Cardboard Props: How to Make a Prop IPhone or IPad

I make props for my Scout districts annual Gang Show, and this year I was asked to provide a prop iPhone, I thought oh hell, how do I make an iPhone? Then one day wondering through Tesco I noticed one of those rubber shock absorbing sleeves for iPhones, It contained a cardboard image of an iPhone.... and then it hit me... I could just do the same

So here it is, Biggsy's prop iPhone!

So what are you going to need?

• Cardboard
• Cutting implement (Knife or scissors which ever your more comfortable with)
• If you use a knife, you'll need a cutting mat
• Pencil/Pen
• Glue & paint brush for application
• Tissue paper
• Black paint or a Black marker
• Colour printer
• Access to something like Google images
• Sticky back plastic

What you need to do here is acquire from somewhere an image of an iPhone that is true size. You could cut it out of a magazine or download it off a website such as Google images. ~If needed re-size the image using whatever software you have on your PC, and print it out in COLOUR

What you need do here, is roughly cut round the outline of your i Phone image, place this rough cut on top of a piece of cardboard, and with your craft knife (or scissors) cut out the card and the image to size (if your not very accurate with a blade or scissors i suggest cutting out your image properly, then tracing round it onto your cardboard.

Now I have found in the past that I waste a lot of paint trying to back fill the seams of the corrugated cardboard, so this year I have decided to just put a few layers of papier mache tissue around any of the rough edges. I use 2 parts glue to one part water, then layer one or two thin strips of tissue paper over  the edges. I don't bother using news paper as if i'm going to paint something I find that the ink sometimes shows through.

This part is simple really, you need to glue the pictures of the i Phone onto the card base (Let the papier mache dry first)

Now leave over night to dry, for this step, I used un-diluted PVA, but a glue stick would work equally as well

[[Once the glue is dry]]

Time to use your paint/ black marker to add the detail... I sorta guessed, but I don't think it looks too bad

I know how annoying it is having to re-touch props during a run of performances, so since this will be in peoples hands, under the lights, I decided to cut out the risk of the ink running, to add a front and back 'screen protector'

All I did was measured and cut out two slices of sticky back plastic and put them in place making sure that no air bubbles formed.

Well and that's that, there's very little to it really, and I'm sure it would work for all sorts of flat applications. Hope this helped someone!

Cheerio

Biggsy

In the picture it shows my prototype, an iPod touch and the finished article