Polystyrene is available from just about any hobby store in plain sheets, rods, tubes and many other shapes, ranging from 0.3mm to 3.2mm thick. Anything up to 0.8mm is easy to work with, since it can be cut into shapes with scissors or utility knife. The sheets and rods used in this entry cost me about $9, and I have enough material left to make 20 more.The first step is to cut a bunch of gun shaped blobs. The accuracy isn't crucial, but it certainly helps later on. I created the plans for my AK-47 in PSP, basing it on the real thing, but editing shapes and dimensions quite liberally. The contest was about 4-inch weapons, and I wanted to fit in as much detail as possible, so I shortened my plans here and there, most visibly at the barrel.[Edited by User on 6/20/2011 3:58:50 AM]
The shapes are glued together with polystyrene cement. It's not actually an adhesive, but a chemical welder. Pretty much all that's left after the cement evaporates is polystyrene.I use two kinds of cement, both come in handy glass bottles with an applicator brush attached on the cap. The regular stuff is thicker, and is applied on surfaces before attaching them. The "extra thin" stuff is used differently; you hold pieces together, and touch the seam between them with the brush. The cement runs into the seam via means of higher magic, and welds them together in seconds.It should be noted that most polystyrene cements are rather toxic, and you should have good ventilation or you'll end up as a vegetable like me.[Edited by User on 6/18/2011 4:27:27 AM]
Polystyrene is somewhat soft material, and it can be carved with just about anything. I use a $2 utility knife and sandpaper. The material is also quite slippery (especially compared to similiar density wood), so a sharp knife will go through it like a blade of a guillotine through the neck of Louis XVI in 1793.At first, I even out my horrible cutting job by carving out uneven bits. Once this is done, things look a lot less hopeless. Then the real sculpting part begins; carefully looking at multiple angle source pictures of the real thing (I don't happen to have a real AK-47 in my closet), you carve, scratch and sand the shapes in. In this case, the barrel and hand grips needed to be rounded, and the receiver cover gets it's stacked-donuts profile. It helps, if you've taken some of this into account while cutting the shapes.Carve going blade edge first for bigger sculpting, and scrape dragging the blade behind for lighter shaping. Scratching with the pointy end of the utility knife works well too, as does all kinds of scary dentist tools and spikes. Test all methods on a scrap piece of polystyrene first. You really don't need to use much force.If you're not allowed to own a knife, or if you're scared of them, coarse sandpaper digs in well too. I have some coarse woodworking sandpaper that does a good job in getting the round shapes round, and some higher grit silicon carbide sandpaper for finishing the surface.[Edited by User on 6/20/2011 4:00:49 AM]
In all the excitement, I mucked things up a bit here. The barrel has some thicker sections where it attaches to the hand guard, the front sight and the gas tube. I merrily ignored this, and carved it all too thin.Adding to polystyrene is nowhere near as fun as adding bits and pieces to a sculpey shape. You need to do it with putty, and it's going to be painful.No putty meant for polystyrene is fun to work with. They all have consistency of toothpaste/syrup/sand mixture, they usually start drying before you can paste them on, and they tend to shrink and crack when they dry. If you put too much of it in one go, it's possible that the strong solvents in the putty will melt the polystyrene.On the positive side, the stuff is sandably dry in matter of minutes. This is handy, because you likely have a few paste-sand cycles before the shape is what it should be.It should be noted that most polystyrene puttys are rather toxic, and you should have good ventilation or you'll end up as a vegetable like me.
After you think you've done a great job, wash your artwork carefully with dish soap, and spray a coat of gray primer on it. It turns out it's far from great - the primer coat lets you see imperfections, gaps and ridges you'll likely miss if you work with white, semi-glossy raw material.It should be noted that most laquer-based primers are rather toxic, and you should have good ventilation or you'll end up as a vegetable like me.
Sand, wash, prime, add putty, sand, wash, prime, sand, wash, prime...This part tends to be a bit tedious, and every time you look at your freshly primed creation, you'll be likely to go "how on earth did I miss THAT?", or if you're like me, you'll use less acceptable language.I was also faced with another problem. The AK-47 magazine is stamped steel and it has both recessed and raised curves along the surface. The recessed ones are easier to recreate, you can just carve them in with the utility knive and a steady hand. The raised curves are a bit more problematic. In this case, they were too thin to cut out of styrene sheet successfully (they curled up right away when I tried). My first attempt to solve the problem was to carve recessed curves, then bend and cement strips of styrene in them. Theoretically, this could work. Once the cement is dry, you can sand them down to proper thickness.In reality, it didn't work, as my middle strip escaped its rails, and cured into incorrect position.
I figured I could live with one incorrectly aligned raised curve, and moved on.All the surface detail of a complex piece of technological wonderment can't be produced in the initial cutting/carving stage, so we'll add details once the basic shape is... well, in shape.The safety/fire selector lever is cut from 0.5mm sheet, cemented on, and then the groove around it is carved in with the knife point. The bolt for it is cut from a styrene bar, and the thumb handle again cut from a sheet and welded on. For especially tiny details, I cut them a bit bigger than the recipe calls for easier handling, and then just carve/sand them to proper dimensions once the cement is cured.I've also started to build the rear sights. This is rather complex part, so I've made it bit by bit from thin sheet and bar. In the end, the rear sight is made out of 10 separate bits. Steady hand and good tweezers help.For delicate details, I tend to carve the contact surfaces to a groove/ridge before cementing to aid in the structural solidity. I also use the cement quite liberally. The excess that remains visible can always be sanded down.Even so, I managed to lose a part from the sight when handling the weapon carelessly at a later stage. With all the styrene clippings, shavings and dust on the floor, a tiny detail part is as good as lost, so a replacement part had to be created.[Edited by User on 6/18/2011 12:45:35 PM]
The folding stock is created out of 7 parts of styrene bar (plus 4 in the reciever). Heated styrene can be bent into shape without snapping quite easily. Holding it close to a lamp, candle flame or floor heater all will do the trick. Practise before you ruin things. At first, it seems that nothing happens, then all the sudden it goes all limp. Wait a few seconds longer, and it turns into liquid. A few seconds more and it'll catch fire. Once cooled down, the shaped part returns to its original rigidity.I didn't end up using the above loops in the final product... because I glued them on the wrong side. Paying attention always pays off![Edited by User on 6/18/2011 12:47:43 PM]
The trigger was cut out of styrene sheet, the rivets out of thin bar, and the trigger guard out of brass sheet. Polystyrene cement will not bond anything else than polystyrene, so for the brass, cyanoacrylate (superglue) was used.Other details that were added before painting (but after the picture was taken) was the clip release tab and the under-barrel cleaning rod. The cleaning rod was cut out of brass wire, and superglued on.In the category of details no one will ever notice, I also added a small (less than 0.3mm x 0.5mm, approximately) sighting cone inside the front sight housing. Now you can aim with it properly!The picture shows the mis-aligned magazine raised curves. At this point I decided they had to go, so I sanded them off. The next attempt was to cut the shapes out of sheet, but use the utility knife instead of scissors, pressing the blade tip through the sheet, couple mm at a time. While it took a long time, this worked out fine with no curling whatsoever. The cut parts were still a bit too wide, so they were sanded down before cementing them on the magazine.[Edited by User on 6/18/2011 12:54:47 PM]
Painting is the fun part. It's also the part I got so excited about I forgot to take pictures.The process involved countless of coats and failures. In this image, I painted the metal parts with flat black enamel, and thought I could add some colouring on them with oils [1]. Well, they just caked on, and looked awful.Another failed attempt to simulate "blued steel" involved blue acrylics (which dry so fast it's downright stressful).[1] All russian-made AK-47s are painted with a flat black protective coating, but copies of the weapon have been made officially and unofficially in countless of countries, so in reality, just about any coating is authentic.
See what I mean about missing some progressive photos?Rather than detailing all the failed attempts, I'll just document the process that turned out okay in the end.The metal parts have a flat black enamel undercoat. Metallic look was enchanced by sanding down a regular pencil, and getting some graphite dust on my finger. Then I ran my finger along the gun surface. What you get is a glossy metalesque graphite layer, but recesses and other shadowy areas stay black. The graphite needs to be sealed in with a spray coat of laquer, otherwise it'll prevent further brushed paint to stick to the surface, and in general gets everything smudgy.After the graphite was sealed in properly, I experimented a bit with bluing again. This time, I mixed my oil colour blue with colourless enamel varnish and some paint thinner to lower the viscosity. The resulting paint is opaque, and when painted over graphite, gives a fairly authentic blued steel look. The picture doesn't do this much justice, but in real life, the gun surface has nice bluish tones depending on how light hits it. I also added another layer of this glazing over highlight parts. When making miniatures, it's good to remember that the light doesn't scale, so you need to help it along by painting shadow/highlight areas with exaggerated tones.
For shadows, I used a wash (very diluted paint mix). A wash is by itself so much thinned that it doesn't affect colours anywhere else except on recessed detals and the areas immediately surrounding raised details, where more of the paint mixture pools. If doing an acrylic wash over enamel, you can add a drop of dish soap to break the surface tension. This is all very nice and shiny, but I want to create a weapon that has seen a lot of action. Paint chipping and wear can be simulated by drybrushing bare metallic colour over the gun surface. In drybrushing, you dip a brush in paint, and wipe it off until seemingly nothing comes off of it anymore. Then you run the brush lightly over the gun surface, in all directions, over and over again. Eventually, some bare metal starts to show on raised detail edges.
For a brush, I prefer a flat, wide and rigid over typical round, soft bristle enamel brushes. An oil paint brush suits this purpose well. Drybrushing is easily overdone, and removing it without affecting previous paint job can be difficult. Make sure there's not too much paint left on the brush, and don't go all overboard in your weathering craze.The wooden parts are done with dark brown undercoat, and orange, thinner diluted oil colour. Once the layer dried a bit (oil will never dry all the way within normal contest timeline restrictions), I brought out my thinnest detailing brush, mixed some burnt sienna into the orange paint cup, and slowly painted the wood grain in. Because we're working with oils, the grain strokes generally blend in quite nicely as you go along. Keep in mind the teachings of Bob Ross: thinner paint will stay on top of thicker paint. Dilute your grain colour a bit with paint thinner, and it'll work as expected.When working against a deadline, you can spray a laquer coat on top to seal the oils in. If the laquer affects the shininess of your drybrush work, you can do another session over top of the dried laquer. Or, you could just be smart and do the drybrushing after you've messed around with oils to your heart's content.Here's a picture of similiar process I used for the "prototype" of my actual entry:
And that's it! I will get more into in-depth painting tips and tricks in another tutorial.[Edited by User on 6/20/2011 4:12:34 AM]
I applaud your patience and attention to detail! SO awesome.