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Last year I decided to try to make a replica of the Portal gun in light of the upcoming release of Portal 2. At the time, it was just Harrison Krix, A.K.A. Volpin Props that had made an authentic looking Portal gun. There were a few really poorly made Portal guns out there , his was really the only good one.
I thought it would be fun to make a Portal gun, and be one of the few people out there to make one that looked authentic.
You have to understand that up to this point I had zero prop making experience, and my arts and crafts experience was limited to finger painting as a kid. I had assisted my dad in building projects, so I knew how to use tools, but he had designed the structure and bought the parts. If you had a list of people that you would want to make something like this for you, I would be at the very bottom of the list.
Many people have commented on my Portal gun, saying how they would love to be able to make something like it, but didn’t know how to do it. I was that person, I had no idea how to make anything prop related, but I had a vision, and I wanted to see it come to life, so I set out to create this Portal gun. I’m making this tutorial for people like me, who didn’t have the skills, but want to try prop making. If you have experience in prop making you can learn what I wish I had done differently and use that information in your own build. :P
Here is the final result, I’m going to show you how I made this:
If it wasn’t for the tutorial that Harrison Krix had made I would have never done this. It was his post that inspired me to try this myself, and when I finally decided to go through this I studied his tutorial intently. Other than the electronics of the gun, the build was fairly simple. He used PVC for the barrel portions, and green florists foam, bondo, apoxie sculpt, and Wonderflex Plastic for the white casing parts. I somehow came across a wonderful community/forum called Replica Props and was able to ask questions from seasoned prop builders.
Thankfully for all of you, there are other people that have posted details on how they made their own gun. I’ll mention some of their techniques, but if you want to read in-depth you can check these forum threads out:
I found a blueprint of the Portal gun, scaled it up in Photoshop to about 19 inches, and printed it out.
I settled for that length as that scale fit the length of the PVC diameters that Harrison used in his Portal gun. Later I found out that his V1 was 21 inches, and the V2 gun was 22 inches because of a slightly longer barrel and chamber section.
I started with the white shells since they would take longer. I used Styrofoam to construct a general shape of the rear shell and put foil inside it so that I could spray on my insulating foam and get a shell with a hollow center. I used Great Stuff Gaps and Cracks for the insulating foam. There was another one that cost a little more, but when it dried it wasn’t as hard.
Spraying on the foam was pretty fun…I got to make a giant messy blob.
After it was done I then cut it with an Xacto knife and sanded it down with an electric sander to get it looking like this.
I stuck a hunk of expanding foam under the shell to keep the sides from spreading apart.
I covered the foam with paper mache’ clay. Click here to find out how to make it. I didn’t add linseed oil, I didn’t want to buy a giant container of it and only use 2 tablespoons. All it does is make the paste smoother and less sticky. This is what the top shell looked like after I sanded it down once the paste dried. It took several days, I had a giant fan blowing on it the entire time. The result is a very hard surface.
The duct tape is where I had to extend the edges, I added some more paste and did more sanding to get this. I was using a rotary sander for overall sanding of the shell, and hand sanded for the detailed areas.
Here is what it looks like underneath the large shell.
The next photo involves a few mid-steps that have regretfully failed to get photos of, so I’ll try to explain it with text and some photos of other Portal gun builds. I repeated the foam process for the smaller shell, the one that goes under the barrel and that you rest your hand on. I had to cut the large shell in half and stick it back together so that I could get the indention down the middle. I rushed through the cutting process so the cut was a little uneven at the end, but it’s at the back so you can’t really tell.
My version of the casings isn’t the best way to do it, so here are some alternatives by other people that have made Portal gun replicas.
2StoryProps made his shells by covering the PVC base with wax paper and building up a base with the Apoxie Sculpt.
He then used bondo to fill in the rest
Caleb Neal sanded down a block of foam with a rotary sander
And then added bondo on top of that
A really cheap way is to get a pepakura file and print it out on paper. Pepakura is where you take a 3D model and use a program that cuts it up into flat shapes that can be printed out on paper. You then cut the shapes out and tape them together, and you get a perfect scale paper model that you can cover with whatever material you want, such as resin or fiberglass. Click here for an Instructables article that details the steps of making a Halo helmet using the Pepakura method. It’s not Portal, but it’s the same technique.
This was made by NilProps, you’d only need to use the Pepakura method for the shells.
From there you could cover it with resin, putty, and wood braces like Justin Black.
And then you sand it down and get a very accurately shaped shell.
As you can see, you have a few options for the shells. Do whatever is easiest for you. I repeated the process for the smaller shell, this is what the foam base looked like.
For the portion under the rear shell I took two 4 inch PVC couplings and stuck them together with glue.
Now for the barrel. I had a section of 4 inch PVC and 3 inch PVC. The 3 inch goes inside the 4 inch, and I cut a curved hole in the section of both pieces. This was one of the most difficult parts, it was hard cutting a curve on a curved surface.
I used a plumb line to mark the straight edges along the pipes.
The next step is to add partitions for the indented groves.Caleb Neal set his up better than mine (plus I didn’t get a good shot before adding the paint and sculpt). The flat pieces of material is what allows you to make the indented grooves. It can be any solid material, such as styrene or ABS plastic.
This build by 2StoryProps gives you an idea of what it would look like after you cut down the plastic inserts and added bondo or apoxie sculpt.
Here is a preliminary fitting of all the parts I had so far. I had just stuck apoxie sculpt between the two sections of PVC.
Here is what it looked like after I added the apoxie sculpt between the cracks, painted it over, and sanded it down.
The nozzle part of the barrel got a little more complicated. 2StoryProps used bondo, PVC, and medium0-density fiberboard to construct this portion.
I’ve seen others use PVC, and add a bunch of apoxie sculpt on top then sand it down using a lathe. It’s difficult to make this entirely out of PVC as you have to still bevel the edges and find PVC that will fit inside the standardized 3 inch size that you’ve made the barrel with. This person somehow managed to do that.
This build combined PVC parts with some finishing using apoxie sculpt.
I took my 3 inch PVC and managed to find a PVC T-Valve that had ends small enough to fit inside. I sawed off the ends and stuck them between sections of the 3 inch PVC.
If you’re confused by my explanation, hopefully this photo makes more sense.
Here you can see what it looked like after I stuck the parts together and added it to the main barrel.
It turned out that the valve ends were tapered, not straight, which meant that I had to do a lot of sanding to make them fit inside the 3 inch PVC. If I did it over again I would find some plastic tubes from eStreetPlastics that would fit the inside diameter of the 3 inch PVC. You would then add the tapered edges with apoxie sculpt or bondo.
Now, going back to the main shell. After the paper mache’ clay dried I sanded it down and used apoxie sculpt to fill in groves/uneven areas.
After the apoxie sculpt dried I sanded it and covered it in the first layer of primer.
I added apoxie sculpt between the seams of the two 4 inch couplings that I connected and sanded it down. I did have to cut a section in the middles so that I would be able to get the electronics and such from the shell into the barrel.
After sanding the seams I gave it a coat of primer and sanded that smooth.
The majority of the rest of the time I spent on this project consisted of spot filling with apoxie sculpt, sanding, and covering everything with multiple layers of primer.
I suggest using alternating colors of primer so you can get an idea of what level you have sanded into.
The sanding and layering of primer takes the most time, and it is what sells the look. If you have a dimpled surface it won’t give you a nice glossy finish. I suggest something in the range of 100-400 grit for your sandpaper. You will want to invest in a sanding block. You might be tempted to use a higher grit sandpaper to sand things down faster, but if you use too large of a grit you will get deep groves, which then have to be sanded out. Here is what the shell and barrel looked like as I neared completion.
For the center core I bought about 6 inches of acrylic tube that fit the inside diameter of the 3 inch PVC. EStreetPlastics had what I needed. Something in the range of 8-10 inches would have been a better choice. For the glowing core part I bought a plastic toilet plunger from Lowes, cut off the ends of the handle, and sanded it down to give it a frosted look. I made the circular portions with apoxie sculpt, Volpin made his with ABS plastic which I think looks better (his version is in the below image).
Here is what my core looked like, sans the plastic and with the wiring.
The rest of the finishings are not as polished as I would have liked. I was making this for a video project, so it didn’t have to be 100% accurate. I’ll cover some details that others put on their build that I didn’t put on mine.
The claws on my gun are pretty pitiful. I threw them together at the last minute with 1 inch wood strips. The tips were made from apoxie sculpt and sanded down.
Some other materials you could use are ABS plastic, PVC, medium-density fiberboard, aircraft plywood, and bakeable clay or apoxie sculpt like I used. You might want to add bolts at the claw hinges. On my gun I made the knobs that the claws and tubes attach to out of apoxie sculpt that was sanded down. The tubing is automotive windshield washer tubing.
(these are the claws made by Volpin, not me)
Volpin hacked up a paper spindle to get the “diffuser” inside the barrel.
Once the barrel and main shell had been sanded enough I applied the final paint layer (you can also see the claws I constructed in this photo).
I discovered that you need to stand back with the can of spray paint in your hand and cover the object in a cloud of paint. Don’t get close up or you will cause streaking of the paint. I should have added multiple layers of the top coat and wet sanded each one with 2,000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. The white shells were covered with gloss white paint. Finally I added a gloss clear enamel.
I made a major mistake in applying the clear enamel. The white gloss hadn’t dried long enough and I applied a heavy coat of the enamel all at once. I don’t have a good photo of what happened, but I found someone else that had a similar issue on their Portal gun, this is what it looks like.
In the end, the paint job on my shells didn’t come out as good as I had hoped, but I learned some very valuable lessons…don’t rush stuff like this. I was able to salvage it by sanding off the paint, but I used a very low grit sandpaper which left groves on the shell (only noticeable close up). The barrel was painted with a gloss black paint and given a matte enamel coat. I added a black stripe down the top of the large shell.
To get the logo and aperture image on the shell I printed off some wet slide decals. Since I was using an inkjet printer I had to spray clear acrylic over the decals after they printed off. You cut out the decal, stick it in water (which removes it from the backing) and apply it to the surface you want the decal on. It’s fairly simple and easy to do. You can get the decals here.
I haven’t played much with electronics, so I can’t really give you a good guide to setting up the lighting in the gun. I attached the LEDs to a circular electrical board from RadioShack, but the electricity wasn’t derived from the board, I just used that as a surface to attach the LEDs to.
I had 6 blue LEDs and 6 orange LEDs in the barrel. There were four blue and orange LEDs (two of each color) on each end of the core.
The inside of the barrel on my gun wasn’t very smooth, and I didn’t have that diffuser, so if you looked down the barrel it was kinda odd looking. I took this photo in the bathroom so that I could turn out the lights and get complete darkness. :P
To connect the barrel lights with the battery under the shell I ran the wires under the core.
I had an orange and blue LED running up under the shell to light the little area on top.
Everything was controlled with one switch. I could go from orange to blue, or turn it all off.
It all was connected inside the PVC section under the large shell.
I’m not the best when it comes to building electronics, so I had to get some help on a forum. You can read the forum thread to get detailed information on how I put the electronics portion of the gun together.
So there you have it! That is the process I went through to make my Portal gun. In all, it cost $300-$350, but it was a very good learning experience and I would do it again. I hope to try other props soon, or maybe doing set design or model work. If you have any questions, post a comment and I’ll try to answer it.
17 Comments
What did you use exactly for your battery? Also, did you have resistors installed inline? I’m making my own portal gun and I do NOT know anything about the electronics involved.
I used 2 AA batteries. The best I can do for you is referring you to a thread I posted on a forum asking help with the electronics. http://www.electro-tech-online.com/electronic-projects-design-ideas-reviews/117927-need-help-led-setup.html
BTW – it looks awesome ;)
I’m planning on making this myself, instead of paying up to 500 for the replica via ebay. But I’m curious as to how you were able to make the barrel light up as well.
Great job by the way :D
I covered that in this post. ;)
That’s what the plastic toilet plunger handle was for. LEDs were applied on either side to light it up.
Actually, I suggest buying this replica that’s on sale for $140 http://www.brand-name-coupons.com/valve-portal-device-replica.html
You can then re-paint it and add lights.
OMG that is one of the nicest looking ones i have seen EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the frount and back shells were mad of foam right? are they heavy?? and you should add a magnifing glass to make the light look like a portal on a wall (just a suggestion
JAW121
Where did you get the switch for the lights and everything?
RadioShack
Hey, I was wondering-are you making these for sale? And how long did it take to make this?
I’m not making them for sale, it took me about 3 months. I could have done it in 2 if I wasn’t busy with other things.
Wouldn’t have been cheaper to buy a model off of ebay? I know making one was a fun experience and all but I have a limited amount of money.
At the time there were not any models on eBay, so yes, I would suggest doing that if you don’t have the time or money to make it yourself.
Wow. You did a phenomenal job. It looks spectacular. I would never have known had zero experience with this kind of thing. Thanks for such a great and detailed tutorial & video.
You’re welcome!
i could just buy the official portal gun on ebay for the same price
Not at the time that I made the replica