First Blade Construction, Backstory, and DenverCon
From a piece of scrap 1x4 I carved a First Blade. I’m not a writer or an artist, but I wanted to contribute to the fandom. I am continually impressed by the art and stories that are put out there by fans and hearing their stories about how Supernatural helped them to always keep fighting or how the cast has helped them come to realize they have a mental illness has been inspiring to me.
I wanted to do something in return for everything that other fans have done to make the SPNFamily a better and safer place. I myself have never struggled with mental illness or self-esteem issues or self-harmed in any way and I consider myself to be very lucky that I can say that, however the amount of suffering I saw others going through made me want to support them in any way that I could.
For me, that way was wood carving.
I decided to carve the First Blade from a scrap piece of 1x4 I had laying around. I choose to carve this solely using a razor blade in awareness of self-harm.
Here is the slow process of shaving off small wood pieces one at a time from the scrap piece.
Here is the blade that I used to carve out the entire First Blade.
It wasn’t easy and I quickly got blisters and accidentally cut my thumb a few times from the tricky angles I need to carve out teeth and detail with.
Blood, sweat and tears truly went into the First Blade as I carved it. I wanted to get as much detail in the First Blade as possible.
It was a labor of love to carve that took over 20 hours. Then it was time to paint. Painting was the hardest part for me, I went off of some screencaps, but it was still hard to see the details.
Once painting was passable, I needed to add the grip. At first I used suede, but it just didn’t have the right look for the First Blade.
Last minute I was able to get some leather and redo the grip.
Then the First Blade was truly born.
I absolutely love the way this turned out and the chance to show it to Misha and Jensen at DenverCon and tell them the story of why I created it. While I didn’t show Jared for the reason that I know the cast and staff sometimes do not like such personal stories, I showed Clif and asked that if he found an appropriate time he share the story with Jared. Many other con-goers asked about the Blade and I told them the same story. It is with all of my hope that through this construction I was able to support those in the SPNFamily who are struggling to always keep fighting.
I want you to know that I care, the actors care, and your fellow fans care as well. We want you to be here.
