THE PROTON PACK - COMPLETED PICS

Here is a few pics of the completed Proton Pack project I made for my daughter as part of her Halloween costume. As you can probably tell it was not a 100% accurate compared to the ones seen in both films. However, it received tons of positive comments and turned a few heads. There were even a few kids and adults who begged their loved ones for one. Because let's face it owning your own Proton Pack is pretty damn cool in any part of the world.

I'm working on a tutorial on how you can build your own. In the meantime here are some quick facts.

The number one question was: is it heavy? Which me and my wife would have to explain, to everyone who asked, that it was mostly styrofoam, so no it was not heavy. It was a bit awkward to wear but my daughter had no complaints.

Believe me I took the weight issue seriously and did everything I could to lessen the weight of the pack including building everything mostly from styrofoam or cardboard and foamcore sheets. As a dad I would have never ever let her wear the pack if she found it too heavy, so lots of testing was involved to get the weight way down for her to wear properly and without burden.

However, whenever she wanted to we would take off the pack in the middle of trick-or-treating and put it back on her when she asked for it. We didn't mind it and in fact was glad to give her breaks whenever she needed it. Being a better parent was more important than showing off a cool prop.

The cost of the pack itself was around 30-40 dollars when you factor in materials which were mostly pink styrofoam sheeting and pvc pipe and tons of hot glue and paint. There is some PVC pipe and a Pringles can used in it. We also added some tap lights and a blue glo stick bought from a local dollar store.

I did spray paint it but didn't like the finish so I repainted it with acrylic black with a Modge Podge gloss and fake metal dry brushing for extra weathering detail. But before painting was even started I used Modge Podge (I got the idea from Fickle Frank) to seal the foam in a protective shield which helped tremednously when I spray painted it and also it gave it a bit of protection when it would occasionally bump into a wall or person.

The gun itself was also in no way close to the original. Yet to make it unique I took a cordless power screwdriver I had laying around and inserted a blackened dowel rod into it with some hot glue. Then using extra long glo-necklaces I attached them to the rod as curvy as I could get it. The result was awesome to see it in the dark as it spun it really did have a Proton laser effect and everyone was floored by it.

If anyone has any questions feel free to drop me a comment. Now I'm off to write the tutorial.