Methos' Food Capsules Tutorial

[methos]

Introduction

Good Morning Maggots.

I, Master Methos, your ever faithful amatuer Quartermaster, am back with another tutorial to teach you how to assemble food capsules so you wont starve and die during a mission, or be laughed at during events.

These next following steps will instruct you to find and assemble the parts needed for this easy prop build. Follow the directions, keep your head away from your sphincter, and the force will guide you to completion.

[methos]

Step One: Finding Your Materials

This is the easy part. Now with all personal props, such as comlinks and lightsabers, the overall look should attribute its user, so the parts used should be from around you. But since most people dont keep specific pens and buttons around their house, you'll have to go out and buy the needed materials.

Like the comlink, I'll be using Rustoleum's Hammered bronze paint as the color and finish, and will treat it so it looks old and corroded. Also like the comlink tutorial, you'll also need a good selection of sandpaper, ranging fron 120 to 400 grit.

The materials you'll need for these things are few. First, you need to get your parents, girlfriend, or friendly speeder driver to take you to the nearest Staples, and buy up their entire stock of Staedtler Liquid Roller pens; I got four packages for $6 a piece. Then, you need to find a craftstore that sells buttons. I went down to my local craft store and bought these little 7/16" diameter hemisphere buttons for $1.25 for a pack of four, and bought four packs.



Then after tearing my house apart, I found my superglue pen, and in that mess I also found my painting masking tape, which will be used to mask off the chrome clips. And with the masking tape, I got all my needed sand paper as well. See the picture of materials needed below.

[methos]

Step Two: Making Them Look the Part

First, you must take the pens and buttons out of their respective packaging. Slowly, take the caps off the pens so you dont get ink all over your hands, then throw the pens away, you dont need them.

Now with your handy dandy super glue pen, glide a bead of glue around the rim of the pen cap, and gently place the button onto the rim on the pen cap, making sure it is even and centered. After holding it down for a minute, slowly and gently take your finger off the button, and find somewere to clip the pen cap so the button wont fall off and wont be bothered by anything. After glueing all my pen caps with buttons, I utilized a friendly drawer handle in my kitchen.



Now, let them sit there for about four hours to dry really well and harden.

[methos]

Step Three- Painting

This step is actually easier than the comlink. Starting at 120, I sanded down the finish on the caps and clips until they were quite dull looking, also paying attention to the hemispheres and their sealed rims. After sanding them down with 400 grit, I wiped the dust off with a terry cloth.

Now like with every other smart painting job, you need a makeshift booth. This time, since these are so small, I utilized a capri sun juice box, and cut a panel out of it for painting purposes.

Now before you even shake that spray can, PUT RUBBER GLOVES ON!!!!!! This will protect your hands from getting paint all over them, and prevent any residue getting onto your painting. With gloves on, I clipped the capsules onto a little wire line I made , then sprayed them to death with paint.

Now, you let that coat dry for a few minutes. use this time to go clean up your sanding and paintbooth making messes; a clean workspace is godly. A good ten minutes later, don your gloves again, and spray the heck out of the capsules again. This coat will dry for two hours. Then you spray one more time, and let this dry for three days, in my case, over the weekend.

[methos]

Step Four- Weathering

This is the fun part were you get to be creative. I'm always looking for new ways to make things look old and used,and today we're trying something different.

After a full week of drying in my basement, I took the capsules out of their makeshift paint booth:

The paint came out with with minimal pooling ,but thats ok, pooling is good when you want weathering. To make these looks old, you use the hammered paint against itself. Taking some 400 grit sand paper, lightly sand the capsules until they are dulled in finish, making sure to smooth out any chips or flakes in the paint. If it flakes off, thats ok, you'll see why in a minute. So after sanding, they should look like this:


Now for these capsules, I did alittle research on corrosion, and with some model paint I've had lying around my basement, I mixed a color between beige and tan. Using this color, I dry brushed all the pooled and flakes areas, and with some finesse, brushed it along the bodies too.


Now after dry brushing on that corrosion, you can let it sit and dry for a few days, or, see the next paragraph for a brainstorm I had.

since I just love juice pouches, I have all these little boxes around. Since I dont like to wait for paint to dry, I came up with a small wind tunnel. Ssing one of these boxes, I took a piece of florists wire and hung it across the top of the box, and slide the capsules onto it, letting them swing freely.

Then closing the box, I taped it shut and cut a hole on one end. Now go get your trusty blowdryer, and keeping it on low heat and low setting, put it in the hole you made in the box, and let it sit for a hour or so. By the time the hour is up, the paint should be dry.

[methos]

After a hour in your drying chamber, take your capsules out of the box, and with some 400 grit sand paper, dull the surface again. Now your capsules are weathered to the max!



Congradulations, you have just finished your food capsules!

[Leda EmBorr]

Cool... they look rusted.

[methos]

i'm pleased with them, they are definitely going to be apart of my costume when i apply here and to the rebel legion, however soon or far away that will be. i actually just got my drivers license and a car, so my costume wont be far away yet. still need to hit a few cons though..

[Olos Nay]

That reminds me I need to make my own set.

[AMP]

Did you know the clips can be removed from the cap. I found it made it easier to paint behind them and the cap itself.

[methos]

yes i do know that, but i wanted the look of crap in the nooks in crannies and such. and having the paint on the clips means you can use different grits of sandpaper on them ot age them properly. you can see it in the pictures, but the metal clips are no were near chrome anymore, hehe.