Splatoon Charger, Costume Prop

by SmkdSalmon in Craft > Costumes & Cosplay

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Splatoon Charger, Costume Prop

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This is a prop for an Inkling costume. It's a perfect prop for trick-or-treating to fill up with candy!

Inklings are the video game characters from the Nintendo WiiU game called Splatoon. In the game, you play as squid/kid character on a team of 4 to try and cover the ground in an arena with the most ink to win a match. Inklings use ink weapons to cover the ground and splat the opposing team which sends them back to the spawn point - allowing you more time to cover the ground. It's super fun, i highly recommend it! For our Inkling costumes we decided on: ink weapon, ink tank, and a hat for the tentacles. Regular clothes would do for us as in the game you can buy fairly regular clothes for your outfit: sneakers, boots, t-shirts, coats, various hats, we just picked from our regular clothes for likely Inkling wear.

The CHARGER is a sniper ink weapon to spat your opponents from a distance. I decided i could make a quick one these with PVC pipe.

Sorry not a lot of pictures, i was in a hurry making these, ink tanks, a roller, a charger, and an aerospray for Halloween (look for other instructables soon!).

[update, ok, not soon, it's been 6 years since that 2015 halloween, but better late than never! -SS]

Supplies

PARTS:

  • 1" PVC pipe;
  • 2 - PVC pipe caps;
  • 1 - PVC connector 3-way with 45°;
  • 1" thick ridged foam insulation;
  • 2 - 50 Oz Smart water bottles;
  • 1" dowels for charger sights.

TOOLS:

  • Oscillating saw for cutting PVC and shaping foam;
  • wood clamps for glueing foam together;
  • hand or band saw for cutting sight pieces;
  • Drill with 1" bit for drilling thru foam;
  • Architects ruler to estimate scale;
  • Utility knife.

SUPPLIES:

  • gorilla glue or similar for foam;
  • PVC cement;
  • spray paint: plastic primer, blue, medium green, orange;
  • duck tape, lime green;
  • sand paper.

Measure & Planning

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I printed out a screen capture of the charge to use in determining the scale and sizes of the parts to make. Using the architect's ruler, i would measure on the print out with the various scales (mine has 11 different inch scales) and compare measurement to real work items (ie: broom handle). for this, i settled on the 3/16" scale.

This is so the end product didn't look too big or too small for an actual human child!

Build Up Foam Parts

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Foam is built up for 2 parts of the Charger: GRIP & MUZZLE

  • GRIP is made from 3 - 3" x 11" pieces stacked up and glued together to make a block;
  • MUZZLE is made for 3 - 3" x 15" pieces;
    • Cut them out with an oscillating saw, cuts thru it like butter!
    • Stack them up and glue together with gorilla glue (remember some water to activate it).
    • clamp and let dry.

PVC Frame & Foam Parts

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Cut your 3 PVC parts and glue together with the 3-way coupler.

For foam parts, first, drill a 1" hole (same size as your PVC pipe) through the length of both GRIP & MUZZLE. This is so you can shape these parts taking into account any inconsistency in a perfectly drilled hole.

Based on the screen cap pictures, shape the GRIP & MUZZLE parts with oscillating saw, utility knife, and sand paper.

Reservoir

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With you 2 empty water bottles, you're using them to make a capsule looking reservoir:

  • Fastener side: cut off bottom and cut hole in bottle cap to fit the PVC pipe;
  • End side: cut off the bottom and cut off the cap end including neck;
    • using any left over bottle pieces, cut a small circle to fill/cover the hole made from cutting off the cap end;
  • Place the bottles together from their bottom ends and glue together;
  • Plastic primer your reservior, let dry
  • then paint in your favorite ink color (here it's blue).

Paint

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  • Spray paint the MUZZLE in medium green;
  • Plastic primer the frame middle and 2 PVC caps in orange, let dry;
    • then overcoat with orange;
  • I also made some 1/2 moon sights from 1" dowel for the MUZZLE, paint green too.

Grip

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The GRIP had some missing material that was easier to cover with tape than refill with foam, hence the whole GRIP is covered in lime green duck tape;

  • Sights fo the Grip side are also made from 1" dowwl 1/2 moons and shaped middle, painted lime green.
  • Glue on the PVC caps.

Splat It Up!

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The colors make these props really pop out!

These were fun builds and the kids had fun being Inklings!