We sponsored Sayakat Cosplay for this build of Evior’s Axes from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and she shared her process with us in this tutorial! If you need to make a prop weapon, Sayakat’s methods are a great way to achieve a strong, lightweight build! Take a look at the video below!
We teamed up with Gillian of All Tomorrow’s Patterns (GillianConahan on IG) for a tutorial on building a sword with her preferred stabilizer – cardboard or cardstock instead of foam! This allows a lighter, sharper finish, which can be excellent for bladed weapons and large builds!
– Thin cardboard or book board (about 1.2mm thickness, solid all the way through and smooth on both sides)
– carbon kite rod or other thin, rigid support core
– Worbla’s Kobracast Art for internal support on the blade
– Worbla’s Black Art for the hilt and detailing
– twine to wrap the hilt for bulk
– light-bodied acrylic gesso or your preferred primer
– light-bodied acrylic paints in your preferred metallic shades plus black
– glass cabochons for gems
– leather scrap and heavy linen thread for hilt wrap, plus a scrap of felt for padding.
I like to use cardboard as a base for sword props, especially the blade portion, because it’s lightweight, can be cut with just a craft knife, and it creates flat, smooth surfaces and edges with relatively little effort. You can also crease it to create added structure and rigidity, which I used to my advantage for this large unusually-shaped blade. The cardboard is solid all the way through, smooth and uncoated on both sides and about 1.2–1.5mm thick. I got a large sheet from an art store, but also stole the cardboard off the backs of several notebooks to cut smaller pieces. (I’ve used thinner oak tag for other projects, but found that it wasn’t rigid enough for this wide blade and tended to curl and lose its shape.)
For this build, which is based on the Dawn Court Warlord’s battle gear from volume 5 of Monstress, I started by drawing the pattern out by hand on tracing paper. I find it easiest to work full size for large props, as it gives a more intuitive sense of the proportions.
Transfer the blade design to the cardboard by rubbing a soft pencil on the back of the pattern and using a hard pencil or ball-point stylus to go over the outline from the front. Draw in the crease lines down the center of the blade and around each of the curved edge bevels, then score them with an awl so they bend cleanly. This gives the blade almost enough dimension to hold its shape even before adding the support.
Next, rough cut Worbla’s Kobracast Art to fit each half of the blade. Kobracast has a pronounced texture that can require a lot of finishing if you use it on a surface face, so I like to use it on the inside of the cardboard and use the smoother, sandable paper as the outside. Kobracast is very lightweight and can warp and flutter unpredictably as it heats, so it helps to leave a little extra and trim it off later. It’s also important to heat it evenly all the way across the piece so that the stiff cold areas don’t pull the softened areas out of shape. Weight one end to prevent it from shifting and start heating from the other end, sweeping slowly back and forth across the blade while moving along its length. The material is very sticky and just needs to be pressed down lightly to adhere it to the cardboard. Once the piece is smoothly covered, trim away the excess and make sure all areas are firmly adhered, reheating and pressing down as necessary.
The large projection on one side of this blade turned out to need a little extra support, so I cut an additional piece of cardboard that I just stuck to the inside of the Kobracast, making sure to keep it a little way from the edges so there’d still be enough adhesive to hold the two halves of the sword together. This is also a good time to insert the core support for the sword, in this case a 12mm pultruded carbon tube that I ordered from a kite shop and cut to length with a hand saw. Kobracast is very sticky when activated, so usually nothing special is needed to keep the support rod in place. If you have a thin rod or thicker blade and need to pad the support to keep it centered, you can roll up your Kobracast trimmings into sticky ‘snakes’ that will cradle the rod and hold it in place.
Next, heat both halves of the blade evenly around the edges and carefully match them up, adjusting the creases so they meet perfectly around the edges. If there are points where the curves are a little sharper and the edges don’t want to stay together, you can roll up more Kobracast scraps and insert them between the layers like an adhesive putty. After everything is well adhered and cool, use a craft knife to smooth the edges and bevel away a little of the cardboard thickness so the edge is thinner and more bladelike – though obviously for safety reasons you don’t want to go TOO sharp. Fine-grit sandpaper also works well for smoothing and getting rid of paper fuzzies.
I cut out and scored the wedge-shaped detail for the base of the blade in the same way, but beveled the underside of the cardboard before adding the Kobracast to make the join a little smoother. To attach pieces like this, simply heat the edges to activate the adhesive and press in place. (9) Low-relief details like the flame shape on this blade can be cut from cardstock and adhered with a glue stick, but you may wish to test your paper with the primer you’ll be using later as some types will warp and ripple when moistened.
Next is building up the hilt of the sword, as it’s easier to wrap and smooth before the cross guard is in place. Start by roughly sculpting a stopper on the end of the support rod, using a scrap of Kobracast for the stickiness covered with Worbla’s Black Art for the main shape. To get an easy disc shape, cut a narrow strip of Black Art and wind it around the support rod in a spiral to the desired radius.
Kite rods are too thin to make a comfortable hilt, so bulk it up with twine to achieve your desired thickness. First, wrap a scrap of Kobracast around the support rod, which helps to secure the twine and prevent it from rotating around the rod. For a more oval-shaped hilt, first cut scraps into strips and lay them along each side to create a wider, flatter profile. (This is a great place to use up your very ugliest scraps – these were from a failed experiment and still have paper shreds stuck in them.)
Secure the end of the twine and start wrapping, heating as you go so that the first layer is solidly adhered to the hilt, although I try not to heat the bare support rod too long or too directly to avoid any chance of warping it or potentially releasing harmful fumes (depending on the composition of the support material.) Continue wrapping the twine until the hilt is nearly large enough, then tie off the end and made sure it’s well stuck in the Kobracast. Measure the circumference and cut a strip of Black Art just large enough to cover it. Some bumpiness is likely depending on the smoothness of your twine wrap, and you can either leave it for an interesting grippy texture or go back in and smooth it by hand with sculpting tools. I planned to finish my hilt with a leather wrap, so I just did a cursory smoothing pass.
Sculpt the pommel by shaping Worbla’s Black Art around the stopper you already built. There’s no real trick to this – I started by rough cutting a stack of scraps for each side of the pommel and squishing them together around the end of the support rod, then progressively smoothed and sharpened the details on one side at a time. I do almost everything with one basic wooden sculpting tool, which I’ve rubbed with olive oil to prevent it from sticking to the Worbla. To avoid inadvertently squishing parts you’re not actively working on, try to heat only a small area at a time and allow it to cool and firm up before moving on to another area.
When working with a solid mass of Worbla like this, I try to time the heating/cooling cycle depending on what kind of sculpting I need to do. Blending edges and smoothing wrinkles is best done right after heating, when the outermost layer of Worbla is as hot and soft as it’s going to get but the interior is still firm. As the heat distributes through the whole thickness of material, large-scale reshaping becomes possible. Finally, sharp edges and fine details are easiest to achieve as the surface cools and begins to firm up again, when it’s just on the edge of being too hard to work with.
Once the hilt is wrapped, you can start building the crossguard on top of it. For complex designs, you may need to build this up in layers, looking at which components are thicker or overlap other components. In this case, I identified three distinct segments: the cat’s eye shape that holds an inset gem, lower prongs, and upper prongs. Each would be patterned individually and then assembled around the hilt.
I’ve gotten great results from a ‘sandwich’ method using Kobracast on the inside and Black Art on the outside, as the extremely sticky Kobracast is helpful for joining pieces and the Black Art is great for sculpting surface detail.
Joining up the crossguard can get a little tricky because it needs to wrap around the widest part of the blade and hilt but still meet at the edges of the prongs. Unless you’re an outstanding patternmaker or do a ton of trial and error, you’re likely to have some gaps where the pieces are supposed to meet at the edges. You can compensate for this by adding a rolled-up Kobracast scrap to each side to increase the contact area when the pieces were squished together, then sculpting Black Art scraps across the edges to smooth and refine them. If you need more material to work with in any particular spot, like I did when sculpting the bevels, you can lay down scraps wherever they’re needed and blend them into the surface with a sculpting tool.
Gems and Detail Sculpting
My favorite way to do custom gems is with clear glass cabochons, which can be ordered inexpensively in lots of different sizes and shapes. Paint the back of the stone with metallic paints, using a soft brush and several thin coats to get smooth coverage, or place metallic paper in the Worbla setting behind the stone, and the result is a very clear, shiny stone with a surprising amount of depth. You can also basically ignore them when painting the prop, as any stray smudges of acrylic can be scratched off the glass without damage using your fingernails or a wood or plastic tool.
To create the relief design, roll small pieces of Black Art into snakes and shape them into tapered bevels by hand. For repeated elements like the symmetrical designs in front and back, make sure they’re all the same size by cutting half-inch strips of material from your scraps and measuring off the same length for each element of a set. Keep a copy of the detailing pattern handy so you can check the shapes as you go.
To set the gem in, first level the area by cutting away overlays and building up layers of Black Art around it as needed. Place your prepared stone and lay doubled strips of Black Art over the edges to hold it in place, then use sculpting tools to shape them into your desired bezel shape. The glass stone retains heat, so it helps the surrounding area to stay soft longer and makes it very easy to sculpt. Once the gem is secured, heat both the surface of the hilt and your additional embellishment pieces and gently press them in place. Finally, go back over the details with a tool to sharpen them up. Make sure the piece is fully cool and hardened before flipping it over to repeat for the other side of the hilt.
Here you can see the finished sword base, ready to prime and paint.
Primer and painting
As soon as the blade is done, even before you finish sculpting the hilt and crossguard, you can start applying coats of primer to help seal and protect the paper surface. I like using acrylic gesso for the exposed cardboard blade, because it’s relatively dry for a brush-on water-based sealer and it dries to a semi-flexible sandable finish. Although the gesso needs multiple coats with up to a day to cure before sanding, this is an easy step to do on a weeknight when you might not have the time or energy for sculpting. If you’re impatient like I am, you may want to also work on other parts of the costume so you’re not tempted to rush the dry time. Black Art tends to acquire a very smooth, hard surface after sculpting, so you may need to sand it lightly to help the primer adhere. Apply several thin coats, being careful to avoid drips as they can cause the primer to chip or peel when sanded.
Make sure to use breathing protection when sanding. I use a fine grit sandpaper and sand until the surface has a smooth, papery texture, as more than that is probably overkill for brush painting. If airbrushing or using another spray finish you may wish to go smoother. The water-based primer does not respond especially well to wet sanding, but you can use a slightly damp cloth to wipe away any dust once you’re finished.
Follow with a base coat of acrylic – black works well for most metallics, or you can try red for warm golds. I paint with light-bodied flexible acrylics to minimize brush strokes and cracking. I often find gold and bronze metallic acrylics to be too warm-toned for my taste, but I’ve noticed that metallics tend to get muddier and less saturated when mixed so I dull the too-brassy golds down by mixing with silver or black metallics.
In addition to the main colors for the hilt and blade, select or mix at least one highlight and shadow color for each. Put down your base layer of mid-tone metallic, then look at where the shadows and highlights fall naturally on the surface and follow those lines to exaggerate the effect. For example, the weight balance of this blade means that it naturally orients itself in a particular direction when held, so the same side always faces down. This allowed me to paint the lower face of the blade a darker color to emphasize the shadow, and be confident that it will look natural in most lighting. Finish off by dry-brushing black into the corners and crevices, where grime and patina would naturally accumulate and not be removed by polishing. You can also add more highlights to corners and edges that would be likely to be rubbed smooth by wear.
To finish off the hilt, you can sculpt and paint like the rest of the sword, wrap the handle with strips of fabric or decoratively patterned cord, or make a stitched wrap with leather or fabric. For a leather wrap, cut a piece of leather to fit around the hilt, with enough extra around the edges to tuck them to the inside for a neat finish. Fold in the edges and hand or machine stitch, then glue a piece of felt to the inside to smooth and pad the grip. Spread glue on the inside of the wrap to hold it in place while you stitch it closed, then stitch the two sides together around the hilt, positioning the seam on the downward side of the handle to keep it unobtrusive. You can also embellish the wrap however you like before stitching – details like cording, studs, or embroidery are all great options for adding texture and grip.
There you have it! A lightweight sword with a core of cardboard, some Kobracast Art, and details made from Worbla’s Black Art.
Thanks again to Gillian, Gillian Conahan on IG, All Tomorrow’s Patterns, for partnering with us on this build!
Ivorivet created this stunning wig for her Amethyst from Houseki no Kuni, achieving a glossy, crystalline look. She shared her process with us below!
Photo by Coffee_cat_cat
I just got back from Cosplay America in Raleigh, NC and I’m really excited to share how my Amethyst wig turned out! I watched Houseki no Kuni after seeing a bunch of lovely pictures of people cosplaying from it, and once I finished the show I started kicking around a few ideas of how I could make a wig that had a glass-like finish like the way the 3D models are rendered.
Using iridescent cellophane and other shiny materials for the gems’ wigs is not something that’s new, and I had the benefit of seeing how a lot of other people completed their wigs so I could see how things translated to real life. A couple of really lovely cosplayers I drew inspiration from before I started making my own wig are Kleiner Pixel, Schmemy Cosplay, Taaarte, and Sorairo Days.
A neat twist on the cellophane technique that I wanted to try out was to incorporate compound curves into the wig to make things look more organic. Cellophane is usually sold in rolls or flat sheets and is difficult to manipulate into curved shapes. My solution for that was to use a clear thermoplastic called TranspArt as a “carrier” for the cellophane, which provided enough support that I was able to glue the cellophane down into more organic shapes. An added bonus is that the TranspArt is shiny itself and really made the whole of the wig look super slick and glassy. I picked Amethyst’s wig to test out this technique on because she has a very round head and also a distinct stop at the end of her hairline because of the braid that’s wrapped around her head. I might try to adapt this to other gems in the future, but for this time around it was really nice knowing I had the braid to help disguise the ends of the TranspArt.
The materials that went into the wig are:
I also used the following tools for this project:
Prepping the Base Wig
The first step was to cut and style the base wig. The Dark Lavender color from Arda was pretty close to what I wanted but I was worried it might look a little dull, so I dyed the base wig and the wefts with a very dilute bath of RIT Dyemore in red to warm up the color a bit. I straightened the wig and wefts back out again using a blow dryer to direct heat down the lengths of the fibers as I brushed them out with a wig brush.
To give myself a guide to determine where hair needed to stop (and later act as a backing where the braid would be sewn on), I used some purple craft felt to extend the cap of the wig. I put the wig on and then slid the felt between the wig and my head, marked with a sharpie where I wanted the felt to end, and used straight pins to hold it in place. After that I took the whole thing off my head, sewed the felt to the wig with a needle and thread, and then trimmed the excess felt off.
The Grace was longer than I needed it to be but it was the only wig that was available in the color I wanted that wasn’t on backorder, haha. There was a lot of extra hair that needed to be cut off, but I found the added length made things easier when I was teasing out the wig. I sectioned the wig with alligator clips, started teasing the sections of hair, hitting them with some heat from a blow dryer to kink the fibers, brushing them out, teasing again, etc. until I got the volume I wanted. I did a blunt cut of the wig hair about 2 inches past the felt and then used thinning shears to feather the ends up until the ends of the sections were even with the felt. A lot of Got2B hairspray and blow drying later and I had the base style done!
I knew that during this process I would have to handle and roll the wig around at a lot of different angles which would cause the styling I just did to fall out, so to reinforce the bottom edge of the wig I ran a bead of Pattex glue over the edges of the hair and squished it into the fibers/felt with my fingers. Tacky Glue would have also worked in this situation but the Pattex dries faster and I wanted an excuse to try it out.
Adding the TranspArt
The next step of the project was to create a TranspArt shell that would sit on the exterior of the wig. To figure out what shapes I had to cut out, I used strips of painters tape and stuck them to the vertical sections I had previously styled. The tape barely stuck to the hair, which was nice for removal but not so much for when I was creating the patterns. I had to use a couple of straight pins to hold the tape in place for some of the sections. This particular wig had 18 strips – I made sure to number them and also indicate which side was up.
The nice thing about the painters tape is that it was super easy to stick onto the TranspArt sheet to determine the cutting layout. I gave myself a few millimeters of extra room around each template, but things ended up being pretty tight on a medium sheet (20″x30″). If you want to do a gem with longer hair than Amethyst, it would probably be a good idea to get a large sheet. Once I cut out all the TranspArt pieces, I was able to peel off the templates and stick them to my wall for storage and easy access for when I needed them again.
The next step was to tint the TranspArt to a slight purple shade so it would blend in with the wig. I made a very dilute dye bath with a mix of the red and purple RIT Dyemore and did test pieces until I figured out how to get the translucency and color that I wanted. To avoid over-dyeing the TranspArt I ended up dunking the pieces in one at a time for about 20 seconds per piece. To keep the pieces from getting mixed up, I made sure to re-label them with painters tape as soon as I had rinsed them off and dried them. I also dyed the larger scraps of TranspArt just in case I needed a backup piece. (Eventually I’d like to use the backup pieces to add TranspArt to the braid as well, but that’s another mini project.)
To mold the TranspArt into the correct shape, I set up my work space with a metal baking sheet in front of me, a heat gun, a small bowl of ice cubes, and a plastic Christmas ornament on a wig stand. I followed these rough steps to form each TranspArt carrier to the correct shape:
Here’s what my wig looked like once I had all the carriers molded into their correct shapes:
At this point I used a sharpie marker to mark where I wanted all of the horizontal highlights to go. (For those of you who spent all of middle/high school drawing 90’s anime hair, NOW IS YOUR TIME TO SHINE.) With the carriers on the wig, I was able to create a continuous highlight strip all around the wig and know exactly where to place the cellophane for it later.
Adding the Cellophane
Having the carriers and painters tape templates available for me to draw on made it very easy to draw specific shapes and cut them out of cellophane for particular parts of the wig. I started out with the horizontal highlights and used two iridescent types of cellophane for them (see materials list above). Using the general marks I had made to indicate where the horizontal highlight would go on each carrier, I put painters tape over the outer surface/convex side of the carrier and drew a more detailed version of each highlight, then removed the painters tape and stuck it to my cutting mat. Then I placed my cellophane over the painters tape, and using a light cutting pressure, cut a matching shape out of the cellophane with an X-acto knife. I did this twice, cutting out a slightly larger piece the second time to help soften the edges of the highlight. The painters tape template was peeled off my cutting mat and discarded.
To attach the cellophane highlights to the TranspArt carrier, I used Elmer’s spray adhesive and applied everything to the underside/concave side of the carrier. I first put down the small horizontal highlight, then the large one, using the sharpie marks as an indicator of where I should place things. I really like this technique because the sharpie marks and the cellophane go on opposite sides of the carrier, which allowed me to wipe off the sharpie marks later without touching the cellophane. It also helps to protect the cellophane from getting peeled off, since it was sandwiched between the wig and the carriers.
The spray adhesive is initially very tacky but gets less so after it dries for about 24 hours, so it’s best to apply the cellophane to the carrier as soon as you hit it with the adhesive and smooth it out as much as you can to get rid of wrinkles and air bubbles.
To make the vertical highlights, I used a metallic purple mylar and a slightly more opaque non-iridescent cellophane. My large painters tape templates were looking pretty haggard at this point, but I was still able to use them as a cutting guide for these. I sketched a couple of large vertical swoops on them, placed the cellophane/mylar on top, and cut some strips out. Unlike with the horizontal highlights where I went one carrier at a time, I found that with these vertical highlights it was easier to work with 3-4 carriers at a time so I didn’t have to move the large cellophane/mylar sheets that I had to tape down on top of the cutting templates.
I then used the Elmer’s spray adhesive to attach the highlights to the concave side of the carriers, pretty much the same as before.
Making the Braid and Assembling the Wig
Initially when I planned to make this wig, I wanted to make little eye-shaped TranspArt bits to go over each section of braid, but I ran out of time before the con. (This has never happened to me before, ever. Not at ALL.) Instead what I ended up doing was cutting several strips of the iridescent and dark purple cellophane and incorporating them into each third of the braid, which gave it enough of a shiny look to blend in with the TranspArt portion of the wig. I also got super lucky and had JUST enough hair in Arda’s long wefts to wrap around the wig and have the braid end exactly where I wanted it to. I used Pattex glue and a little bit of hot glue on the backside of the braid ends to create a smooth taper on both ends.
To make it easier to sew the braid down to the wig, I decided to give myself a felt backing similar to what I had done before. I cut a few strips of felt that were slightly smaller in width than the braid, pinned them around the wig head where I wanted to place the braid, and tacked them together with hot glue. I removed the felt from around the wig, and attached the braid to the felt using more hot glue.
Next came attaching everything to the base wig! I removed all the carriers from the wig and kept them stored in the correct order by pinning them to a second wig head. Then I took one at a time and pinned it back on the base wig, pulled the wig off the wig head, sewed the top end of the carrier to the wig, then put the wig back on the wig head to make sure it was sewn in the correct place before moving onto the next carrier. Once all the carriers were attached to the top of the wig, I did the same thing for the bottom edge of the carriers, making sure my thread actually went through the felt at the bottom edge of the wig to form a TranspArt/wig hair/felt sandwich. Attaching the braid went the same way – I strategically pinned it down on the wig head, carefully removed the wig and braid from the wig head with the pins still in place, and sewed through both layers of felt as I worked my way around the periphery of the wig.
At this point, it was ready to wear!
Care and Maintenance
For those of you who followed my Instagram stories over the weekend of Cosplay America, you’ll already know this wig survived a near disaster. For those who didn’t, the lesson learned is do not put pressure on these wigs (e.g. stuffing them in a cramped bag) and allow them to sit in a hot environment for a long period of time. Because of traffic around Chicago, it took me two hours to drive to the airport, it was 95° F outside, and I don’t have air conditioning in my car. I wanted to be able to grab my luggage and sprint immediately to the airport so I had stuffed the wig into my carry-on bag ahead of time. (To be fair, I kept the wig on the wig head, wrapped it up in its own bag for protection, and then packed it in my carry-on… but unfortunately it was a little too full of other stuff.) This put enough pressure on the TranspArt that combined with the high temperatures during the drive that it caused the TranspArt to slump and get somewhat reformed to the squished shape it was in my bag. I almost screamed when I took it out at the con and saw what had happened. :(
Fortunately, I was able to use the hotel’s blow dryer to heat the TranspArt up enough to reform it into the correct shape, and everything turned out okay. So if your wig gets damaged in transport, it is possible to fix things with a blow dryer, but it’s best to take proper precautions so you don’t have to fix anything at all!
I did notice that by the end of the weekend, the styling I had done on my base wig was falling out because the hairspray was starting to break down. I’m probably going to have to snip through the threads that are attaching the braid and the bottoms of the carriers, so I can lift up the carriers to get at the wig hair underneath and do some touch ups. I’ll edit this post with any further tips I have about maintaining this type of wig, but I have a feeling this type of maintenance is something I’m going to have to do each time the wig gets worn and transported over long distances.
Anyway, I hope this write-up had helped given you some ideas of your own about how to make a Houseki no Kuni wig! I would love to see any pictures you have of your own wig if this helped you out in any way, so please drop me a line on Instagram/Tumblr/Twitter. Thanks so much for reading!
(photo taken by my fiance who when I asked how he wanted to be credited for the photo made the :I face and shrugged)
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Thanks again to Ivorivet for sharing this tutorial with us!