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The final prop replica I was tasked with creating was an iceball, similar to the kind Sub-Zero uses in the Mortal Kombat games. It was to be made the same way as the fireball. It had to light up and be mounted so it appeared as if it was shooting from your hand. Since I had already tackled the fireball, I was at least a tad more knowledgable at how to go about this.

The skeleton was made with aluminum foil. I actually made this skeleton much thinner than the one for the fireball. I did this so it allowed the lights to be more tightly packed together, giving a more even and brighter glow. But like with most things, there was a trade-off. Since the skeleton was smaller, that meant that I had to use much more hot glue on this than on the fireball to get it to the right size, making it heavier. Luckily it didn’t prove to be a problem. The light up circuit is the same as with the fireball. I used an LED strip found at Auto Zone and rewired it to hook it up to a switch and battery. I attached the curcuit to the skeleton and covered it all up with hot glue. I made sure not to cover the switch and left room for the battery compartment.

I actually had to do this ice ball in two parts. See, the lights needed to glow blue, but the light strip I was using had white LED’s, and I couldn’t just paint the outside of the ice ball clear blue, because that wouldn’t look very much like ice. So instead what I did was cover the whole thing with a layer of hot glue and paint that clear blue. Once I was satisfied with how the glow looked, I then proceded to add hot glue on top of that, Not only could you still see the blue from underneath with the lights off, but with them on it looked even more impressive.

As I covered it in glue I made sure to try and make it look like ice. I even gave it icicles dripping down from the head of the ice ball, just to give it that extra bit of realism. After all of the hot glue sculpting was finished, I made sure the wrist mount could fit in the end of it. Then I gave the entire thing a dry brushing with some flat white, to resemble frost. I made the end closest to your hand look the most frosted and kind of had it fade out over the entire thing. And even after that, the lights still looked very cool glowing from within. I was very pleased with how this turned out. I feel it turned out much better than the fireball, and hopefully if anyone ever asks me to make similar prop replicas in the future, I’ll have the full knowledge I need to imrpove upon this and make something even cooler. Get it? I’m sorry.

My other Mortal Kombat Prop Replicas:

Liu Kang Light-Up Fireball

Scorpion Spear and Posable Chain

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In continuing with my project of making Mortal Kombat prop replicas, and with being tasked with doing things I’ve never done before, I was asked to make a fireball, similar to the ones that Liu Kang fires from his hands in the game. The two caveats of the project was that it had to be able to look like it was shooting from your hand, and it had to light up. Not a problem, per se. I know how to wire LED circuits, and I had a pretty good idea of how to start, so I went at it.

The “skeleton” of the fireball is made from aluminim foil. The lights are actually from a strong LED strip that you attach to cars. I picked it up at my local Auto Zone. It’s expensive, but worth it for what I needed. I just had to rewire it so it hooked up to a switch and then to the battery so it could be turned on and off. Luckily the back of the LED strip had glue on it and so I just wrapped it around the aluminum foil skeleton, more or less guessing where everything was going to sit at this point.

Then I began anchoring everything with hot glue. It was the only thing I could think to use to make it clear, and it’s inexpensive and easy to work with. But I definitely had to use a lot of hot glue for this. Slowly, but surely, it began to take shape. I made sure not to cover the switch, and to leave space for a battery compartment. The battery compartment was constructed from clear styrene with the top covered in hot glue. It’s held in place by friction and holds nicely. The battery doesn’t fall out at all, and the compartment is easy to remove.

After that, I made the wrist mount. I used a metal doll stand and bent it to the shape of a wrist and palm. The big c-clip goes around the wrist. I covered it in foam for comfort, and used some velcro straps for support. It’s easy to remove, is comfortable, and can easily be covered up in a costume. Then I made sure the end of the fireball had room for the mount to slip into. And after the glue was all cool, I painted it using clear yellow, orange, and red. I was trying to give a good balance so it looked good with the lights on and the lights off. And then it was complete. It fit great on the wrist mount, wasn’t too heavy, and looked pretty darn cool with the lights turned on! I probably could have done better with hiding the switch, but I had never done anything like this before, and I really wanted to make sure it could be turned on and off. Overall, I’m happy with how this very strange experiment turned out.

Scorpion Spear and Posable Chain

Sub-Zero Light-Up Ice Ball

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A recent client wanted me to make a few items that I don’t normally do while working on custom action figures. I was requested to make three life sized prop replicas based on the Mortal Kombat video game series. One of those replicas was to make Scorpion’s spear head and attach it to a fully posable chain and make it look like it’s coming straight out of your hand. Sounds…easy enough, right? And yes, he did want it to be a chain, as in with links and such. Not a rope or metal cord like he uses in the games. Fair enough, I thought I could do that.

I decided that the hardest part was figuring out the chain, so I decided to tackle that first. After many many MANY failed experiments with real chain, I convinced him to let me use something lighter. I picked up some costume chain, because it’s incredibly light, but looks realistic enough to pass. Then, I took some very heavy gauge bendable wire and drilled holes into each link and passed it through them. It’s hardly noticable, unless you’re really looking for it, and it was strong enough to hold the chain in any pose (even straight out!). I made sure to leave some wire sticking out at the end to attach the spear head onto.

After that, I made the wrist mount that the chain would sit on. I had to get a little clever here. What I did was take a doll stand and bend it into a more ergonomic shape for a wrist and attached it to the first chain link. I utilized some velco straps and attached them to the wrist mount, so it would be easy to take on and off. I wanted to make something that would be comfortable, easy to remove, be easy to cover up in a costume. So then began the making of the spear head. At first my client wanted it to be made of real metal. But since I don’t work with metal, nor do I have the tools to do so, I convinced him to let me make it out of polystyrene. I wanted to do this so it would be light, and because like I said…I’m not a metal worker. So I began by cutting out the shape I need out of some thick styrene, and attached smaller pieces onto each side of the blade and handle, making them smaller and smaller to kind of give me a rough 3D shape of what I need. Then I began the long and arduous task of sanding the crap out of it.

I used my dremel to get the rough sanding down, but for the precision work and smoothing out, that had to be done by hand. With just sand paper. Suffice it to say my fingertips were very raw by the end of this project. After that I but the blade more to shape and made it look clean. But even after all that sanding, I wasn’t finished. I then added a thin layer of Aves Apoxie Sculpt over the blade, and some on the handle as well, and then after curing I sanded that down, getting the perfect shape I needed for the spear head. After it was finally smoothed out and perfect, I painted it with several layers. First flat black, then gun metal, and then dry brushing mithril silver over the entire thing. And then I dipped my fan brush in some diluted insignia red and basically used the raspberry method of paint spattering. Just blowing raspberries with my lips in front of the brush gives it a really good spatter look. So then I just drilled a hole in the bottom and attached it to the spear, and it was all finished. Not bad considering it was my first time doing something like this, if I do say so myself.

Sub-Zero Light-Up Ice Ball

Liu Kang Light-Up Fireball