I finished this sword a while ago, but finally got the chance to deliver it this last friday for my buddy Charizard (aka The Streetwise Paladin) at Anime Central 2012.

Here’s a few photos of him emanating dangerous levels of swag with his new toy.

So, here’s a bit more of what you came here for.

The client who I built the first spear for liked it so much that he wanted a second one, built slightly different. The ability to separate the shaft into two pieces was convenient, but it was also structurally questionable.

so, he’s got me building a new one with double the parts, so he has emergency replacements.

While we’re at it, lemme share a bit of propmaking wisdom with you.

These things aren’t perfect. In fact, they are very messy, rough, and ugly looking. The curves on the edges are a little wobbly and imprecise. The glue looks like shit.

None of that matters, though. These early steps, moreso than anything else, only matter as long as you are getting the important bits right. In this case, the structure, the stability, making sure it’s lined up and glued in a way that won’t fall apart, making sure it’s flat, and so on.

As long as I do the important stuff right, I can always sand and chop, and reshape as I go. Furthermore, once I’m done with this, these ugly layers are going to be beneath several layers of glue, cardboard, gesso, paint, mod podge, more paint, and sealant.

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.

These spearheads won’t look anything like hastily cut cardboard when I’m done, and that’s because I won’t waste my time trying to make the interior layers pretty.

Something to think about.

Right, so I took the pictures and I figure I should use them, since this tumblr is just gathering dust.

I made that huge ass juggling club type thing and I figured it needed to be part of a pair, so let me break down the steps for you.

1. Get some gatorde bottles and wash them out. I used to big ass ones because I had a lot of them laying around after a particularly shitty flu.
2. Take a dremel tool and cut a hole in the bottom. This is going to look like molten shit, but that’s because PET bottles melt instead of cut. Keep the area well ventilated and don’t breath that shit in.
3. I took about 36 inches of PVC pipe and ran it through the two holes in the bottles. To keep it from rattling around, I taped a little chunk of foam on the end and near the opening of the inner bottle. Then I taped the whole thing together and put a ring of foam around the middle of the bottles.
4. I cut out an ass load of these slightly taped chunks of foam. I can’t remember the measurements, but one end is slightly narrower than the other by about half an inch or so.
5. Then I started taping them to the bottle. 7 segments around the top and 7 around the bottom. It’s going to look like ass at this point.
6. Repeat the same process for the top on the bottom.
7. Added another strip of foam around the middle for good measure. Then I taped the shit out of the top and bottom, constricting it a bit and giving it a more uniform shape.
8. Wrapped up the handle next. Did a couple layers just to be sure.
9. Tape that shit up! I chose blue this time. It was looking so fucking nice with those first two stripes of blue wrapped around.. then it started getting really awkward because of the strange shape of the whole thing. Also, I wrapped the handle in electrical tape so it has a nice squishy grip and wrapped some foam around the end to create cap at the bottom of the handle.

Now you’re ready to reenact your favorite episode of American Gladiators!

More boffer shit!

So, I was giving some thought to doing Cod-Tier Gamzee a couple weeks back and I got to pondering his juggling clubs. Now, being the speshul snowflake that I am, I figured that I didn’t want to just buy a couple of shitty juggling clubs off ebay or whatever and just drag those around, because I’d feel like a goon for not being able to juggle them.

Instead, I got the idea to make a giant club, sort of based off some random fucking picture I can’t even find any more. Seeing as I was still sort of in boffer mode and I still had a fuckhuge pile of foam to use, I figured I could make a giant boffer club instead.

I finished this the other day after a sudden burst of GETSHITDONE. I don’t know if this means I’m doing Gamzee or not (In fact, I’m leaning towards doing a Xelor costume from Wakfu) but maybe I’ll put together a second one and actually take progress photos for it. Thinking about making a blue and a purple one.

If you’re curious, the whole thing is a little over 3 feet long.

Figure it’s time to update!

Every so often, I get bored and toss together a boffer sword. I don’t really LARP or anything, but these are still fun to have around just as the occasional distraction. I have a younger brother who is shaping up to be just as much of a dork as I am and it’s great fun to take him outside and clash swords.

The process is pretty simple, really. While scavenging for cardboard, as I usually do, I often come across this plasticy white packing foam. Often used to protect electronics and such because it doesn’t create as much static electricity as the crumbly typical styrofoam.

First thing I did was chop a long, rectangular length of the stuff down the middle, lengthwise and then cut a channel down the center of that piece. This will come in hard later.

The next step was to give the whole thing more of a blade shape. I tapered down the edges, so both sides were more of a trapezoid shape. From there, I cut a triangular shape out of the top (reason why in a second) and beveled down the edges by cutting along the surface at an angle.

From there, you tape one side of this vague bladeshape to a length of PVC pipe. Then I taped the other half to the half that was secured to the pipe. For the tip, I cut out two diamond shaped pieces of foam andshaped them a bit so shwne they sandwiched together they would come to a point.

The rest is just a matter of covered it nicely in tape so it looks fancy and neat. Once everything is covered in duct tape, it should more or less hold itself together. To spiff it up, I created a hilt from a piece of leftover foam and added some decorations, like the diamond. I also covered the bottom of the handle just because that’s kind of a safety thing. For that, I just wrapped some leftover strips of foam that I had carved off the blade and taped them in place. I used some shiny fake aluminum tape along the ‘blade’ to make it shiny and covered the rest in black and silver duct tape.

As a last touch, I wrapped another strip of that leftover foam around the handle to give it a better grip. I later wrapped it with electrical tape to make it look better, but I didn’t take a picture of that.

I’m kind of not using this Tumblr thing so much recently, so I’m curious to find out what people want to see more of.

Tell me tumblrs, what do you want to see from my stupid little page? I mostly intended this thing for cosplay and props, and I’m not really keen on the idea of filling it with whatever personal shit or random passing idea I’ve got in my head.

I suddenly have the urge to make Homestuck cosplay.

mspandrew:

when someone peeking over your shoulder asks you what the fuck that thing is you’re lookin at you just cock your head back and say what it is

is motherfuckin canon

I’ve gone and vanished again.. Holidays and all that, y’know.

How about we jump in the wayback machine and look at some of my older stuff?

Also, apologies on the pictures. I didn’t take any of these and they all date back to 2006.

So, like many budding weeaboos, I was a Narutard many centuries ago. My favorite character was Kankuro, but thinking back, I’m not sure if I liked him because I thought he was awesome, or if I grew to like him because I cosplayed him.. Anyways, I liked the whole ninja puppeteering thing and when Sasori showed up, I was dead set on making a costume for him.

This was definitely one of those costumes where I learned a lot from making it and wearing it. The whole thing wasn’t all that heavy, but it was quite awkward to wear, and seeing as so much of the costume is situated on my back, it’s even harder to get a good photo of.

Overall, it came out quite well, unfortunately, I’ve since stripped the large pieces down for their components, which have already because parts of other props. I held onto the mask, the arm, and the tail-tip, I think.. they are scattered around here somewhere.

Additionally, I’d say that a lot of the work I did in the future wouldn’t be possible without the stuff I figured out from working on this costume. The whole wire-frame structure thing made my Monster Hunter armor and Big Daddy costume possible.

Story of my life.

It’s completed!

Sort of.. I guess.. Sure, why not?

So, you’ve all seen the general gist of how the making of this thing went down, but let me give you the step by step just in case you are curious.

Step 1 - Calculate scale, estimate size, and confirm measurements. This step is mostly for roughing out about the size the whole thing is going to be.

Step 2 - PVC pipe core and cardboard blade. The blade in this stage is more structural support than anything, but it is roughly sized out to the dimensions it should be.

Step 3 - Additional Blade structure. Built up a few layers of cardboard, then started building this poster board exo-skeleton over it. This is just more structure so it has the shape I need it to have allt he way through.

Step 4 - Cover the whole thing in a thicker sheet of poster board. This stuff is thick enough to smooth over all the layers and bumps and shit of the previous steps while still thin enough to conform to the shape I need it to be. Then I covered the edges in a gratuitous amount of hot glue..

Step 5 - Begin sculpting! For the rib cage, I rigged up a little structure to help fill out the space and give me a guide for each of the ribs and their spacing with some cardboard and wire. Made a big difference. The ribs are made from paper clay.

Step 6 - More structure for the hilt and rib cage! I neglected to take photos, but during this step, I also started making the handle, the whole hilt pieces, and creating a structure that is glued and wired around the core PVC pipe. Tons more paper clay to follow.

Step 7 - Sculpt the mother fucking skulls. For these, I taped on a wad of news paper and sculpted the paper clay around them to fill out some space and save money on paper clay. Also, makes the prop a little lighter, and that makes a huge difference. Once the sculpt was adequate, I touched it up with some sanding and several coats of paper mache mix, which seeps into the paper clay and makes it tougher and stronger.

Step 8 - Gesso. SO. MUCH. GESSO. at least 4 or 5 layers of the stuff. It fills in little cracks and bumps. ots of sanding to follow because gesso dries really rough. General assembly and shit in there too, like gluing on the handle, rigging up the hilt, and so on.

Step 9 - Painting and finishing touches. Lots of silver paint and tons of dry brushing in black for the details and crevices. The silver paint can be a pain, but after a few coats and the touch ups with the black dry brushing, it pops really nicely and gives the whole thing a really neat texture.