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.
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.
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.
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.
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