Time to look at the next prop I 3d printed - Moxxi's Maliwan Bad Touch.  The Bad Touch is my favorite Borderlands weapon.  While it isn't really a gun Wilhelm would probably choose, I don't care . . . I love it too much.  So, when I decided to do a Borderlands cosplay, I knew instantly what gun I would use.

Wilhelmina Cosplay - Maliwan Bad Touch SMG

First, I needed the gun itself.  To do this, the gun needed to be exported from the game, imported into a 3d modelling program, delete the gestalt pieces I didn't want, prepped for printing (you can read more about this process in my intro post to 3d printing for cosplay), slice it into printable pieces, and finally print.  Once the pieces were printed I glued them together with ABS juice (also mentioned in the intro) we had a full gun.  You can see some of the finished product in the sanding pics (first 2).

Here is where I began thinking about where the batteries will be hidden and how deep the recesses should be for them as well as the Pi that would serve as the display found on the side of the gun.  I knew where the Pi would sit, but I didn't know where to hide the battery pack that would power it.  After doing some measurements and looking at the in-game texture on the gun, I decided the best bet would be to hide it behind the magazine.  Ideally I would have done these things BEFORE the print, but I wasn't really thinking that far ahead.  Something I need to work on.

At this point, I just started cutting.  The magazine was not easy to remove.  I cut around the edges of the portion I wanted to remove and a vertical cut about halfway along the magazine.  I decided to simply cut along the seam between two printed pieces for the horizontal cut.  This is where things got tough and dirty.  I could not simply remove the magazine cap because it was still attached to the rest of the magazine by the fill inside the print.  To get through this, I used a flat head screwdriver shoved in the side and pulled back and forth under the magazine.  I should have used a knife here, but again, I am not good at thinking ahead.  Anyway, after some time, some slight fracturing, and some tears the cap was freed. This left me with a mess of print fill I needed to cut through.  I did some further measurements and grabbed the dremel to begin cutting.  after a good deal of cutting and grinding I had what you see in the third picture of the slide show.  I did essentially the same thing for the Pi recess (seen in the 4th picture).  I then covered the wormy texture resulting from the cutting and grinding of the print fill to soften and smooth it out and I was basically done.  The resulting recesses were not pretty, but as they both will be covered, it doesn't really matter.  I went back later to create a recess for the battery pack that would power the EL wire as my initial plan proved to not be possible.  The result of this process can be seen in pics 3-6.

Now I needed to create those covers.  For the magazine cap, I sanded the top of the magazine cap and then covered the top with ABS goop to fill and cover the fractured caused by my rather inelegant removal.  I also did a coating on the underside to smooth out the wormies I mentioned above.  Taking care to measure placement correctly on the underside front edge of the cap and the corresponding points on the gun, I drilled some recesses and installed some neodymium magnets to keep the front in place.  I also drilled a hole laterally into the side of the cap facing the magazine and the corresponding point on the magazine itself.  I secured a post into the hole on the cap with, you guessed it, ABS goop.  The combination of these two create a solid attachment that I have no fear will loosen or fail when the gun and the hidden battery are carried around a con.  With that done, it was time to tackle the cover for the Pi.  After some rough experimentation, I decided the best way to go was to design and print a cover.  So, I went back to Blender made one, and printed it out.  The print that came out needed some sanding and a bit of shaping, but it fit well.  The magnet and post solution I used for the magazine cap would not work for this cover due to its relatively thin shape.  So, I decided to drill some holes and screw the cover in place with some hex headed machine screws.  This holds well, is removable, and also has the added benefit of looking pretty cool.  For the EL wire I printed a cap piece that will slide over the battery pack and leave the switch exposed, which also has the benefit of leaving the power LED visible for added eye candy.

This thing used a LOT of filament.  About one and a half spools of the stuff, making this thing is pretty substantial in terms of weight.  But due to the resulting solidity, I won't have to worry too much about it breaking.  There was one piece that did concern me, however.  The looping guard/brace from the bottom of the handle to the body of the gun seemed to be a little more fragile than I'd like.  To reinforce this, I knew I would need more than a coating of thick ABS goo.  I decided the best way to combat any potential breakage was to use drywall patch tape.  This stuff is great.  It is essentially a netting with an adhesive side.  It has some flex and is pretty resilient.  I use it for a variety of things around the house and I thought it would lend itself well to cosplay uses and I was right.  I looped a layer of this all around the grip and coated that layer with a couple layers of medium consistency ABS goop (picture 7).  Once the goop dried, I had a solid guard/brace that I have very little concern about it snapping.  I then sanded it lightly to get a nice finish.

I painted a thin layer of ABS juice over the entirety of the gun (picture 8).  As I mentioned in the Saint post, this does a great job of smoothing things out.  The acetone in the mixture softens and melts (for lack of a better word) the plastic, smoothing out the layers due to printing that sanding couldn't manage.  It also gives it a nice smooth surface for painting.

After sanding and juicing, I started carving out the details, grooves and holes for EL wires, and the like.  I chose to do this after the ABS juicing to allow me to more easily see where I am creating these details.  I used the game's texture as a loose reference for this step.  You can see the result in images 9-11.  I then added craft foam to add elevated portions of the gun for more visual impact.  Now I began further test fitting of lighting elements and powering the Pi (pics 12 and 13).  It seems to be working as planned so I removed them and began to process of painting (pic 15).  This is where I am now.  After I have done the painting, I will begin final fitting of the lighting and I'll be done.

I am quite happy with how it has turned out thus far.  I really like how this is turning out thus far and am looking forward to the final product.  I will be adding pics to the Imgur album as I progress and make further posts as I finish these final steps.