Queen Chrysalis Staff from My Little Pony Prop Build

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Queen Chrysalis Staff from My Little Pony Prop Build

Category : Builds

This was the first prop I ever made for someone I have never met. I also have never seen the show My Little Pony but I have a friend who knows it well and I used his advice a lot.

The client gave me a reference image to use for the staff, its only black and green but i was able to get relative dimensions. I used a program called Illustrator to layout the design and then broke it into pieces that could be printed on letter sized paper. Once I cut out all the paper pieces i was able to assemble my template, i had to make the staff thicker than the image or it would break to easy.

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I wanted to make this prop light weight and easy to carry around all day. I made the form out of pink insulation foam and carved it down to the rough shape I needed. Pink foam is very light and really easy to shape. Looking back, I wish I would have taken the time to make a mold and cast this whole staff in resin.

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Once I had the rough shape I took a sharp blade and cut away the corners and shaped the staff. You can sand insulation foam easily and get a relatively smooth surface. I took a metal rod and drove it through the center so it was stable and did not bend.

I gave the staff several coats of PVA glue also known as Mod Podge to seal the surface of the foam. Next I coated the sealed foam with some resin, I made the mistake of using clear resin. Clear resin takes much longer to cure than normal resin so it took many applications to get the right effect.

I hit the whole staff with a coat of black gloss paint and then sealed it with a clear coat. I took some rubber balls, painted them, sealed them and then mounted them to the top horn tips and the bottom using metal rods.

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The last step was making the heart, I shaped it out of pink insulation foam in two half’s. I glued these two half’s together, I coated this with PVA glue and then painted and sealed it. I took some fishing wire and suspended the heart in the center of the fork of the staff.

This is a photo of the client holding the staff at the 2014 Shutocon. She loved the prop and many people seemed to like it as well.

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If you have any questions about this build or anything else, please feel free to comment or go to the contact page and drop me a line.

Ben Crawford


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