Finished DSLR Shoulder Rig

DSLR Shoulder RIg

This is the unfinished skeleton of my DSLR shoulder rig/rail system. The shoulder piece will be outfitted with foam and a 2.5 pound weight bolted on the back to off set the heft of the camera and the matte box. Still to go, are two handles for the front the rig, some kind of follow focus system and a matte box(along with a groovy cool paint job). I will post images of the finished rig when it's done. So far I have not spent a cent on this build. All pieces used were scraps in my garage.


Below is a picture of a professional rig outfitted with camera and accessories.

Prop Flare Gun

This is a prop flare gun. The core of this build is a dollar store cap fun. I wanted the breech to open, so it could receive ammo. The barrel is PVC pipe aluminum from a soda pop can was used to conceal the joint. It was then spray painted orange and masked off black in select areas of the gun.

Bullet-Proof Vest

This is a bullet-proof vest I made. The total cost of the build was eight dollars. The core of the vest was made with exercise mat foam heated up over a stove and bent to the contours of the human torso. Various straps were just scraps of nylon I had lying around. The plates on the front were cut-outs of plasticard and plexiglass. The fabric is just one extra large t-shirt hot glued and stretched over the foam. If I could do it again, I would use a higher quality fabric than that of a t-shirt, such as nylon. I'm pretty happy with this build, all in all it is a pretty convincing vest, and definitely worth it for eight bucks.

Desk Illustrations

These are two illustrations I did from photographs of Katharine Hepburn and Robert Shaw's character from Jaws. They were done with colored pencil on old sketching paper.

GUNS GUNS GUNS!!!

These are some airsoft guns that I have sanded and spray-painted the orange tips on to look like realistic firearms. They are only to be used on a closed set and handled with discretion.

Masquerade Mask

This was a quick build I put together for a masquerade ballroom party a couple years back. It's just one of those blank theatre masks, cut up to look flashy. The design is inspired by Poe's Masque of the Red Death.

Fallout Pip-Boy and Brotherhood of Steel Helmet

 This is an (unfinished)Brotherhood of Steel Helmet from the Fallout video game series. The core is a street hockey mask outfitted with plasticard and miscellaneous odds and ends. It awaits a paint job and a few hardware tweaks.

This is the Pip-boy, also from Fallout. It's a wrist-attached display that functions as your inventory in game. I made this about a year and a half ago. If I was given the opportunity to remake it I would have made it out of chipboard or styrene. I wanted it to have a metallic look so I used plywood with tacked on sheet metal.

Prop Axe

The axe on the left is a prop I made two years ago. The handle and blade are cut from the same piece of half inch plywood. The blade was spray painted gloss black and lightly dusted with silver spray paint and the handle was stained. The prop still had some weight to it, but could be thrown and used in tumultuous scenes without the danger that using the actual axe provoked.

Adventures in Clay

I thought I'd bring the clay out for a bit of sculpting practice. At some point, I would like to get into applying makeup and latex appliances and also molding them, which requires some sculptural expertise. These examples are more caricatures rather than life like representations though, more along the lines of a claymation puppet.

Spaceship Build

This is my first crack at a spaceship. The model is similar to the Spider Walker, in that it's made of chipboard. This time I coated the Chipboard in resin. When painted it should radiate more of a metallic sheen than just the porous chipboard would. This is the first time I've tried this method. The accessories are from an old battleship model I had in my basement along with pieces from a garbage picked stereo and some plastic model sprues. Later, I will post the finished painted spaceship.

Spider Walker Robot Build

This is the beginning of a chipboard model of a spider-esque walker robot. The point of building it with chipboard is to see how it will look and if all the moving parts are feasible. Also, if the model is satisfactory, I will make a replica out of plasticard, which can be painted to a look a lot more like metal. For me, it is much easier to build a three dimensional, tangible model of something rather than sketching it(especially when it comes to intricate moving machines). This build wasn't for any specific project yet, It was mainly me testing the materials and the process. Although, something similar in construction and size is needed for the Sour Bear Space Marines project.

Cinemagrid Studios Layout

Today, I had to do some hardcore math to discover the dimensions of the new studio. This grid format will give us a visual guide which will help us plan out what goes where with accuracy.

Day 1: Internship Begins

Today, I begun my internship at CinemaGrid LLC. I'm currently producing technical weapons drawings of futuristic weapons for the Sour Bear Space Marines project.