expansible foam, nothing fancy here, but the real work is for the handle. The toy one is not very pretty, and I saw a member here (sorry, can't find the thread again nor his name, but thanks to him !) replacing the handle with a table foot, so I looked in my garage and found an aluminum tube that had the perfect diameter.
I cut it the same length as the toy, since the dimensions seemed quite accurate, and I also bought some leatherish tape that I cut with the same pattern and dimension as the ones on the toy :
The plan is to also fill it with foam once it will be glued to the hammer, but it still was very lightweight, so I found a steel rod in a cheap airsoft gun magazine like this :
and glued it as well as sealed it in foam to the base of the hammer, so the weight will be at the center more or less.
I also tried to make the wrist-trap in the same leatherish tape, using hot glue to fold it like I wanted, but having no experience with a hot glue gun, it didn't turn out how I wanted to, I kinda made a mess So I'll see if I can fix it, since one side is good, but I may end up re-doing it once I'll have mastered the glue gun :lol and bought some more tape, I used everything.
the good side :
the bad side :
I quickly assembled all the pieces with tape to see what it looks like, and I'm pretty pleased, even if it's far from perfect. I'll have to glue all of them together with hot glue and make the leather laces too. I'll probably also remake the paint job on the hammer to match the aluminum.
(keep it mind that this is just a test, it needs to be glued carefully with a 0,4 mm gap between each strap, here I randomly made the gaps !)
And here is it next to the toy handle :
They are the same size, it's just the perspective.
Once the hammer itself will be done, I'll quickly make a styrofoam display base in mat black very much like this (found it on google image) :
with a nice custom plaque I designed and will have it made by Pastor Jedi :
This is it for now for Mjolnir.
Captain America Shield
I found a blank shield on eBay in aluminum, and thought I could paint it and cut a star myself for it, so I bought it, and then I search in the RPF for similar thread. Turns out I have the same shield (or very much similar) as Valor, so I pretty much follow his lead, and bought a star from him.
However the dupli color anodized paint is nowhere to be found in my country, nor in neighboring countries, so I order it directly from Dupli color, which cost me more than twice the regular price :unsure.
And even if I have a Valor star, I wanted to make the shield as movie accurate as I could, that means that the star can't stand out of the shield, and gluing it wouldn't do it. So I asked my father if he could engrave the star directly on the shield, using his laser, but he's currently running some test with an aluminum sheet I found in the garage, to be sure he can do it. The thing is, he's a surgeon and it's a medical laser, less powerful than an industrial one, and I really want to make sure he can draw a perfect star, since it's hand operated (with a joystick, behind a screen or really directly using it like a pen). I'd use Valor' star as a template, and as a replacement solution if the laser doesn't work.
Here is the shield, nothing new to all of you, but it's such a beautiful thing !
And I also have a custom plaque for it :
That's all I got, any critics, suggestions, positive or negative are welcome, and I'm forever grateful to this forum and all its members for sharing their knowledge, without it I wouldn't even have dreamed about doing this !
ps : Iron Man props will be in another thread, because after seeing some foam suits, I just have to try it myself ! And I'll start as soon as I get the foam.
ps2 : I apologize for any spelling mistakes or incorrect grammar use, I try to be careful but english is not my first language.
This is my first experience with movie prop building, prior to this I've only built small scale decorations for Warhammers LOTR figurines, such as a (not so movie accurate) Helm's Deep, Weathertop, or Dol Guldur.
But after seeing the Avengers for the third time, I though it would be cool to dedicate my movie room to Marvel's heroes, and super heroes in general, so after finding this forum and quite a bit of research I started with a few things : Thor's Hammer Mjolnir, Cap' shield and Iron Man helmet.
I'll keep Mjolnir and the shield in this thread, because I can't focus on one prop at the time, since I have to wait sometimes weeks before getting the parts I need, so I progress at the same time as I get what I need !
Mjolnir
I got the idea from here, I started with the licensed toy I bought on ebay, rather cheap and good looking !
Once I got it, I filled it with expansible foam, nothing fancy here, but the real work is for the handle. The toy one is not very pretty, and I saw a member here (sorry, can't find the thread again nor his name, but thanks to him !) replacing the handle with a table foot, so I looked in my garage and found an aluminum tube that had the perfect diameter.
I cut it the same length as the toy, since the dimensions seemed quite accurate, and I also bought some leatherish tape that I cut with the same pattern and dimension as the ones on the toy :
The plan is to also fill it with foam once it will be glued to the hammer, but it still was very lightweight, so I found a steel rod in a cheap airsoft gun magazine like this :
and glued it as well as sealed it in foam to the base of the hammer, so the weight will be at the center more or less.
I also tried to make the wrist-trap in the same leatherish tape, using hot glue to fold it like I wanted, but having no experience with a hot glue gun, it didn't turn out how I wanted to, I kinda made a mess So I'll see if I can fix it, since one side is good, but I may end up re-doing it once I'll have mastered the glue gun :lol and bought some more tape, I used everything.
the good side :
the bad side :
I quickly assembled all the pieces with tape to see what it looks like, and I'm pretty pleased, even if it's far from perfect. I'll have to glue all of them together with hot glue and make the leather laces too. I'll probably also remake the paint job on the hammer to match the aluminum.
(keep it mind that this is just a test, it needs to be glued carefully with a 0,4 mm gap between each strap, here I randomly made the gaps !)
And here is it next to the toy handle :
They are the same size, it's just the perspective.
Once the hammer itself will be done, I'll quickly make a styrofoam display base in mat black very much like this (found it on google image) :
with a nice custom plaque I designed and will have it made by Pastor Jedi :
This is it for now for Mjolnir.
Captain America Shield
I found a blank shield on eBay in aluminum, and thought I could paint it and cut a star myself for it, so I bought it, and then I search in the RPF for similar thread. Turns out I have the same shield (or very much similar) as Valor, so I pretty much follow his lead, and bought a star from him.
However the dupli color anodized paint is nowhere to be found in my country, nor in neighboring countries, so I order it directly from Dupli color, which cost me more than twice the regular price :unsure.
And even if I have a Valor star, I wanted to make the shield as movie accurate as I could, that means that the star can't stand out of the shield, and gluing it wouldn't do it. So I asked my father if he could engrave the star directly on the shield, using his laser, but he's currently running some test with an aluminum sheet I found in the garage, to be sure he can do it. The thing is, he's a surgeon and it's a medical laser, less powerful than an industrial one, and I really want to make sure he can draw a perfect star, since it's hand operated (with a joystick, behind a screen or really directly using it like a pen). I'd use Valor' star as a template, and as a replacement solution if the laser doesn't work.
Here is the shield, nothing new to all of you, but it's such a beautiful thing !
And I also have a custom plaque for it :
That's all I got, any critics, suggestions, positive or negative are welcome, and I'm forever grateful to this forum and all its members for sharing their knowledge, without it I wouldn't even have dreamed about doing this !
ps : Iron Man props will be in another thread, because after seeing some foam suits, I just have to try it myself ! And I'll start as soon as I get the foam.
ps2 : I apologize for any spelling mistakes or incorrect grammar use, I try to be careful but english is not my first language.
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