Tag Archives: Propnomicon

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Happy October 29th! Or for those of you on the Gregorian calendar, happy 11/11/11!

From Ryan Voss comes this fantastic-looking blood recipe based off of Crayola washable markers. They said they used it in a production where a character in a white wedding dress was covered in blood every night. (h/t to Propnomicon)

So Field & Stream, of all places, has a behind-the-scenes look at the props of AMC’s upcoming western show, Hell on Wheels. They focus a lot on the guns used and how they achieved the many gun effects in the show, but be sure to make it to the bottom of the article, where they have a video on building an entire train. That’s right, an historically-accurate steam locomotive made of styrofoam, wood and a fog machine. I thought my cannon was cool, but this is simply amazing.

You’ve seen some of this before on my blog, but Rosco shared a more in-depth look at how we made the portraits for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

This looks strange and promising. Autodesk has a free preview of their 123D Make software, which will turn a 3D computer file into something you can print out, cut apart, and assemble into a three-dimensional object. They have a video which does a better job explaining it. The software is only available for Mac, and it is only free until February, so if anyone with a Mac tries it out, let me know how it goes.

Mantle Studios has a very well-made tutorial on sculpting with wax. I’ve done a bit of wax sculpting, but nothing approaching the level of detail in this tutorial.

Useful Sites

Monday Blogroll Links

If you’re new to this site, or if you follow it in a blog reader, you should check out the Blogroll links in the sidebar. These are other sites and blogs of prop-makers and prop-masters and general crafty people.  Here’s a sampling of some of the recent posts from these sites to entice you to check them out:

Via Propnomicon, I’ve found this collection of 11 old and grungy film textures. I’m going to use these to make some aged daguerreotype for our upcoming Merchant of Venice.

Speaking of Merchant, Meredith Ries at Malaprops shows how she is making fake books out of real paper for that show.

Jesse Gaffney at Theatre Projects has listed a few of her favorite things; tools and materials which come in handy on nearly any prop challenge.

Volpin Props always features incredible process photography of exquisitely-crafted replica props. The latest post on a light staff from Final Fantasy XI is no exception.

Lost in Schlock has a fun video on how to create fake edible raw meat.

Anna Warren continues to impress with her documentation of all the fake food props she makes at Fake ‘n Bake. One of my favorite recent posts is how to make Roast Beast in gravy.

Instructables is an incredible resource to find information on techniques you want to learn or materials you’ve never used before. Two tutorials I’ve enjoyed are:

  • Casting a Pear – Probably the quickest and grittiest way to cast something I’ve ever seen.
  • Sci-Fi Handgun – There are a lot of Instructables on making or remaking weaponry from science fiction movies. These are a good way of showing how a uniquely shaped prop can be broken down into simpler parts, and how found objects and tiny details can transform a prop from simple parts into a homogoneous object.

Keep readin!