Make: Props and Costume Armor

13 Weathering

The Fastest Way to Wear and Tear

Now it’s time to know and love the most valuable word in this whole book: verisimilitude.

verisimilitude

noun | ver-uh-si-mil-i-tood

1. The quality of seeming real.
2. The semblance or appearance of truth; likelihood; probability:

   The story lacked verisimilitude.

3. Something, as an assertion, with only the appearance of truth.

Verisimilitude is where a prop maker really proves their worth. Sure, maybe you can take all sorts of oddball things and make them into whatever it is you’re trying to make. You add a few coats of paint to hide the fact that the pieces are made out of wood and plastic and paper and auto body filler and garbage, but everything still looks pretty fake (Figure 13-1).

Figure ...