Cardboard Armory: Colt XM16E1

A real XM16E1:

And the in-game model:

This is my first attempt at a larger weapon. Anime Central was fast approaching, and I didn't want to just be another Snake with a knife and pistol, so I vowed to make his awesome early version of the M16. So, as per usual, I found an image of a real XM16E1 from the internet, got the real-world dimensions, and sized it up to 1:1 scale in Photoshop. Once traced onto cardboard and cut out, it looked something like this:

But what's Snake without his stealth? I opted to add a suppressor onto it in the final version. After building up many layers of cardboard, this is what it looked like(I apologize for the half-naked appearance. I was working on it in my pajamas):

The barrel drooped a little bit, which I'm pretty sure was due to the way the hot glue settled on the inside. It looks a lot more severe here than it is in real life. Next, I had to add a few little details, like the forward assist, charging handle, and the completed frontal sight and suppressor, as well as a few minor touches, like the magazine release button. I also corrected the barrel droop by reinforcing it with chopsticks I had lying around. For future reference, use a dowel. Here's the result:

Next up, smoothing all the edges out and hitting it up with some black paint:

It's looking(and feeling) pretty darn nice. The last thing to do is paint on the camo and add the tape. This was done with brown and olive drab acrylic(I use the cheapest craft paint I can find from Michael's), and for the tape, I used some fabric I had left over from an older costume. The finished result is this: