Make:

Vrogy has created a foam prototype of the M6G pistol from Halo 3. He originally intended to make a whole arsenal of aluminum cast weaponry from his designs. He discovered from this design that lost foam metal casting is somewhat a fussy art.

I cast one, but it turned out very wrong.. metalcasting is a touchy thing....some things just take a whole lot of iterative cycles.

His work really shows a dedication to using the Design Process and prototyping to get the results that he is after. It seems from looking at his work that the process itself is an important part of how and why he creates. His CAD renderings of the parts and body armor are finely detailed and wonderful to behold.

One of his other projects is to make the Rockliff DIY CNC machine mentioned a while back on the Make blog. his machine is just about ready to go. More on that after the glue dries and he finds a 'truly workable CAM program'.

The idea is to CNC parts for different scifi and fantasy costumes and props, most notable the Starcraft II marine armor and the various Halo armors. MDF or coated foam parts would provide a base for silicon molding or vacuum-forming bucks.

Have you been machining devices, costumes or other imagery from video games and virtual worlds? How can video games feed your curiosity and creativity? What have you done with insulating foam or other materials? Have you got a good lead on a workable CAM software package? What do you use for your CAD designing? Share your ideas and techniques in the comments, and show off your work in the Make Flickr pool.