THE EXTINCTOR
This is actually one of the original projects that I started when I took up this hobby, about two years ago(?). I took a number (a rather large number) of very long breaks while building this piece and would come back to it when I was stuck on other projects. The Extinctor is a toy mod, and definitely the most ambitious piece I've made so far. It measure 29 1/2 inches long and is almost entirely repurposed toys.
Sadly, I wasn't taking WIP picks when I started this project, so I do not have any behind-the-scenes shots. I do have a number of detail pics, since I had to stand pretty far away to get the entire piece in the above picture.
There are so many cool parts to this piece, but the barrel is definitely one of my favorites. It is mostly a single toy mounted on a curtain rod. It is a very strange toy, and I would laugh very hard if someone actually recognized it.
This part was the most fun to build, because it is completely from scratch, and is made up a number of toys and what-nots that just kinda came together to form the antennae assembly.
The gear box was one of the last things I added; I wasn't really working with gears much when I first started this hobby. This was a solid piece that you pumped like an air gun. I cut out the "window", which was where a logo sticker used to go, and added some decorative doylie and gears. Its topped off with some blister-pack plastic, which is very light-weight and pretty easy to work with. Love the blister-pack material.
The crystal chamber is on the other side of the gear box, and not visible from the main picture. I had some crystals and other wierd parts lying about, so I thought I'd put them together and see what I got. Well...I got that. Not my favorite part, but its kooky, so I like it.
I really wanted to fill this chamber with something, at the time, but I'm very happy with the way it came out. The rings on the tube are gold foil tape.
The regulator really held up the works for a bit. It took me a while to come up with something that I liked. This looks much better in real life; its about half the size of this pic and you can see the subtle color variations which are washed out of the photo. I had thought about running tubes and wiring from it, but decided to go with a much cleaner image.
The butt was mostly just a paint job and a decorative button on the bottom. I had toyed with a gold doylie and even some adhesive patterns, but I decided to stick with a simple design. One of the reasons was that the adhesive started to fail and the applications would peel at the edges. Instead of risking my paint job, I went simple; which I think looks pretty good.
The butt did have a wood texture molded into it, which I enhanced with a black undercoat and then dry brushed on a wood color. I used a little bit of color and then dragged it over the grooves and black coat.
So, that is it in a nutshell. Definitely one of my favorite and challenging pieces. Hope you like it.
Keep zap'n...
