Eldar Shuriken Pistol Life Size, A life size Eldar pistol

[Mortis]

So after Adepticon I was really hyped about 40k, but really super not interested in working on yet more miniatures. At least for a little while. So I started working on something I had wanted to do for a while, making sci fi prop pistols. Many of these are simply resin kits that I'm painting up decent but some of them are going to be made from scratch.

I was going to make a bolter pistol but it seems like there are quite a few people who have done that, so I decided an Eldar Shuriken pistol would be much more interesting to do.



I started off with layering 1/2 inch aspen wood (easy to sand) with 1/4 inch plywood (strong and against the grain of the other layers) for a basic shape.






Then i got things sanded down to be smoother and added the side wings for the front.











I plan on filling the front part with foam and coating it with resin or bondo. The clip receiver will be a PVC pipe and a sculpted clip that will fit into it.

Not sure what I will do with the soul gems other than to sculpt them on and give them a really cool paint job. Somehow I think making them clear or using plastic gems will just look cheap.

-Mortis-

[Mortis]

I've gotten some more parts filled in on the pistol.



The wood half circle on the bottom is mostly just as a reference for the foam filling and to give a nice stable piece to glue things to.



The back hammer like part is sanded and in place. Will do more sanding later to blend it in and shape it a bit better.




Roughed in the shape by gluing in sheets of foam.



Finally I sanded it down and added the clip.



Since it shoots out the equivalent of ninja throwing stars, the barrel is flat.



Next i need to cover it in some two part resin for a nice solid exterior and add some more foam in the rear to get that shape down.

[Mortis]

Sanding that front part has taken a number of different times and days to sand, putty, sand, prime, repeat. But in the end it turned out pretty good. I might still try to smooth it out a little more but over all it is ok. Problem with Eldar is that in their history they are artisans and are ancient with wisdom and skill so to try and make an item that represents their level of workmanship is a bit of a task. Hopefully I get close.



I made the clip removable and with a huge magnet in the top for it to click into place when put in the receiver. This seemed to work out ok, unfortunately when i added the extra resin detailing on the bottom part, it added too much weight to it and now it falls out pretty easily. Not sure exactly what I am going to do to resolve that, maybe more magnets or a metal clip or something.



I did add a shuriken to the top of the clip. The idea of how the gun is suppose to work is there is a solid metal rod shaped like a shuriken, then the gun shaves of a micro thin layer of the metal and fires it out the front like a magnetic rail gun.



I also had some problems with the clip spinning since it is round and only held in place with a magnet so I added a small grove to the top and glued a bit into the receiver to hold it all straight.


I added the front site on to the pistol, and just started adding the back shroud. This too will need a lot of sanding, but at least it is mostly flat surfaces on the side so hopefully that will go better than the front piece.



After that it is finishing off the detail on the grip and trigger, finishing the clip, and adding some soul gems to the sides and it should be done.

I also want to add some fine detail that just is not possible in the 25mm miniatures but I am not exactly sure what to add yet. It needs to look hightech and artistic so i really don't want to add screws or too many panel lines or anything. (Technically these guys make stuff by growing and altering a substance known as wraith bone, so even their guns would look more like a smooth 3D printed item than a metal cast and [I Swear Too Much] together one.) I might include a jack port in the handle for "jacking into" the weapon and possibly a small display on top, but I really do not plan on illuminating this one or giving it any more moving parts other than the removable clip so perhaps that would be best left to a second try or a cast of this one.

[Mud]

Cool, very nice work. Kudos to you guys that go 1:1 scale :P