Splatoon Charger, Costume Prop

This is a prop for an Inkling costume. It's a perfect prop for trick-or-treating to fill up with candy!

Inklings are the video game characters from the Nintendo WiiU game called Splatoon. In the game, you play as squid/kid character on a team of 4 to try and cover the ground in an arena with the most ink to win a match. Inklings use ink weapons to cover the ground and splat the opposing team which sends them back to the spawn point - allowing you more time to cover the ground. It's super fun, i highly recommend it! For our Inkling costumes we decided on: ink weapon, ink tank, and a hat for the tentacles. Regular clothes would do for us as in the game you can buy fairly regular clothes for your outfit: sneakers, boots, t-shirts, coats, various hats, we just picked from our regular clothes for likely Inkling wear.

The CHARGER is a sniper ink weapon to spat your opponents from a distance. I decided i could make a quick one these with PVC pipe.

Sorry not a lot of pictures, i was in a hurry making these, ink tanks, a roller, a charger, and an aerospray for Halloween (look for other instructables soon!).

[update, ok, not soon, it's been 6 years since that 2015 halloween, but better late than never! -SS]

PARTS:

• 1" PVC pipe;
• 2 - PVC pipe caps;
• 1 - PVC connector 3-way with 45°;
• 1" thick ridged foam insulation;
• 2 - 50 Oz Smart water bottles;
• 1" dowels for charger sights.

TOOLS:

• Oscillating saw for cutting PVC and shaping foam;
• wood clamps for glueing foam together;
• hand or band saw for cutting sight pieces;
• Drill with 1" bit for drilling thru foam;
• Architects ruler to estimate scale;
• Utility knife.

SUPPLIES:

• gorilla glue or similar for foam;
• PVC cement;
• spray paint: plastic primer, blue, medium green, orange;
• duck tape, lime green;
• sand paper.

I printed out a screen capture of the charge to use in determining the scale and sizes of the parts to make. Using the architect's ruler, i would measure on the print out with the various scales (mine has 11 different inch scales) and compare measurement to real work items (ie: broom handle). for this, i settled on the 3/16" scale.

This is so the end product didn't look too big or too small for an actual human child!

Foam is built up for 2 parts of the Charger: GRIP & MUZZLE

• GRIP is made from 3 - 3" x 11" pieces stacked up and glued together to make a block;
• MUZZLE is made for 3 - 3" x 15" pieces;
  • Cut them out with an oscillating saw, cuts thru it like butter!
  • Stack them up and glue together with gorilla glue (remember some water to activate it).
  • clamp and let dry.

Cut your 3 PVC parts and glue together with the 3-way coupler.

For foam parts, first, drill a 1" hole (same size as your PVC pipe) through the length of both GRIP & MUZZLE. This is so you can shape these parts taking into account any inconsistency in a perfectly drilled hole.

Based on the screen cap pictures, shape the GRIP & MUZZLE parts with oscillating saw, utility knife, and sand paper.

With you 2 empty water bottles, you're using them to make a capsule looking reservoir:

• Fastener side: cut off bottom and cut hole in bottle cap to fit the PVC pipe;
• End side: cut off the bottom and cut off the cap end including neck;
  • using any left over bottle pieces, cut a small circle to fill/cover the hole made from cutting off the cap end;
• Place the bottles together from their bottom ends and glue together;
• Plastic primer your reservior, let dry
• then paint in your favorite ink color (here it's blue).

• Spray paint the MUZZLE in medium green;
• Plastic primer the frame middle and 2 PVC caps in orange, let dry;
  • then overcoat with orange;
• I also made some 1/2 moon sights from 1" dowel for the MUZZLE, paint green too.

The GRIP had some missing material that was easier to cover with tape than refill with foam, hence the whole GRIP is covered in lime green duck tape;

• Sights fo the Grip side are also made from 1" dowwl 1/2 moons and shaped middle, painted lime green.
• Glue on the PVC caps.

The colors make these props really pop out!

These were fun builds and the kids had fun being Inklings!