So, this announcement is two-fold. First off, I'm building a Gunlance, and it's looking great. Secondly, come ACen this May, I will be entering the Masquerade for the first time. Usually I avoid the masquerades and contests because I never have my costume done in time, but this time I have the fully upgraded set of armor and a new weapon, both of which should definitely be done in time. Also, this should be the second time I've been able to do a group costume with my best friend Kevin, who will be making Monster Hunter Guild Knight armor for the occasion.
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| Yeah. It's huge. |
This have been a fascinating project that really feels like the total sum of everything I've learned about working with cardboard, glue, and tape. It's sturdy, it's fairly light, and it's quite well put together, while still being to scale and fairly accurate. This gunlance has been far more mathematical than anything I've made before. I spent some time carefully measuring and scaling the size of the gunlance from the PSP itself and after some initial calculations, I had to change the scale for someone even shorter than myself so this thing could still be manageable.
What I'm really proud of, though, is that I not only made it to scale, but also functional in some ways. The whole thing can actually fold up and collapse so it takes up less space and makes it easy to transport.
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| The barrel folds down and the handle slides into itself |
However, in it's current condition, there is actually a problem with it being folded out: The barrel doesn't stay up and puts stress on the hinge. So, that brings us to the title. Kevin has given me some rare earth magnets (the ultra strong kind) and I intend to build them into the back of the barrel and the front of the chamber and make it so this thing just snaps into place with the magic power of magnets.
There is still much work to do, but it's finally looking like a Gunlance.
If you want to see more, you can always find more pictures in My Photobucket Album
