“I really like the Eldar Rangers and the Long Rifle has always been a really cool design in terms of Warhammer weaponry,” Ryan says, “I’ve always loved building things to see how they’re done, so I decided to give this a go both in terms of being a Warhammer fan as well as my first few steps into prop building.”

First step? Research. Ryan pored over tutorials and YouTube videos until he settled on two options: modify an existing object or start from scratch.

“Initially I went with the former,” he recalls, “I bought a Nerf rifle and did a lot of modification, but in the end I had something that looked terrible.” After scrapping that approach, he bought all the necessary materials to build it from the ground up. In this case, he began with pink foam to get the core shape of the Long Rifle. Using online schematics, he carefully traced out shapes in EVA foam and began layering them to block out the overall silhouette. To keep it stable, Ryan ran wooden dowels through the gun to provide a sturdy core.

Eldar weaponry is round and smooth - something Ryan had to spend a lot of time getting to look right. “I had to use a dremel to grind down the edges and get the fancy curves down.” As well as spending many nights on this step, it also left a thin layer of black EVA foam all over Ryan’s apartment. “Weeks later, I’m still finding it!”

After he was pleased with the final silhouette, Ryan got to work on the details. He sealed the cracks between the layers of foam with silicone latex caulking. According to Ryan, this was the most time consuming step. Once it was done, though, he was rewarded with a seamless transition between the various foam parts of the Long Rifle.

Once that step was complete, he got to painting. After testing various different paints, he landed on latex paint in order to protect the foam. He ended up going with the classic Biel-Tan Ranger gun scheme. “I really wanted to give it a more tabletop look,” Ryan said, “so I used tabletop painting techniques - highlighting, edging, and washing to achieve shadows.”

“I learned a lot from my first dive into the world of prop-making, and I’m really happy with how it turned out!”