River's Sonic

[ailaG]

I built.. sort of a mark VI sonic (David Tennant's / Christopher Eccleston's model) which I want to upgrade to River's and I have no idea what to use for materials.

Main problems I expect -
1. All these gold areas. I can't just paint it gold.. they're 3d.
2. Gaps and holes, I can cut my sonic (it's plain and not finished) but I don't really know what to do with them. The base for example- the part between the solid black and the gray.
3. The ring and arm holding the tube (I could probably improvise the tube)

Thanks

[galacticprobe]

Well, going in order:

1. Gold areas. They've got a greenish tarnish on them. Gold doesn't tarnish so I would go with brass if you wanted to stay with a metal rather than paint. The shiny parts would come close to a gold-ish color, and brass does tarnish green, so brass would be a good fit for those parts;

2. Gaps and holes. Not sure about those. Could you post a photo with the areas you mention highlighted with arrows? I'm looking at my CO River sonic and can't really see any holes in the area you're describing (or I'm just being dense and not understanding it, which is entirely possible );

3. Improvising the tube (ring and arm assembly). If you have a craft store or hobby shop near you, you could check them for acrylic rods as in photos of the prop it does look more like a solid rod than a hollow tube (and it would be stronger). If you don't have any of those stores nearby, you could check out Tap Plastics (http://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/plastic_rods_tubes_shapes). The link is to their products page and they do have both tubes and rods in thin diameters. You can look both over and see which one strikes you best and for the diameter you're looking for, their prices are very inexpensive.

I hope some of this is helpful.

Dino.

[ailaG]

Thanks!
Okay, I'll embarrass myself a little. I've only done a few projects that can count as "building" or "sculpting", I usually only draw. I know NOTHING about materials except those I've used (I carved / whittled wood once, cut through plastic, painted a little.. So that's ALL I know. Here is my repertoire. I don't even know what type of paint to use where, I just go by trial and error. I'm using these projects to learn)

I also don't mind using different materials than the original sonic, as long as the result is elegant enough. My wooden sonic, for example, is completely different material-wise from its reference, but it's precise enough to be elegant.

And the embarrassing part - the CE/DT sonic I tried to make is in papier maché: Link1, Link2.
It's not finished, obviously. It's a prototype and I want to extend it into a prototype of River's sonic, make all the mistakes there so I can later create a good, real one. From papier maché? I don't know, possibly, probably not. I just saw the materials and my whole brain just went "what the hell".

So now it's either finding a whole new way to create the body of the sonic, or upgrading this one.

This is the primary sketch I made: Link See the question mark? the entire area to its left, including it, until the black tip, I am clueless about. I can't modify the papier maché that well. I can't create it with any other material.

I'll look up sculpting with brass now, I always thought it's too complicated to do on the amateur level, at home. Thanks again.. If anything else comes to mind let me know.

[galacticprobe]

Comparing my CO River Sonic to your drawing, there aren't really any "holes". The area under the "cutouts" in the band directly above the "finger ring" is the same all around that band: the lined sections are there all around, and it's all brass/gold, with a sliver of silver in the right of the large cutout.

Moving further left towards the end, that light "square" in the shaded area is the same brass/gold color as the band above the finger ring, and there are four of those squares evenly spaced around that shaded area.

Does that help at all? If not, I can try to capture your sketch and add some color to it to show what I mean.

Dino.