Okay, I'm banking on a little fandom cross-pollination here. I've posted before about ALIEN toys but at least there was a Kenner connection in common, back in the day. With Blade Runner there's a similar degree of separation - Harrison Ford starred in both movies :-)
So, assuming you're still tuned in, I'd like to introduce a small project - a repaint of the world's most awesome water pistol - Deckard's blaster from the original Blade Runner!
The story of the BR blaster has been told many places - the original prop was an unholy union between a Charter Arms .44 cal. Bulldog revolver and a Steyr-Mannlicher .22 cal rifle with some extra greeblies and LED lights sprinkled to taste. Long thought lost, the original prop resurfaced in 2006 at a fan convention called WorldCon. In the meantime, several prop makers had turned their skills to producing more-or-less accurate replicas of the blaster based on screen caps from the movie. However, the emergence of the "WorldCon Blaster" in detailed photos has lead to more definitive replicas being produced, one of the most popular being made in Japan by Tomenosuke and retailing for nearly $1,000.
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| photo: eBay |
I'd always wanted to have a BR blaster of my own but $1K is just too much. Enter the Takagi "Elfin Knights Project" M2019 water blaster! Injection molded in translucent black and amber plastic, it's an amazingly faithful replica of the film blaster, at a knockdown price.
However faithful it looks, though, a plastic water gun is never going to have the have the heft of a full metal (or even resin) prop. I fixed this by plugging the holes in the molding and filling it brimful with clean sand - weight is now over 800 grams or almost two pounds. I then masked off the grips and primed the piece with satin black spraypaint.
After priming, I painted the upper receiver and triggerguard with a dark metal colour and the buttplate with a lighter metal. The rest was carefully weathered, mostly with a sponge technique, concentrating on the parts that would contact the holster or hand of the user. I glued two metal BBs on each side of the piece to represent the red LEDs, and painted them as well as the green LEDs with acrylic paint, finished with a gloss coat.
Lastly, I had my friend Byron of
Northern Lights build me a fantastic clear acrylic stand for the prop. This will look pretty cool in my collecting room - although after having painted this one, I'm thinking of buying a resin kit to do up with working LEDs... crazy? who knows.
That's it for now, and all there is left to say is "have a better one!" :-)
