Could use a hand with my Steampunk Raygun Design

Ein

On a lark, I grabbed one of the Nerf Mavericks I had on my desk and decided that it had to be steampunked up.

I've seen plenty of people do steampunk Mavericks in the past, and on the whole they tend to look like a Nerf Maverick with extra shit nailed to it. I didn't like that, so I figured my first step would be sawing the entire front end of the gun off.

Then I started throwing lights and shit into here, and as I did it progressed away a little bit from Steampunk and more into campy sci-fi raygun territory. I've kind've been designing this thing by the seat of my pants, but now that I've gotten the front end of the gun attached to it and fully lit up I find I have no idea where to take it from here.

So, I'm soliciting help!









I'm photographing it in pretty much broad daylight in some of these, but the lights obviously look way better in person. The bulbs on the top glow, and the spigon on the back of the thing is actually a potentiometer that lets me dim the lights if I twist it. Pulling the trigger currently shorts the circuit and makes the lights flash very brightly for an instant.

Now, here's my problem a little more specifically: I like the way the cylinder looks on the front there, but I'm having a hell of a time figuring out what to build up around it from the handle. I'm also bereft of ideas regarding what the actual end of the barrel should look like. If you guys wouldn't mind helping me get out of this creative rut, I'd appreciate it, as I've been staring at this thing for two days without making any progress.

amateurhour

I'm a big fan of "less is more" when it comes to steam punk, having unnecessary valves and such just clutters up the functionality.

Off the top of my head, I'd say replace that on/off switch with a rocker switch that looks a little more dated. Also replace the trigger, or maybe at least cut away the middle two orange support bars. personally I think you're ready to paint it. (Maybe put some leather around the finger grip of the handle?)

For painting, I can't give advice, but the people over at the Brass Goggles steam punk forum can, they LIVE for building ray guns.

good luck!

oh, super ridiculous, but if you could install a micro controller and small speaker at the end of the barrel so when you pull the trigger it lights up the three lights in sequence, maybe with a one second delay apart, and makes a noise like the mega man mega buster charge up, then makes a really good powerful blaster noise afterward, that would be pretty awesome. I don't see a lot of ray guns with sound mods at cons, and that's a shame.

NibCrom

I would do some research and brainstorming. Check out actual guns and lasers, look at other pieces of technology for inspiration especially other steam powered devices. Do some simple sketches and figure out what you like the best.

squidbunny

I feel again like "steampunk" is getting tossed around too much; loads of lights don't say steampunk to me, at all. Like you said, they say retro-futurist raygun.

Forbe!

Look into getting a proper metal toggle for the on-off switch. Like amateur said, less is more. Most people glue random non-functioning watch gears to things and call it steam punk. I'm familiar with your work Ein, and I know you don't do things half measure.

I would imagine you're pretty good at faux-painting metal, but nothing beats having actual metal fittings, but I suppose I am just biased. Take a look at McMasterCarr's hardware section. Even for inspiration, they have pretty much every type of brass valve, fitting, nut, gear, cog, sprocket you could possibly imagine. Take a look at actual 19th/early 20th century engineering.

As far as the barrel goes, I would possibly think of adding some sort of glass at the end to focus your 'ray'.

Mustang

Check out some of Pat Reilly's steam punk prop art. He occasionally goes into some detail of what parts he used.

This guy pretty well much single handedly got me into drawing when I first stumbled across his dev art page.

Davethedemon

This is inspiring to make steampunk stuff. Like right now.

The end of your raygun should definitely have something glass in it.