Proton Pack 2.0 is in the Mail!

It has finally happened.  I finished. And to say I'm proud of this one is an understatement. It came out WAY beyond my expectations. It's much cleaner and more detailed than my original. After all, the original was for my own enjoyment and this one was for a friend. Gotta make it look good, no?  The correct ribbon cable for starters makes this stand out from mine. A better stand. Updated electrics.  It's just over all superior.  My first go, the switch isn't an on off switch. You have to hold it down in order for the pack to light up. This one is a true on off, SO much better.  So without any more rambling, here is what you're all looking for. The pictures!

To start. The stand. Mine was a quickly cobbled together stand made of wood and shot with some grey paint. This one is of plastic, much sturdier and black. (By request of the owner, but a smart choice)

Packs side by side! I love mine, don't get me wrong, but the one on the right is a beauty!
I tried to emulate the packs of GB1 so you can see right away that the wand is afixed a little differently. In the first movie they were on a more severe angle. In GBII the angle was increased to make grabbing them easier.

A nice side view with the "yellow lights" on the side of the powercell from Ray's pack. A lot of people thought these were actual lights, but it's just the casing being too thin and the light bleeding through.

Close up of some of the warning labels and aging of the cyclotron. 

And here is what you've all been waiting for. It's a live! Lit and glorious and pretty bright. Those lights'll hurt your eyes if you look directly into them. (taken with flash)

Without the fill flash there are so many more details picked up in this picture. I like to think that I succeeded in getting the aged/worn look of the pack correct.

Just another angle with the gun off to the side.

A few people have asked me for size comparison. So here it is next to my much smudged S3. Saying 1:7 scale doesn't really mean much until you see it next to something.

Lastly, a shot of the gun. 

And there you are folks! Finished. And as we speak it's flying (driving) down the road to it's new owner who I KNOW will give it a very good home.

Proton Pack 2.0 Finish line is in sight!

Been a while since my last update but I've been busy working away. This is the point where it takes a lot longer because I'm working on a much smaller scale. It's fairly easy to get the main parts created and fitting together, but come time to wire...it's a headache.  What follow are pictures from the past few weeks moving oh so close to the final product. At the time of writing this I'm actually only left with creating a stand for the pack.

My friend who this is for has requested a black one and I'm hoping I can improve on the hastily put together stand I made for the original one I made.

So here we have the bumper being created. This is always one of the harder pieces because before there are layers of primer and filler and paint...it's pretty fragile. Here you can see it's basic shape coming togther

Let there be light! The power cell is lit and glowing and looks amazing. Successful test indeed.

This is a quick test to see if the barrel of the gun will light up with the LED. It's basically like a huge fiber optic. I'm using a cell battery for it's unique ability to illuminate a single LED without the need of a resistor.  It works, trust me. The flash is just causing too much light to see the glow.

Successful test of the cyclotron lights!

This initial wiring had to be taken a part and redone as lighting LED's can be tricky if you're not paying attention. And I was clearly not paying attention during round one. When I tried to hook up the gun, it wouldn't light up. Remember, different color LED's do not play well with each other when on the same circuit. 

Lesson Learned

The Ion bar and it's mount. Just sitting around saying, yeah, I'm done. 

Yup...Hermione. Don't judge.  Some of the labels are being applied to the main body.  This has been requested to be Ray's pack from the original Ghostbusters.  There aren't too many differences. His HGA is straight up and down as opposed to Egon's which is at an angle. And you can see in this pic that the label is correct. The bolts will be painted on accordingly as well. 

The gun coming together. Adding a few little cosmetic details. I love that half the wires on this model are functional and the other half do nothing. I'm assuming the original prop was the same way.

It's officially all together! I use tape to clamp things together when drying. Rubber bands or actual clamps would damage the pieces. Tape is harmless but applies enough pressure.I believe in this pic the mount for the red and blue hoses on the left side is slowly drying.

HANDLES! There is so much wear and tear on these that when making them I tried to keep them a little rough. There is some red coming through from underneath to mimic the actual screen grabs and prop images that show them as such. It's a simple thing to do. Use a base primer of red and then just lightly sand off the final coat until you get some bleed through.

Shock mount...pre-paint. Ray's is actually bent in some scenes and normal in others. There is so much discrepancy between the hero packs and the foam stunt packs that I chose to make this normal. 

Almost done!You can get an idea of scale too in this pic. As this was taken, the ribbon cable was being heated up in order to make it more malleable so I can attach it. But this is a great shot of the almost done pack! All electronics work by a switch in the back. Along with the battery housing (bit of a tight squeeze, but what ever) And almost all detailing is done.

More to come...