Borderlands: Moxxi's Megaphone and Belt

Welcome, everyone, to my progress guide for Mad Moxxi's megaphone and belt. If you're not familiar with Mad Moxxi I suggest you check out an awesome game franchise by the name of Borderlands! Set in an apocalyptic dystopian future, you play the role of a treasure hunter seeking untold lost alien technology. Mad Moxxi is one of the more rambunctious side characters known for her sexy swagger and risque aesthetic. 

There has been much debate between friends and I over what the megaphone Moxxi is known for carrying is actually made from. To be quite honest I am still unsure, however due to budget and weight restrictions I opted to go with an off-the-shelf fabric lampshade. While not precisely mimicking the contour of the in-game item, it's practical pros outweighed idealistic cons

In order to provide a snug and sturdy fit for the lampshade, I filed out 3 notches that lined up with the 3 support bars making up the top of the lampshade.

To do this I simply used a small folding hand saw and a paint stick wrapped in sandpaper.

As you can see, the line up quite well and provide a nice sturdy place  attachment for the lampshade.

In order to find a way to hold the lampshade on, I traveled to the hardware store and found this drainage gate piece that fit snugly into the rear section of the megaphone housing. 

And you can see that here. It fit so snugly I was required to sand down the edges and hammer it in.

After drilling out he cross beam, I purchased a long thin bolt, a nut and a set of wide washers. The bold ran through the support structure at the top of the lampshade and through the other side where I could hand tighten it. I then went in with a Dremel tool and cut the remainder excess of the bold off.

Here is how the lampshade looked once attached to the housing.

Next I used a hand saw to cut the handle shape from a 3/4" sheet of MDF and used a paint stick wrapped in sandpaper to bevel the edges. 

I drilled two holes in the top, two corresponding holes int he housing, and then mounted the handle using two screws I had on hand with a bit of Apoxie Sculpt to fill in the gap. 

Here is the raw application of the Apoxie Sculpt. After it set for a few hours, but was still relatively soft, I went back with various found object tools and shaped it to have a cleaner appearance. 

After it set, I primed the whole housing with grey Rustoleum primer. 

Here you can see every piece that made up the final build. From here on out it was simply paint and a bit of mesh.

I gave the housing a base coat with some dark hammered paint I had laying around from a previous project. It worked out really well in the end!

Here is one last shot of the assembly after roughing out the lamp shade with acrylic paints.

After another round with acrylic paints, I had my finalized version of Mad Moxxi's megaphone. All in all this build cost about 30 dollars in supplies and took 2 day to build.

For the holster and belt combo I decided there was no better time to start working with leather than the present. After returning to my native state of Virginia I traveled to a local leather store and picked up a large piece of raw leather. I fashioned a pattern for her holster based on texture files I grabbed from the game.

I traced the pattern onto the leather with a pencil and used a box cutter to cut the pieces free. Leather, while durable, is surprisingly easy to cut with a sharp blade. I've had harder time cutting paper with an Exacto knife.

I used these two tools to cut and press grooves into the seam areas of the holster to provide a corner to the folds. I recall neither of the tools names, however the one on the left is used to cut a V shaped notch into the leather, and the right tool is used to press the fibers down in order to allow for a better fold.

This is what the pattern looked like when finally cut and scored.

And here is the shape after being folded.

I drew a line down the center and punched a hole ever half inch to allow me to stitch the opposite ends together.

Here you can see the basic shape. Unfortunately beyond this step I had no available camera to snap progress pictures with. The only steps beyond this were to stain the leather with leather die, emboss the designs on the later added flap and front section, and use a combination of 151 rum and sandpaper to age it.

The belt buckle was also affected by the lack of camera, however it was a relatively simple design. You can see here I have 4 rectangles cut from 1/8th inch acrylic sheeting. They were all layered together to create a hollow box of sorts to allow the belt to slip through. A diamond shape of the protective film that covers a new sheet of acrylic was left in order to leave a diamond shaped void once painted.

The back of the piece with a diamond was painted light blue before being applied diamond outward to the rest of the buckle. After I was finished painting the exterior of the buckle I removed the film and there shown through a blue diamond that was somewhat illuminated by the ability for light to travel through the acrylic. While this effect doesn't do much for photos, in person it is pretty interesting.

So, that about wraps it up. Overall simple build and I am very pleased with the final product. As always, feel free to leave comments or questions and I'll answer them as soon as I can!