User avatar
By Nuclearjungle
#4954344
Hi, everyone. I was getting to the point that I wasn't going to post this, but I had told some curious people that I would, what seems like ages ago now. For starters (since I've never introduced myself), my name is Josh Franklin, and I work as a sculptor and prop maker in the animatronics industry. Like a lot of people that do practical FX, I was heavily inspired growing up by movies like Ghostbusters and the work of people like Steve Johnson. Like most of you, I was eventually drawn to using my art and building skills to homage the properties I loved as a child. I started off with things like Predator and Batman suits (which were okay for the time), and things got more sophisticated from there. A few years ago, some of my coworkers and I decided to tackle TMNT in our spare time, mainly because I was a diehard fan. Some of you may have seen our foam latex Turtles suits on Adam Savage's Tested:

Image
Image

When that was done, there was really only one more staple of my old 8 year old life that I hadn't tackled, and it was a big one: Ghostbusters. The movie that caused my childhood best friend and I to be positive we would one day grow up to be paranormal investigators. What followed was finding this community and falling down a rabbit hole of studying parts and learning obscure facts. It's been a huge part of my life the last few years, even though I feel now that the time to move on is soon. Anyway, after building a pack, becoming unhappy with the accuracy, and doing a complete rebuild, I finally got it to the point that I'm happy with it, and I'd like to share it with you all now.

Image

Image


So, here it is. This shell started life as a Karnivorous Creations, but I eventually got to the point where I could only see its flaws, and there were many. At this point, the shell has been almost entirely resculpted by hand. I spent many hours calculating measurements, and also created screen accurate templates that I printed on transparencies to get near-perfect proportions. For those that were curious, here's at least a partial breakdown of what I did:
*Moved the power cell 1/16" lower, cut off the outside and reattached it at a different angle, then resculpted it all. The reason the KC power cell has the wrong proportions is that it has too much of a taper from the back to the front, while the end sitting against the mother board is about right.
*Moved the location of the "shelf" that sits between the EDA and cyclotron. Its location was way off.
*Completely leveled the cyclotron and resculpted it according to the template I made. All the holes, including the small tapped ones, line up near-precisely with the pack I referenced.
*Completely leveled the EDA, resculpted. It had the wrong proportions, which was actually the very first thing that bugged me.
*Resculpted most of the crank gen, especially the rectangles under the red label. The spacing and shapes of those were WAY off.
*Complete resculpt of the gun mount box. When viewed from the front, the ribs were all at completely wrong heights. When viewed from the side, they were angled very inaccurately. The entire box was also too short, and needed more material added on the bottom.
*Fixed the sync gen rectangular panel proportions.
*Fixed the bevel angle in back of the HGA.

There are many more little things, but those were the highlights. Pretty much everything else was a matter of sculpting the pack texturing, but that itself took a long time before I was satisfied. I tried to match most of the specific blemishes and anomalies that I could, although I wasn't aiming to replicate one particular pack. Most blemishes appear to be part of the mold and thus present in every hero pack, but for whatever reason some are seemingly unique to a specific pack. My main goal was to match the overall feel of authenticity, choosing nuances of different packs that I liked. For the most part, I used the Venkman and Spengler packs for reference.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Image
Image

Image
Image
Image


For the labels, I decided I needed to have some of them made custom for maximum accuracy, as nothing else commercially available is quite right (which isn't meant to slam the available options, as some of them are VERY high quality...almost too much so). For the bumper label, I cleaned up various images of the screen used bumper label and had them printed on metallized polyester. I even included the little blue artifacts in the bottom left corner, remnants from the rest of the sticker that was cut off. Unfortunately, I had difficulty settling on the accurate hue of blue, so I had the labels printed in 10 different blues to cover all the bases.

Image
Image

The screen used top fuse labels appear to actually be a translucent red decal placed over a metallic surface, giving it a subtle metallic sheen. Where the corner is peeling up on the Venkman pack, you can see that it is also red underneath, showing the translucency. Again, I composited and cleaned up photos of the screen used labels, and had a batch of translucent decals printed up. Minimum order was 100, so I was originally planning on maybe handing these out to fellow GB I would run into at events. For the metallic rectangle, I used thin matte tin coated steel, which had just the right subtle sheen, and was weathered prior to application. This steel was also used on the N filter label, with a clear sticker placed on top as per the 1984 Spengler pack photos. The top right corner of the fuse label and the bottom right corner of the N filter label were peeled up, matching the Venkman and Spengler hero packs respectively.

Image
Image

In upgrading my pack, I also wanted to enhance the FX. My pack was already using the Spongeface wand light enhancement with the 4 flush mount RGB LEDS, but the vintage flash bulb was non functional. I looked at various means of modifying flash bulbs with LEDS, but for me it was most important that the flash bulb pass inspection as ordinary and unmodified when not being used. My solution was to mold a real flash bulb and create a replica with an LED embedded within. When activated, a circuit board in my pack simulates an arc welding flash pattern at the wand tip. Pictured is my replica bulb next to a vintage one.

Image
Image
Image

I was originally planning on including a "real" GB1 ribbon cable, and I conducted experiments in creating true ribbon cables laminated with silicone (no tape), but I didn't feel my method was quite ready for prime time yet. Here's the result of that experiment. Currently, I'm using a more conventional cable that I bought and manipulated into a Spengler twist.

Image

The grips are production castings, appropriately textured, painted, and weathered by me. Also in these photos, you can see I chose to go with a Venkman style steel cable attached along with the GB1 loom cable tie, even though that wasn't yet present in GB1. I prefer the security of the cable, personally. Venkman's hero pack (today anyway) appears to be the only one with both the steel cable and the cable tie.

Image
Image
Image
Image

I had a new aluminum HGA and N filter made for me by FreekyGeeky, with wonky holes to match the Venkman pack:

Image

Matching the Venkman pack, I used an amber colored adhesive on some parts. You can also see that I resculpted the production booster frame to be thicker and include the rear portion with booster tube indentation. The real "ugly weld" is visible too.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Here's the wand with replica Wamco bar graph. I set up the top knob to function on a 4 position rotary switch that clicks into position, and one click past full stream activates the theme song. I also dissected a vintage Clippard 701 and turned it into a potentiometer to control volume.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Other pack features:
*Real 4mm Gen 1 Legris elbows
*All vintage Clippard brass
*Vintage Clippard 331
*Vintage Nycoil and Clippard tubing (although the blue tubing was custom made)
*Patinas applied to metals for aging.
*Orange hat light recolored to a vintage reddish orange.
*Vintage Raytheon gray knob
*Vintage LC1
*Accurate incandescent pack lights
*Rumble motor in wand
*Smoke venting system with toasted marshmallow scent
*And finally, signatures from Aykroyd, Hudson, Reitman, Atherton, Parker Jr., and "Slavitza as Gozer".

Image

So, that's what I've been working on, and I hope you like it. I was originally scrambling to get various other gear components done before Afterlife, such as molding a screen accurate vintage radio holster and casting it in modern urethane for my suit, but I think I've found that my love of this stuff is kind of fading. For the most part, this board has been truly inspiring (even for a seasoned builder like myself), and I've gotten a ton of joy out of seeing the stuff you guys make and figure out. Unfortunately, I've also encountered some toxicity, and I think I've just gotten to the point that the stress outweighs the joy, which is sort of counter-productive for a hobby. But regardless, I still want to sincerely thank you guys, because I know for a fact that I never would have done any of this if some of the great builders here hadn't paved the way first (not to mention AJ and the GBFans shop getting me started). Hopefully, my own contributions here will help inspire a few other people. Keep building, folks!
twmedford23, tobycj, mike_waclo and 10 others liked this
By tobycj
#4954366
Dude...just, dude :shock:

This is absolutely incredible work. Consider the bar suitably raised! This is absolutely the content I LOVE to see. I will certainly be poring over this in slower time, but bravo, you should be incredibly proud of this.

:crunch:

You've earned it.
User avatar
By JWils23
#4954381
Wow, this is spectacular. Bravo, just bravo! The beauty of this pack truly is a testament to your skills as an artist and sculptor.

This is the kind of stuff I love to see here, the creativity to make your own solutions when the perfect replication doesn’t already exist. I have to ask about the custom made blue clippard tubing, the coloring is perfect. Would you care to expand a little on how that came to be?
User avatar
By ZuulHouseRock
#4954443
A masterpiece, good sir. What was your technique for getting the texturing on the shell. It clearly isn't just "hammered spray paint." You really captured all the lumps, clumps and humps on it. Would love some insight on how you did that.
By CT1983
#4954467
Good lawd… I was perfectly content in life with my paint-by-number pack, and you’re out there touching up the Sistine chapel ceiling, lol. Incredible!
User avatar
By Nuclearjungle
#4954499
Thank you all, very much appreciated. The texturing you see is mainly achieved by hammered paint sprayed over surfaces sculpted using epoxy putty. I used gray Apoxie Sculpt for the majority of the shell, plus black for the booster frame. I use very tiny sculpting tools for my detail work. I then like to spray SEM brand black self etching primer over the hammered finish, which is also what I use on all my aluminum parts.
tobycj liked this

    The yellow parts are raw 3D prints, unsanded and u[…]

    Sorry, I hadn't seen any of these replies. Either […]

    Uniform Tips

    Sorry for the triple post (you guys have gotten […]

    Proton Props???

    Ugly Little Spud, Did you actually get the pack?[…]