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Well, this one was a challenge. I needed to make a pair of artificial hands shaped like beer cans. Also, the cans needed to be remotely filled with beer so that the actor could drink from them. Also, they needed to explode as if they were shot with a bullet. Also, they needed to spray fountains of blood.
I needed to cut the cans open so that I could fit a plastic tube that I could use for my pneumatic hardware. Also the finish needed to be sanded off of the cans so that new labels could be applied.
Jason Singleton helped me to rig these cans up to a couple of vegetable-sprayers (filled with alternately O’Doul’s and fake blood) and lots and lots of pneumatic hose.
This foam sword pops out of a coffin and stabs someone! Since we couldn’t fit a whole sword in a coffin, and we couldn’t stab anyone for real, I made the sword in two halves.
The front half to pop out of the coffin (I rigged it to operate pneumatically,) and the hilt, which has a flat base to attach beneath a hole in the actor’s clothes. The blade is made out of silver-painted foam, and I was able to get a serrated effect by wiggling the razor blade as I cut. The hilt was made out of a goofy old gold lame’ belt, which I brushed with a light coat of brown acrylic paint.
I made this magically-opening walnut for the Adult Swim mini-series “The Heart, She Holler.” It works in a way that is similar to the old springy toy animals made out of beads that droop when you press on their plastic base.
For my version, I made a new base out of plastic tube, springs, and washers. Next I carefully cut a walnut into quarters and made tiny wire hinges so that it would flop open when the spring was discreetly pressed. It is almost impossible to get the meat out of a walnut without breaking it, so I needed to epoxy mine back together!
