Recently I finished the Staff of Magius from the Dragonlance books, and I wanted to post a tutorial, it was a great labor of love for me!
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My starting materials were a PVC pipe about 6 ft long, masking tape and cereal box cardboard. The cardboard came from a factory in town for me, but I didn't use very much, it could probably be done with one cereal box. I also had two clear plastic ornaments from Hobby Lobby. One was sacrificial just to form shapes around, the other split in half to make the globe in the end.
I made the claws by cutting three rectangles of cardboard for each joint, and a triangle for the tip.
Here are the claws fully formed and taped, and the "joint" down the staff. As you can see, it's rough at this point I only needed the placement and general shape.
I then took the sacrificial ornament out to paper mache the whole thing. I tried to be smooth on the claws and I let the paper be rough and "waded" in some places on the shaft to make it look like wood. I also sanded the PVC beforehand to make the mache stick better.
Let the mache dry for a day, then my first layer of wood filler went on
Sanded the filler, then added another layer of mache. this time I got a brilliant idea to mix the mache and wood filler. It made like a sandy slurry I dipped the newspaper in. It dried really hard and sanded great. I highly recommend.
I made the crystal ball for the end at this stage. It was an ornament that split in half so I could fit the two halves back into the claws. I sanded the halves, and painted them a light blue. I bought a remote control LED light off Amazon, and put it in the globe with a Walmart sack to keep it from rattling around and to help refract light.
Back to the staff- I covered it in gesso, sanded aggressively and then spray painted it black for an undertone
Then I used gold and white acrylic for the designs, and brown for the shaft. Then varnished the whole thing, and fit the globe back! And it was done! I'm super happy with how it came out!
I reached the post limit for pictures if you want more of the in-between pics or have any questions don't be afraid to ask!
TWILIGHT PRINCESS ZELDA BOW TUTORIAL. (repost from my facebook!)
A lot of people have asked how I made my bow from my Zelda cosplay, so Iāve put together this small tutorial :)Ā
STEP 1: SKETCH THAT MOFO. I tend to free hand all my designs, but if you look hard enough on the interwebz you can probably find a real pattern.Ā
STEP 2: MAKE SURE THE THING IS THE RIGHT SIZE. This is important!!! You cannot just take measurements from another person, the weapon must be proportional to you! If you are very tall or very short, your weapon is going to look weird if you make it using cannonical dimensions...if you can find them at all.Ā
STEP 3: STRUCTURAL SUPPORT. I used cardboard and a wooden dowel. Take note of the size of the cardboard; it's about a inch-ish smaller than the pattern on all sides. This is so I have room to build up.
STEP 4: PAPER AND TAPE. This part you can use anything, really. I decided to use balled up paper and masking tape. This is just to make the basic shape. You will want this part to be as light as possible, as the steps later on will add heavier components.Ā
STEP 5: PAPER MACHE. This step is just to harden the shape you created with the paper and tape. Don't worry about bumps and shit, it's going to be messy and that's ok.Ā
STEP 6. WOOD FILLER, SANDING, MOD PODGE. Cover that fucker with wood filler. Just all over. Everywhere. Build up the shapes if they didn't form from the paper mache. Then sand it down to be nice and smooth. (repeat as necessary) When you are happy with the shape, cover it with a couple layers of mod podge to protect it.
STEP 7: WORBLAAA. Using the pattern you made earlier, cut out the shapes in foam and cover them in worbla. If you have gaps between the base and the worbla just fill it with more wood filler, or hot glue, or paper....whatever. Then seal it with whatever you want, I used mod podge again. (I wanted a wood-like texture so I took advantage of the brushstrokes you get with mod podge and made sure to only brush horizontally)(if you don't want this texture I would use something better than mod podge)Ā
STEP 8: PAINT THAT BITCH. I used a spray paint primer to start and then hand painted the rest. All acrylic paint. Then more mod podge as a top coat.
STEP 9: ROCK THAT BOW. It's heavy as shit and very awkward but it looks good in pictures, and that's all that really matters :P
Photocreds: First pic by Team Lens Flare, Final pic by ESHAO Studio
Since things had gone well with my polycarbonate carving in the recent past (Gem, Arc Sword, Glass Knife), I though Iād try a more complex shape.
I sketched the shape of a simple dagger out on some masking tape stuck to the PC plate (~30cm x 30cm x 1cm) to make sure itād fit, then transferred that to paper to fully draw the design out.
To cut the initial work piece out I used a small drill bit and perforated along the outer edge of the dagger. I then used a saw blade on my Dremel (a bit dangerous, like this one) and cut the dagger free. Then it was a good couple hours with the bench sander getting it into shape. Check the Glass Knife build for more details on the shaping.
I used the same tinted future finish as I had before (~100ml Future, 4 drops blue food coloring, 1 drop green), and in about 4 good coats it was looking great. I used a sheet of ABS to make the two side plates, then red oak for the grip sides and brass plate for the decorative bits. The rivets are bronze rod that I had on hand. The carving on the guard was done with a ball engraving bit (like this) burnished clean with a bit of ABS rod and painted with some gold paint (link).
For the grips, after they were sanded into shape, I used the same tinted future again (~100ml, 3 drops red, 2 drops blue) and got to that shade after 5 coats.
The brass plates on the blade were dremeled into shape, cleaned up and then I used a dangerous [REDACTED]. Once that was done, I used some brass blackener to highlight the etching on the plates. I polished them up a bit and added them to the dagger.
Overall, this took about 3 weeks of work (less, really, not much hobby time right now). Polycarbonate is a great material. At some point I might use this same technique to make something like an ebony blade from Skyrim.
Cata: Rose Quartzās sword is a project we started in July of 2016 that ended up going on hold because life got in the way. in January 2017, Queadlunn picked up the project and finished it.
This sword is a combination of Sintra (blade) and styrene (hilt and detail pieces) with an oak dowel for the grip. We also used a belt sander, rotary tool, drill press, and power jig saw for this build. We understand not everyone has access to these tools so Iāll include alternate solutions, but having a rotary tool at the very least is recommended.
Onto the tutorial! (Note: image heavy)
This is the primary guide we used for the sword. The size of the sword depends on what you want to do. If youāre cosplaying Rose Quartz, the sword is sized to her so youāll make it smaller than if you were cosplaying Connie or Steven. If youāre cosplaying Stevonnie, the sword is smaller than Connie or Steven, but still larger than Rose Quartz.
Or you can ignore all of that make the sword however big or small you want because itās your sword.
The total length of our sword is 39 1/2 inches. The blade itself is 29 1/2 inches and 3 inches across. The grip is longer to accommodate two hands, but you could make it one-handed if you wanted.
For easy transportation, consider making the blade removable. The easiest way is to drill into the grip and blade a few inches, then glue a metal rod into the blade. Drop the rod into the grip and youāre done. This method will also give the blade more support, especially if youāre using EVA foam.
The Blade
(Previous post on the blade)
If you use Sintra and thereās a TAP Plastics nearby (or other place that will cut to order), a 3 feet by 3 inch piece 1/2 inch piece is only 5 dollars.
For the bevel, we used a belt sander and WM Armoryās beveling tutorial.
http://www.wmarmory.com/?p=2248
If you donāt have a belt sander but have a rotary tool:
http://www.wmarmory.com/?p=1210
The above tutorials will also work on EVA foam if thatās what you choose to make the blade out of. Make sure you practice before tackling the blade itself. Itās really easy to mess up and gouge the material. We had to get a second blade piece cut because of this. Ā
Itās also up to how far the bevel goes. You can either bevel the entire light pink section or stop short. Our bevel only goes halfway up the light pink because we had trouble getting a full bevel to look good on both sides.
The decorative collar on the blade is 2mm EVA foam. I used cardstock to make a pattern, cut it out of foam, painted it, and glued it on. The lighter rose petal portion was a separate piece, but you can make it all one piece.
The Hilt
We ended up making two hilts. The first was completely out of EVA foam.
I ended up taking two pieces of 3 mm EVA foam, heating them up with a heat gun, then squishing them into a bowl to force the dome shape. The two pieces were glued together, the edges sanded flush, and filled with wood filler. The curved part was cut from 6 mm EVA foam and heat formed to get the curve in before I glued it to the hilt.
For structural reasons, we ended up moving to a styrene hilt. However, using EVA foam will absolutely work!
The second hilt used the exact same method as the first one, except Queadlunn used the stove to heat up the styrene. BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN HEATING PLASTIC.
The circles on the underside of the hilt are 2 mm EVA foam circles cut with the circle cutter on our drill press. You could cut the circles by hand or paint them on.
With the decorative flower piece on the hilt, we decided to go a different route and create a physical piece instead of painting it on. Queadlunn covered the hilt and the bottom of the blade with plastic wrap, put WaterWeld Expoy Putty on top of the hilt, and squished the blade down on it. That created a small lip and clear indentation of where the blade sat. Once the WaterWeid dried, Queadlunn used a rotary tool to carve the shape. The piece was later sealed to the hilt with JB Weld epoxy.
If you want to do something similar, you could probably do the same with clay.
The Grip and Pommel
You can see it assembled in the hilt picture above, but these are the separate pieces.
The grip is a an oak dowel cut to size and wrapped with leather. We got lucky and found some leather from a leather supply shop that was a close match to the color we needed. Queadlunn cut a strip of leather, glued it down as he wrapped it, then went back with leather cord painted dark purple and wrapped it around the seams.
The pommel consists of two Sintra pieces. The circle was cut using a circle cutter, then the edges cut in with a rotary tool. Instead of using white like the picture shows, we used light pink to tie the color in.
The larger pommel piece was several discs of Sintra glued together with contact cement and sanded to a taper with the belt sander. The gem housing and petals were cut with a rotary tool. The pink on the pommel is the same pink used on the hilt.
The gem itself was a plastic gem picked up from the craft foam, painted pink with Sharpie markers, and glued in with clear epoxy.
Painting the Sword
Here are the main colors we used
Dark pink (blade): Valspar Satin Thistle Field (85020)
Itās entirely optional, but if you want some extra gloss, there you go.
The vine pattern was painted by Queadlunn. He masked the whole sword with tape* and drew out the pattern with a compass and freehand, then used a X-acto knife to cut the pattern out. He painted everything with white acrylic paint, then once it was dried, remasked it, and used pink acrylic paint to paint the center stripe.
The same was done for the vine pattern on the grip.
The inside of the hilt was painted with purple spray paint, then the two circles were glued in after.
The final seal coat is an acrylic sealer/finish in semi-gloss and we donāt be doing any weathering to keep the pristine/cartoony look. The finish you go with and if you do any weathering is entirely up to you.
Thanks for reading the tutorial! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
If you can, scan the patterns you make. Then you can use an image editing program to scale and print patterns without needing to completely remake the pattern.
When we scale props, we tend to go more the route of what we think looks good and what we can manage. Alternately, weāll look at the sizes of real-life counterparts and go from there.Ā
The KidāsĀ brusherās pikeĀ is two-and-a-half feet taller than I am because I wanted a long spear. On the other hand, the macheteĀ is based entirely on real lengths for machetes.
Rose Quartzās swordĀ needed to be big because Rose Quartz is seven (eight?) feet tall, but it still needed to be manageable for me. So the assembled sword is about three feet long and the blade is three inches wide. It looks massive, but I can still carry it without too much trouble.
Queadlunnās CarnifexĀ is based off the 3D model. He sized the grip to his hand, then scaled everything from there.
His Sfika pistolĀ is larger than the original design because he wanted a larger gun.
The Harrowing Tale of the Jaeris Gun: A Cosplay Tutorial-ish?
I always meant to post something about this and never got around to it. So now, about three years after the fact, hereās a play-by-play of how I made my prop of Jaerisā magic gun for my Atop the Fourth Wall Gunslinger cosplay.
(This is also part of something I call my āLightbulb Collectionā. Thatās a collection of all the things I have attempted to do that didnāt turn out right. The fact is that if you set out to be a crafter or a seamstress or writer or an artist or an engineer or anything else really, you are going to mess things up. Getting stuff wrong discourages a lot of people, including me, and if I canāt do something marginally right the first time Iām tempted to just not try again. But thatās part of growing. If youāre going to get good at anything you are going to spend good time, good money, and perfectly good materials fucking up, whether you have them to spare or not. I keep this Lightbulb Collection around to remind me what Iāve fucked up and what I can learn from it.)
My first instinct was to just buy a prop gun. I mean, Lewis got his from somewhere so there must be one available, right? NOPE. Nowhere could I find the damn thing. I searched online, eBay, Amazon, I even went to every flea market in a 50 mile radius (also questing for the pocket watch) because some of them deal in knives and small arms, and no luck. I am a stickler for accuracy in my cosplays. The closest thing I found was a replica India brass flintlock on replicaweaponry.com and armory.net, which at the time were retailing for about $50. āBut Spark!ā you say. āThat looks just like the gun in the show!ā Well itās close but there are some differences. Just enough to annoy me.
The little knob on the bottom is missing, for one thing. The edge of the trigger guard is different too, and the decorative brass comes up the hilt in the front and back in the show as opposed to up the sides of the hilt. The replicaās barrel is round with ridges and beautifully engraved, but Jaerisā barrel is smooth and actually kind of octagonal. Jaeris also has a little bump where the barrel reaches the edge of the gun base (there are probably names for these things, but I am not well-versed in flintlocks). So I wanted something more accurate than the replica and $50 was more than I wanted to shell out at the time. So letās make one!
This is probably gonna be long so Iāll put it under a cut. On to the crafting!
To start with, I picked up a toy pirate pistol on the cheap because the light-up feature was broken. It wasnāt exactly the right shape but it was still a flintlock and close enough to work with. The hammer popped off easily. I created a barrier of masking tape straight up the middle of the gunās width and surrounded the section I wanted to cast with the cardboard from a cereal box, which I extended the tape barrier to. (Iāve seen several tutorials that call for a clay barrier instead of tape, and Iām sure it would have worked better. I didnāt have that much clay, though, so I cheaped out.) I then covered the whole thing with 5-6 coats of Castinā Craft Mold Builder that I bought from the craft store Michaelās.
Once the Mold Builder dried, I filled the top half of the cardboard shell with plaster from Lowes and let it harden. Once the first half was done, I flipped it over and did the same thing to the other side. Itās important to spray the existing Mold Builder with Mold Release first, though, or the layers will just stick together and your mold wonāt come apart at all.
And a lovely mold of the pirate pistol.
I put the mold back together, duct taped it up, and poured more plaster mix down into it to create a plaster cast of the pirate pistol. I had to set it in a foil tray in case the plaster started leaking out (the tape didnāt form the best seal, but eventually I got it to work) and I had to tape it to some supports to keep it from falling over while the plaster dried.
Heck yeah, perfect cast of the pirate pistol! Well, almost perfect. The trigger guard was very skinny and broke off right away, but that was fixable. Youāll notice that the cast picked up everything, including the fake wood grain, the holes for the toyās screws, the holes of the speaker (the pistol was supposed to make noise), and the outline of the battery pack. I didnāt want these to show on the Jaeris gun so hereās where the real modding starts.
The first order of business was a chisel. I very, VERY carefully chiseled the front of the gun base into the same shape as Jaerisā and removed the bit of the barrel up top. The trigger and the rest of the guard broke off around this time too, because they were fragile. Next came sandpaper, where I sanded down the shape I had just made and then went over the rest of the hilt to take away the fake wood grain and holes from the speaker and battery pack. Aww, itās so smooth and pretty!
For the shape of the barrel, I bought a thick dowel rod and cut it to the right length. (In the pic you see me hacking at it with wire cutters, which was all I had at the time. It was hard as crap and a very messy cut. Donāt make my mistake, friends. Just spend the $10 on a hand saw, itās worth it.) Also because I had no better way to do it, I ended up forming the rounded dowel into a hexagon and removing the bottom part of the bit that would sit on top of the gun base (in a real flintlock it would be inside the actual wood or brass or whatever, but I was NOT going to crack that plaster by trying to hollow it out) by shaving it away with an x-acto knife. Again, very slow and inefficient. Buy a hand saw.
Once the subtractive forms of modification were done, it was time for the additive ones. I used Super Sculpey to make the decorative brass at the bottom of the hilt and front of the gun base, as well as to recreate the trigger and guard. I hot glued the dowel rod to the plaster and sanded it all to fit, then used the Super Sculpey to build up the barrelās end and the brass rim near the midpoint. Sculpey is good for smoothing out all the awkward edges too.
Now the original intention was just to use the plaster/wood/Sculpey combo to get the shape right. From there, the plan was to cast a final resin copy that I would paint, my thinking being that resin was more durable and wouldnāt snap if I dropped it. This is where things started to go downhill. I made a plaster mold of the new fancy gun shape the same way I did for the pirate pistolā¦
But resin casting is a problem. I used Castinā Craft again, because thatās what was available at the local Michaelās. You have two liquids and have to get the ratio right when you mix them, which Iām pretty sure I did. But then there are the fumes. Really awful fumes. You need good ventilation when you do this and at the time I lived in an apartment without a balcony soā¦yeah, I was really worried about my roommateās cat breathing that shit. Sorry, kitty. Another problem I ran into was that this second mold didnāt fit together as well as the first one. Or perhaps the resin was just thinner than the plaster, because no matter how much duct tape I piled on, the damn thing leaked. And thatās why we put it in a foil tray.
But the worst part was that the resin never cured all the way even though I let it sit for more than twice the recommended time. This was the result: a sticky, lumpy mess with jacked up edges (because the mold didnāt fit together properly), that was only half there because did I mention the mold leaked like hell?? I know the mixing ratio was fine, so Iām blaming the Florida humidity for the fact that it didnāt cure properly. I had to leave the thing outside the front door to cure (because fumes) in the middle of the summer and the humidity is killer. Soā¦yeah, completely unusable.
Maybe I could do one in just plaster then? Nope. By this point the mold was fucked up so badly by the resin that a plaster casting of the entire gun turned out little better than the resin one. The halves didnāt line up, the edges were sloppy, the barrel cracked right off, and the whole thing was lumpy what is this I donāt even. Could I at least make a plaster cast of the hammer?
Nope.
By this point it was getting close to the con. I didnāt have time to keep messing around with this, and Iād already poured almost $200 and two to three weeks of time into it. The plaster/wood/Sculpey combo was still holding up well so I decided screw it, I was just going to paint and use that.
I did all my painting with acrylic. For the brass parts I gave it a few layers of a light brown, then went over it with a metallic gold to make it look more like brass. Some dark brown/black around the edges and crevices gives it a slightly weathered look and just makes it look more real, as opposed to āI just painted this with a solid coat of one colorā. The ivory-colored hilt got painted with a very light cream/peach color. Same deal around the edges ā a slightly darker outline around the brass sections gives the illusion of shadows and a semi-reflective quality that ivory and brass have but you canāt actually get with acrylics. I ended up just painting over the existing orange toy hammer and gluing it into the Ā appropriate hole rather than trying to make one.
Whoops, hot glue does not actually hold the barrel on well because the Florida humidity fucks with it. Man, when I lived up north I could hot glue anything and it would stay forever. Not so down here. I reattached the barrel with super glue this time and patched up the paint job.
From plastic toy pirate pistol to India brass Jaeris flintlock. I ended up spending over four times what it would have cost me to rent or buy a slightly-different replica, took up the kitchen table for almost three weeks, nearly killed the cat, fucked up in more ways that Iād thought possible for this project, and made a ridiculous mess. But I ended up with a piece I was very proud of, and which got a bunch of compliments from people at the con, including Lewis himself. (I told him I made it because I couldnāt find one. I believe he said heād got his off the internet.)
Iāve worn the cosplay several times since and even though Iāve had to do minor repairs on it multiple times (the holster it sits in pushes kinda hard on the hammer and keeps knocking it off) itās held up much better than I expected and I love it. And Iām content knowing that I ended up with the best possible prop considering that specific style of gun apparently isnāt available anymore-
