Mass Effect Gear part 2

I figured that for the Mass Effect 2 suit I would need a gun carry around. Unfortunately I did not have the money to buy one of EvilFX's M8 rifles, or enough time before Halloween to try and build my own.

Luckily for me, Nerfenstein/GirlyGamer blogged about a nerf mod that looks really good, and does not take very much time or money (granted hers looks much better than mine, but I am okay with that).

The pistol is a Lanard Shell Shock X-6, and while it is not an exact match for any of the guns in the game, it looks like it fits and it was good enough for a Halloween costume. While the paint job is pretty cool, I figured I would try something a little extra for the gun mod. In addition to shooting darts, I thought it would be neat if it made a shooting sound when fired (in addition to the click of the spring).

 I went online and picked up a sound maker that people put in teddy bears and such (I will add a link if I can find where I got it...). The sound unit supports a USB adapter which you can use to upload your sound file. I put a black base coat on the gun and opened it up to see if the sounds module would fit inside the handle.

Once I cut as much of the backing off as I could, and tucked the speaker behind the chip board, it just about fit.I had to dremel out some of the plastic in the handle, but no big deal. The push button switch that came with the sound module was way to flat to be immediately useful. Luckily I had a larger one laying around, so I clipped off the flat one and soldered mine on.

At that point, I drilled a small hole if the front of the handle, slipped the button through it, and glued it in place.

After that, I closed it up, and screwed it all back together. You can see the button sticking out slightly underneath the trigger assembly in the pictures above and below. With this in place, the index finger would shoot a dart, and the middle finger will make the blaster sound. I originally wanted to rig the sound to the trigger itself, but figured I would probably end up breaking the firing mechanism if I went that route.

After that it was just a matter of doing the paint job. I used some more silver Rub-N-Buff for the light areas, then I dry brushed on some acrylic black and gray that I had watered down to add some depth. Then I used some masking tape to make a trace for the N7 emblem and the stripes and I spray painted those on. Below are some pictures of the finished product with and without the clip.

The slight bulge on the back of the handle is a piece of foam I added because the edge of the chip board stuck out slightly from the handle (dremeled a hole for it to fit through). The foam did not stab my hand as much as the chip board did.