How do you make your cosplay weapons?? They look so cool!!
Thank you so much!!!
I mostly work with EVA foam and some worbla. I haven’t made a ton of weapons yet but they are pretty fun. Weapons usually need an internal structure so they don’t get floppy. The spear I’m almost done with is pretty much a half inch PVC pipe (which is cheap and you get to confuse your local Home Depot when buying it). I have used sculpture armature wire in the 2 swords I’ve done, but people use other stuff, too- I already had the wire.
A lot of people 3D print this sort of thing, too. I don’t have space for a printer and learning how to model and print is a whole bunch of other skills I’ve decided I don’t need to try and learn at the moment. I find prints more brittle and they are harder to repair but I also feel the fidelity is a lot better?
I tend to do competitive stuff because that’s how I am, and the more stuff you actually do, the better, so I also prefer to work in foam as with a print I’d buy a file and pay someone else to print it right now, so I can only be judged on finish work. With a foam weapon- I did buy a template for my spear but I had to figure out how to make a 2D drawing a 3D object
Like I started with paper and a pipe a month ago. I’ll have this done today.
I find the cosplay community is super helpful, too, if you need help figuring something out. I had lots of tutorials and videos about how other people made their stuff so I could pick over ideas on how to make mine. The spear breaks down into three parts to make it easier to travel with…and so I can convert it into a fusible TOTK style spear (hopefully in the near future)
I also finish stuff by hand- weather is unpredictable here in the spring so this is primed with a brush on self leveling and flexible primer called Flexbond - it’s meant for foam and thermoplastics- and I hand paint it all with acrylics. There’s a ton of fun paint out there and it’s easily my favorite part. The spear uses a metallic black and red as well as the silver.
I need to finish this up today and take its glamor shots so I’ll probably share those later. Thanks for the ask!
