How creative studios create props for movies and how you can, too.

When you think of your favorite movie of all time, chances are you’re also probably thinking of the world within that movie — a faraway land (or galaxy) that the filmmakers have remarkably made believable for a two-hour or so span of time.

But to make that world truly believable, there’s a skill factor at play here that is often so convincing, most people don’t even catch them: the wonderfully awesome art of believable movie props.

Although the most realistic lightsabers, robots, and even costume designs were once only able to created within the confines of professional movie prop studios, the ‘garage inventors’ and ‘bedroom creatives’ of today can make them just as easily using affordable and accessible tools and services.

More recently, California-based Vitaly Bulgarov — a concept designer whose resume includes working with movie studios ranging from Paramount and Skydance to Dreamworks and Industrial Light & Magic — turned to 3D printing.

Working alongside Los Angeles-based Factor31 Bulgarov watched his Ultraborg Stiffneck concept go from a simple drawing to a fully realized high-detail physical object: