Not a Background Lannister – Prop Shield Tutorial

first

So I started with the trousers last Wednesday… The shield on Friday… Next up in the lead up to the costume reveal is the shield.

And boy am I proud of it!

I have access to a laser cutter, at my job, so I put together a “quick” file (it’s never quick) for a shield that would fit on one piece of plywood. I could’ve made a bigger one, but I was trying to be material conscious, and I’m glad I kept it at that size. The laser in question is technically two feet “wide” in material dimensions, and 4 feet long, but it’s a little bit smaller in both directions due to crookedness and use  over time.

I worked with 1/8″ plywood, and made this as solid looking, but light as possible. There are two fully solid pieces, with multiple border pieces, one set in between the solid pieces, and two sets on the front, and then the decorative pieces there too… This would be better explained in pictures…

alanna_pullapart

Yeah… Like that.

So I layered and glued everything together. It took awhile. What I should have done then, is sand those edges. I didn’t. Moving on.

edge

On the top of the shield I used wood filler and a putty knife to shove material into the seams so it was a fake beveled/routed edge. That’s honestly what took the longest. I’d put on wood filler, wait for it to dry, sand it, apply more when it inevitably chipped and repeat.

bevel
Yeah… not meant to see it up close.

I’m kicking myself that I didn’t get progress pictures as I went. So then I painted the shield. Chestnut brown on the back and sides, then red and gold on the front. The gold is Bright Gold Lumiere Jacquard fabric/universal paint, and the others are stash cheapo acrylic paints. Oh, I so love the Lumiere paints.

lioness
Gaah. I’m gonna stop it (mostly) with the close ups on this one.

On the back are two more sets of laser cut pieces, the main point of which was to provide some material for screws to connect to. Then I guesstimated sizes of leather to attach the shield to my arm, screwed it into the top and bottom bracers. I had to reattach the bottom ones to make them tighter so I could control the shield a bit better, but then I was completely done with the shield!

Lightweight, blocky and just what I needed.

It did mean that I hit a bunch of people accidentally, but… that’s being at a con, right?

I was not too surprised that this wasn’t the recognizable part of the costume (It looks too much like the Lannister crest, or Peter’s from Chronicles of Narnia), but I was surprised what was! You’ll have to tune in on Wednesday to figure out what I’m talking about!

corner

That probably sounded like a ending, but I’m popping back in again to say that though I made this with a laser cutter out of plywood, you could totally do something like this with a craft knife and some stiff foamboard or foam, and come out with similarly awesome results!

Is the pen really mightier? – Prop Sword Tutorial

first

The first prop I needed to make was a lightweight sword. It had to be a short sword (so the double handed sword I bought at my first DC was out) and it had to be me-sized. So smaller.

full

I went to Michael’s one day to scope out the small plywood situation, and ended up with Basswood, I think with the dimensions 24″ by 4″ by either an 1/8 or 1/16″ but I’m not sure which. I also purchased an 1/8″ diameter dowel, which gave the sword it’s structure. That was the cheapest Michael’s trip ever, because with a coupon, the main part of the sword cost $2.50. Craft stores never work out that well for me, so I definitely gave myself a pat on the back for a good job. Or rather, I took myself out to see the Incredibles 2 (this was late July/early August. It was still in theaters.

I’m pretty sure I cut the basswood in half lengthwise, then I cut the pointy bit out, and tried to match on both sides. Most of this was done at night, so cue the bad phone pic here:

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I then taped the dowel to one of the sword pieces. Then I applied wood glue around the edge of the sword outline, and used every single clamp and binder clip I own to keep the pieces together.

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Then I left it for a few days, even though it probably only needed one.

I used a laser cutter to cut out pieces for the hilt from 1/8″ plywood that would slide onto the wooden dowel for stability, and I aimed for a hand and a half length. In the end I got a stacked result, then used wood filler to fill it in and round it slightly. It worked pretty well, though it might’ve worked better if my filler was wetter. It has gotten rather gummy over time. Regardless there was a lot of back and forth between gooping and sanding. Using cardboard would work pretty much just the same way, if you cut some layers and used wood filler and glue and tape to hide the corrugated edges!

hilt.jpg

Then came painting and sanding. I painted up the “blade” with white acrylic first, then with Lumiere Jacquard paint in silver. Then it was too shiny, so I sanded it. Repeat once more to see if anything changed. Add the line down the center (kinda… don’t look too close) and then sand again to blend that in.

For the hilt I first painted everything brown, then painted it with Lumiere Jacquard paint in bright gold.

jewel.jpg

And the jewel. Still the biggest pain in the butt of this project. When I was designing the laser cut part of the hilt I made pieces for the end that would allow the jewel to nestle in.

Then I tried hot glue, then superglue twice, and now E6000. It’s sticking for now.

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So that’s how I made my prop lightweight sword!