Cardboard Weapon Bonanza!

This morning, I sat in bed staring at my bookcase, the top of which is adorned with cardboard Team Fortress 2 weapons that I’ve made over the years. Very dusty ones. I’ve mentioned my cardboard weapons many times in the past, with my collection of Medic melee weapons, and even wrote about how to make your own shotgun. So I decided to maybe find all my cardboard weapons, finished and unfinished. The result was worrying.

Thing is, cardboard is a really good modelling material. I can’t afford stuff like Worbla, the weird card material that hardens under heat and is used by all the pro cosplayers, while being light enough to make whole suits of armour out of. I would love to be able to make a bunch of stuff like that. I could probably do it as well. Which brings me neatly onto the next problem I have, that getting things delivered to Cyprus is fucking horrible. Things get lost all the time. A pair of T-Rex earrings I ordered were three weeks late. A handbag my sister ordered was a month late. We waited three months for some graphic novels we ordered. They ended up refunding us for them, and the graphic novels turned up two weeks later. My sister’s best friend in the US sent her a Christmas gift back in October. It still hasn’t arrived.

“What was that detour for, Medic?” you ask? Well, I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but for this year’s Cyprus Comic Con, I want to dress up as a Team Fortress 2 character. Last time round, I dressed up as a League of Legends character, and not even one I particularly liked. But I’m torn over what character to do.

“Duh, Medic, you should be Medic!”

Yeah, that’s the obvious thing to do. Perhaps it’s too obvious. Plus my brother wants to do Medic. And while the idea of two Medics battling it out through a comic and gaming convention would be pretty cool, I dunno. I wanted to do Pyro, which is why I mentioned about getting things delivered. There’s no way I can get a gas mask over here, I’d have to order one online, and being the unlucky person that I am, the damn thing might not ever arrive! I am considering Demoman, but I don’t know if it’s insulting or not, what with me being a white, English non-cyclops woman, which is rather non-Demoman-y. And, like Pyro, I’ll be wearing a full body suit in 30C or higher weather. Not a great idea. Sniper is possible. Engineer is a good option. No way could I do a decent Soldier or Heavy though and I look awful in a suit. I hate Scout so no to him, plus, he’d look fucking stupid with DD-sized lumps on his chest.

Anyway, back to the cardboard. The other great thing about cardboard is that it’s actually really light. A paper mache weapon would weigh way more than than cardboard one, and with cardboard you often have already existing bits you can work from. The holy grail of cardboard is a long cardboard tube, often from wrapping paper. You cam make so much with tubes, you have no idea.

Another bonus is that cardboard is easy to paint and glue together. Hot glue works perfectly. You can use tape and staples and nothing bad happens. Both spray paint and acrylic paint work. There are downsides though, the weapons do look more rough and worn, not shiny Factory New sort of things. You can’t get as smooth as foam or anything like that.

In the end, I decided to get as many weapons as I could find out and lay them all on the floor. Sadly, a lot of them are battered from mistreatment from others, and I’m secretly a filthy person who needs to polish and dust the place more often. That being said, I have a LOT of weapons. Some of them are also unfinished, a Black Box and a Gunslinger in particular. So here’s a picture of them all.

Not shown here: Sniper Rifle, SMG, Huntsman, Third Degree, second Sticky Bomb Launcher, Bonk! Atomic Punch, unfinished Crusader’s Crossbow.

I need to get a life.