'Eleventh Hour' CO Sonic Screwdriver Conversion

[The14thDr]

I'm a bit of a self-confessed "sonic junkie", so imagine my excitement when I walked into Toys 'R' Us yesterday and saw that they were selling off their sonic screwdrivers for £4.99!! Naturally, I snapped up the Ninth Doctor's sonic (I'm only Time Lord, after all! )


I mentioned in another thread that there are a couple of inaccuracies with this sonic (ie. They painted the casing blue, even though Eccleston never used a blue sonic screwdriver). And if this wasn't bad enough, they used the Classic era sound effects rather than the New Series effects. However, with my Raggedy Doctor costume almost completed, I decided it was high-time I got myself a screen-accurate Raggedy Doctor sonic. Thanks to superrichi1a's fantastic advice over in the Workshop thread, I have all of the resources I need to carry out the conversion.
http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=6601.msg82073#msg82073


The first job I needed to do was to paint the blue slider strip. After looking at reference photos from The Eleventh Hour, I decided that the entire strip (including the two activation buttons at the top and bottom) needed to be blue. Luckily (and by a huge coincidence) the blue acrylic paint I have in the cupboard is an almost perfect match for the blue slider, so today I painted the buttons and the slider.



More updates soon.
Kind regards, The14thDr

[The14thDr]

Just a quick update. This morning I sanded down the body of the sonic screwdriver, ready for the grey undercoat and then the blue paint on top. Photos coming soon.

Kind regards, The14thDr

[The14thDr]

Okay, so this update is way overdue, but that's only because it took me a lot longer than I'd hoped to buy the white acrylic paint I'd need to start the conversion properly.

So, the first step was to disassembled the sonic:



Then I moved onto masking off the areas of the barrel that I didn't want to be painted.



For the undercoat of the sonic, I mixed together some black and white acrylic paints together to get a grey that I liked. A trick I discovered for painting the little crackles is to apply the paint as normal, and gently rub it into the sonic using your finger.



Next steps: paint the sonic blue and begin the weathering...

Kind regards, The14thDr

[galacticprobe]

I like the way they re-worked the slider screw and "cap", and removed that pen nub from the back end. I wish they'd done that with some of the earlier re-releases of this sonic, regardless of what color the body was. (I'd get one of these, but so many people gave me one of these as gifts over the years that I've got at least three! I can't justify another.

But yours is starting to look great, 14th! I like that grey color you mixed. I can't wait to see the next step. (If you're making this into the burnt-out sonic from "The Eleventh Hour", I know it will be painful to watch, but still intriguing to see it take shape.)

Dino.

[The14thDr]

Sorry for the lack of updates, Time Lords and Ladies; I've taken a self-imposed break from prop building for a couple of months, but I'm back now for the foreseeable future, so I can crack on with finishing up a few incomplete projects.

This afternoon I finally got round to painting the sonic blue. Unfortunately, the paint I mixed is a little too dark, so a lighter coat will be needed on top.


Kind regards, The14thDr

P.S. I reckon this wins the medal for the most drawn-out small build ever; so far it's taken me nearly 4 months to sand down the body and apply 2 coats of paint to this sonic. At this rate I reckon I should be done sometime in 2020, perhaps?

[The14thDr]

Here is the sonic after I applied the third coat of blue paint. The photo is quite dark, but in real life the colour looks much more screen-accurate.
I also painted the slider cap with the same blue, although this will only be a temporary fixture (in the New Year I plan on 3D printing a more accurate slider.)


At the moment I am mid-way through weathering the sonic, so expect another update later on this evening.

Kind regards, The14thDr

[The14thDr]

To weather the body of the sonic, I started by rubbing some watered-down black acrylic paint into the crackles. I then began sanding the paint off the sonic at strategic areas to give the desired effect.


I then lightly sanded the other parts of the sonic, to remove some of the paint and plastic sheen, giving an aged, heavily weathered effect.




Overall I'm really happy with this (although weathering/damaging the sonic was a painful business )

[Karomak]

Looks really nice! If I were you (phff, if I were you)I'd sand down the buttons to look more like that blue line. Or if you were very daring you could try and mod the button onto the slider

[The14thDr]

Thanks Karomak. I'll most likely sand down the buttons tomorrow.

As for your second point; modding the button onto the slider is something that I would like to try in the future (if only I knew how, without sacrificing too much of the sonic's durability.)

Kind regards, The14thDr

[superrichi1a]

This actually looks surprisingly good! I thought it was a reference picture for a moment - far superior to my CO modifications!
One more small paint modification you may be interested in is to get a very small amount of silver paint and dap it on carefully with a scrunched up piece of tissue in strategic areas. This will give the impression the metal is showing through chipped off bits of paint and really give it a proper TARDIS-burnt feel!
Also a nice touch here would be to glue a small screw head underneath the slider channel. This is something that was unique to the 11th Hour model and was added to straighten them sliding action, as the acrylic rod was cracking out of shape!

[The14thDr]

This actually looks surprisingly good! I thought it was a reference picture for a moment - far superior to my CO modifications!

Thanks Rich! (Can I call you Rich?) I'm actually quite surprised at how well this turned out (and I'm humbled that you thought it was a reference picture ). As for your CO modifications, I'd love to see/read about some of them.

One more small paint modification you may be interested in is to get a very small amount of silver paint and dap it on carefully with a scrunched up piece of tissue in strategic areas. This will give the impression the metal is showing through chipped off bits of paint and really give it a proper TARDIS-burnt feel!

That's a great idea!! I'll work on this at the weekend, and upload more photos then.

Also a nice touch here would be to glue a small screw head underneath the slider channel. This is something that was unique to the 11th Hour model and was added to straighten them sliding action, as the acrylic rod was cracking out of shape!

Ah yes, I completely forgot about the screw head (and I never knew it was added to straighten the sliding action, thanks for sharing that.) Come to think of it, wasn't there a second screw head on the back of the sonic? Again, I'll probably work on this detail at the weekend.

Kind regards, The14thDr

[superrichi1a]

Haha please do call me Rich!
My CO attempts really aren't worth the time! I haven't tried one in ages seeing as they got so hard to get! But if I get the time I'll dig one out I wanted to do a 50th "MFX" converted version, but never got around to it!

I think with some silver paint this will come out a treat! Obviously there's some subjectivity here, but I think the "spirit" of the 11th Hour is that it really is a dying tool. Both the prop, and the in-universe sonic, have been through so much (including just being hit by a regeneration) that it's failing, physically and functionally. The more beat up the better!

Yep! Actually there are 3 screws and they're all 3mm cross headed machine screws. There's the one under the slider, then there are two on the back which screw through the body in order to hold in the upper and lower metal collars through pressure

[The14thDr]

Haha please do call me Rich!
My CO attempts really aren't worth the time! I haven't tried one in ages seeing as they got so hard to get! But if I get the time I'll dig one out

That would be great! I love seeing sonic builds/modifications (I guess you could say I'm a bit of a sonic junkie - stealing borrowing Dino's phrase there )

I think with some silver paint this will come out a treat! Obviously there's some subjectivity here, but I think the "spirit" of the 11th Hour is that it really is a dying tool. Both the prop, and the in-universe sonic, have been through so much (including just being hit by a regeneration) that it's failing, physically and functionally. The more beat up the better!

I agree. There isn't really a screen-accurate way to build the 11th Hour sonic (unless you're building the "clean" version) as like you say, this sonic is a dying tool; there isn't really a way to exactly replicate the damage and weathering.

Yep! Actually there are 3 screws and they're all 3mm cross headed machine screws. There's the one under the slider, then there are two on the back which screw through the body in order to hold in the upper and lower metal collars through pressure

Thanks for the info Rich. (I only thought there were 2 screws, so thank you for letting me know.) I'll add these at the weekend (along with the silver paint.)

Expect another update in a few days.

Kind regards, The14thDr