Joy&RaptorsUnrestrained!
08-20-2014, 01:03 AM
Hey guys!
As something I'm working on, now that I've managed to save up enough money for a good starter tail, I had the idea of constructing an equally cool trident.
Now, there are many awesome tridents out there, and I've looked over some of the tutorials here, but I was hoping to get some advice, anyway.
My idea is to create a trident that's not made of wood or gold or metal, but one that looks to have grown from a coral reef, surrounded by sea life, as a form of living trident.
I think that the base of the trident should be the plastic trident I got around halloween from Party City, as shown here:
Golden Trident (http://www.partycity.com/product/golden+trident.do)
The shaft is black plastic, and the prongs are a coiled, pitted-looking gold plastic.
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for a waterproof coating I could add that comes in different colors (sea greens, blues, pale purples, peach, or rosy shades, mostly, to imitate coral and algae), maybe in a clay or hot glue like material, perhaps with a sandy texture or appearance, to decorate at least the shaft and possibly the prongs. It would also need to be waterproof (and salt and chlorine resistant, as well as being able to stand up to repeated rinsing when used).
My next issue is that the handle of the trident is hollow... I'm not sure if that would be a good thing (keeping the trident light) or a bad thing (letting water get inside, making it more difficult to clean, etc). Should I fill or seal the handle somehow, do you think? It might also affect the trident's buoyancy, if I do. And I would like to add a whorled shell, like that of turritella communis, to the end to make it look more impressive, but I'm not sure if I should let the shell completely block the opening, or leave room for water to go in and out of the handle.
I'd like to attach strings of shells, and dried starfish, sand dollars, shells, and perhaps sea horses, gotten at beach stores, to the trident, and use those Safari Ltd. figures (sea lions, dolphins, weedy sea dragons, octopi, flying fish, squid, etc) to make the whole thing come alive. Obviously, I'll need to figure out what sort of glue to use to attach those rubber/plastic figures to the plastic trident (or the faux-coral coating), and I'll need to figure out if there's some sort of clear coating I should use to protect the figures (and the shells, and so forth) from being corroded by the chlorine or eroded by the water, since I'm pretty sure the dried sand dollars, etc, won't actually hold up to being exposed to water again... they seem pretty fragile.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
As something I'm working on, now that I've managed to save up enough money for a good starter tail, I had the idea of constructing an equally cool trident.
Now, there are many awesome tridents out there, and I've looked over some of the tutorials here, but I was hoping to get some advice, anyway.
My idea is to create a trident that's not made of wood or gold or metal, but one that looks to have grown from a coral reef, surrounded by sea life, as a form of living trident.
I think that the base of the trident should be the plastic trident I got around halloween from Party City, as shown here:
Golden Trident (http://www.partycity.com/product/golden+trident.do)
The shaft is black plastic, and the prongs are a coiled, pitted-looking gold plastic.
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for a waterproof coating I could add that comes in different colors (sea greens, blues, pale purples, peach, or rosy shades, mostly, to imitate coral and algae), maybe in a clay or hot glue like material, perhaps with a sandy texture or appearance, to decorate at least the shaft and possibly the prongs. It would also need to be waterproof (and salt and chlorine resistant, as well as being able to stand up to repeated rinsing when used).
My next issue is that the handle of the trident is hollow... I'm not sure if that would be a good thing (keeping the trident light) or a bad thing (letting water get inside, making it more difficult to clean, etc). Should I fill or seal the handle somehow, do you think? It might also affect the trident's buoyancy, if I do. And I would like to add a whorled shell, like that of turritella communis, to the end to make it look more impressive, but I'm not sure if I should let the shell completely block the opening, or leave room for water to go in and out of the handle.
I'd like to attach strings of shells, and dried starfish, sand dollars, shells, and perhaps sea horses, gotten at beach stores, to the trident, and use those Safari Ltd. figures (sea lions, dolphins, weedy sea dragons, octopi, flying fish, squid, etc) to make the whole thing come alive. Obviously, I'll need to figure out what sort of glue to use to attach those rubber/plastic figures to the plastic trident (or the faux-coral coating), and I'll need to figure out if there's some sort of clear coating I should use to protect the figures (and the shells, and so forth) from being corroded by the chlorine or eroded by the water, since I'm pretty sure the dried sand dollars, etc, won't actually hold up to being exposed to water again... they seem pretty fragile.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!