#*lucina

[harapirena]

original work in progress ( the characters ) :

↳ glaiza de castro as lucina, goddess of the sun & the first empress

[koalois]

It's the Lucina cosplayer again, sorry to keep bothering you, what thickness of board did you use and what method of cutting did you use if you don't mind me asking. (Ps. Thank you so much for your help!!!!)

It’s no problem! I’m going to use this as a chance to actually give a more in-depth write up to add to my info page. ^^ The board I used was about a 1 inch thickness that I got in bulk from a local hardware store. I printed out a template for myself of the sword which I then traced onto the wood. This was a pretty simple step but I just found a vectored image of Falchion online and with a lot of measuring scaled it up to a size appropriate for my frame. (Falchion is a big sword so don’t worry if it seems large.) After that we used a skill saw to cut it out of the wood. Once the shape was free it was a rather long process of sanding to bevel and smooth the edges. This was done partially with a dremmel and partially by a friend who ended up shaping the blade for me and carving a few details. Again this was a VERY lengthy process so definitely take it slow. Don’t worry too much about mistakes because you can correct them with some sort of body filler like Bondo. Even spackle works pretty well. Gesso is more for providing a an even texture and finish which you can then sand smooth and then i just used acrylics to paint the whole thing. Good luck!!

[koalois]

Hi Koalois! I'm currently working on a Lucina cosplay from Fire Emblem and have made 6 different versions of the falchion sword. I'm not happy with the way they are turning out. If you don't mind me asking. What did you make yours out of?

Hi there! My Falchion is made out MDF Board that was sanded and carved. I added detail with craft foam and smoothed the whole thing out with gesso and spackle. 6 is certainly a lot of versions! I hope this helps you somewhat ^^ 

[koalois]

How did you get your printer to print lucina's sword like that?

I didn't print the whole sword. Just the tip and the handle! But I promise the process was not at all glamorous. I found a good picture of it on Google and took the image into Microsoft Word. I isolated the tip and the handle and simply scaled them up to make my personal preference. I had to cut the image into individual pieces and scale them each to match up properly. Then I just clicked print! Accuracy at this step wasn't terribly important as I was only using then as a stencil to trace out onto the wood. And a lot of my details are being constructed separately out of foam and resin.I hope that helps!

[cheesebearger]

Well. Fucked up and now my fmu is set to marry Chrom :/

[koalois]

Thank you so much for answering my ask! Youre sweet! but... whats mod podge? what does it do to the craft foam? what are its other uses and what do you use it for?

Oh! Mod podge is a sealant! It’s basically watered down school glue. You can also buy it pretty easily at craft stores and Walmart. It comes in a few finishes. But I stick to either Gloss or Matte. For this armor I have only used Matte. (Meaning it doesn’t shine.)

Craft foam, being a foam, is quite porous. Meaning when you paint it, it tends to just absorb the paint. So you are left with an uneven and spotty finish. By first prepping it with a few coats of mod podge you fill in all those holes, smooth out your surface and provide a good base to start painting.

After I finished mod podging my piece a few times, I let it dry completely then painted it with the colors I wanted. (I just used acrylic paint) and then once my paint was dry I put two layers of the same matte mod podge over the blue parts to make sure it was sealed. Or else the paint could wear off and chip. The gold portions I sealed with a gloss varnish. To give it some shine.

You can use gloss mod podge but I already had the varnish.

Keep in mind when using mod podge that it is also an adhesive so it gets sticky just like glue so things will stick to it if you are not careful. I make sure to do all my armor work far away from pets so they don’t shed on it. And also remember that mod podge is water based just like school glue so it’s not too fond of sweat or water ;). It’ll return to its original liquid and sticky state if it stays in contact with moisture for too long so just keep this all in mind and plan accordingly!!!

Happy crafting! And again, if you have more questions feel free to ask! My ask box is always open and I am long winded XD

[koalois]

What did you use/how are you making your Fire Emblem armor? it looks great

Thanks so much, Anon! And thanks for the question!When making armor I’m honestly the cheapest person you’ll ever meet. I am using my old stand by of craftfoam! To be very specific I bought a roll of it from Micheal’s Craft Store. But you can find it from other place as well! For example, here is a listing on Amazon. But really you can even get it cheaper than that. As far as how I am making it, I think it’s super important to make a pattern first. This really just involved me taking pieces of paper that I cut into shapes similar to the picture, then held them up to my arm until I thought they looked right. Then I cut them out of the craft foam. I don’t own a heat gun so I have to use a different method of heating foam…I iron it. This works well as long as you know what you’re doing but I firmly suggest using a heat gun…Once i had my pieces all shaped I glued them together with tacky glue…

….but you can also use hot glue because craft foam and hot glue are honestly best friends.Once I had all of my pieces together I mod podged it and then painted it! On the gold parts I used a clear gloss varnish to seal it, so it just had an extra pop of shine~Hope that answered all your questions, Anon. If not, feel free to ask more! I really love getting questions.