Splatoon Inkling Slosher Bucket, Trick or Treat Bucket, Costume Prop

This is a prop for an Inkling costume. It's a perfect prop for trick-or-treating to fill up with candy!

• Inklings are the video game characters from the Nintendo WiiU game called Splatoon. In the game, you play as squid/kid character on a team of 4 to try and cover the ground in an arena with the most ink to win a match. Inklings use ink weapons to cover the ground and splat the opposing team which sends them back to the spawn point - allowing you more time to cover the ground. It's super fun, i highly recommend it!
• For our Inkling costumes we decided on: ink weapon, ink tank, and a hat for the tentacles.
• Regular clothes would do for us as in the game you can buy fairly regular clothes for your outfit: sneakers, boots, t-shirts, coats, various hats, we just picked from our regular clothes for likely Inkling wear.

The slosher bucket does in the game exactly as it sounds, slosh ink all over the ground. It is a bucket with a regular high handle and an additional low handle to aid in really getting the ink spread far. I decided i could make a quick couple of these with PVC pipe.

Sorry not a lot of pictures, i was in a hurry making these, ink tanks, a roller, a charger, and an aerospray for Halloween (look for other instructables soon!).

Step 1: Step 1: Supplies & Tools

Needed supplies:

• Bucket: This really hinges on getting the right bucket with the right shape. I found this at Target, a Swopt 3.5 gallon bucket for about $10.
• 1" PVC Pipe, about 5', mine was Schedule 40, the medium thickness;
• 6 - 1" PVC 90° elbows, about $0.50 each;
• PVC cement;
• sand paper;
• Spray paint, plastic primer;
• Spray paint, magenta color;
• newspaper & masking tape for the painting part;
• sand about 1 quart for filling your PVC pipe for bending;
• screws, washers and nuts, 1 - 1.5" and 2 - 2" for securing pipe assembly to bucket;

Suggested Tools:

• Oscillating saw for cutting PVC;
• Heat gun, for bending PVC;
• Leather gloves and contractor knee pads for handling hot PVC pipe;
• Table sander;

Step 2: Step 2: Bend Your PVC Pipe

This is the first PVC I've bent and it's super easy. This is for the upper big bend of PVC pipe & shorter lower handle - if you bend more than you need for the upper you can use the left over for the lower handle:

• Start by prepping your PVC: I didn't bother cutting my pipe first. If you're short on space to handle the long pipe while bending, or short on sand, You can cut your pipe if you want, just measure around the upper part of you bucket and add a tad more. Also, don't bother sanding off the printed letters on the pipe, you'll be sanding them off later.
  • masking tape one end of your pipe;
  • Fill the pipe with sand (I have a kids' sand box, so, i have plenty) then tape the other end;
    • The sand keeps the pipe from crimping while bending, plus acts as heat retention so you have more bending time;
  • Measure the amount of length you need to bend (if you haven't cut to length already) and mark with tape;
• Feel the heat!
  • Get your forming bucket, gloves and knee pads, heat gun.
    • This black bucket is a tad thin, so i used a similar sized bucket as the form to bend the PVC pipe around;
    • Also get a few pieces of thin scrap wood to keep your pipe off the floor if you're worried about your floor (my shop is concrete, so, i wasn't).
  • Using you heat gun on it's highest setting (mine goes to 1200°F), Start heating your pipe along the length of pipe you marked and intend to bend.
  • use a fairly slow movement with occasional pipe rotation/rolling on your scrap wood or floor;
  • You want to heat all the way around and along your length, so, when you start the bending part you can quickly bend from one end to the other and not take so long to reheat sections that need more heat as you bend along the length;
  • It takes 5-10 minutes to get the pipe hot and pliable, so be patient. Don't worry if you slightly brown the pipe while heating, you'll be sanding that off along with the printing later;
• Get Bending:
  • When your pipe starts to be pliable, focus your heat on one end and hold that end against your forming bucket;
  • Hold that end down with your knee and start bending around the bucket;
    • just keep bending down your length;
    • adding heat as you go, as it won't bend if too cool.
    • As you can't roll the pipe to heat both sides, try to get the inside of the bend;
  • the pipe will want to slightly spring back until it cools a bit; So, hold it in shape or tape it it to itself across the gap between sides.
  • Once cooled, remove the tape and empty the sand out.

Step 3: Step 3: Assemble, Paint, and Install Your Handle

The handle/cradle you're making is made up of:

• 1 - long bent pvc Pipe you just bent
• 1 - short bent pvc pipe piece for the back handle section
• 6 - 90 degree connectors
• 2 - straight pieces for upright sections, longer
• 2 - straight pieces for horizontal lower sections, shorter

Dry assemble your PVC pieces by:

• The critical part is the upper bent section. Put it around your final bucket and mark where the longer upright sections will join leaving it little long, ~1" extra or so.
• Cut all the other pieces, leaving them a tad long
• Put the together and gauge overall size and fit on your bucket and adjust/cut shorter pieces as needed.
• Once your overall fit is good and tested on your bucket, PVC glue your pieces together.
• Once glue is dry, use your sand paper to sand away all the printed on writing/letters as they will/may bleed through your paint; also, sand down to white any sections that browned during your heating and bending work.

Paint your PVC handle and the bucket's handle:

• Mask off all the black parts of bucket;
• Then use plastic primer on both parts
• When primer is dry, paint both with a nice magenta, adding coats as directed until fully covered.

When the paint is all dry, secure to bucket with bolts and nuts:

• Drill thru the middle upper section of curve and thru each side of lower vertical sections;
• secure your bolts, washers and nuts.

Then you're done and ready to SPLAT IT UP! Or fill it up trick-or-treating!