More Commissions, More WIPs

Hey everyone! I've been in and out of town a lot with all of my summer trips happening within a couple weeks of each other so I've not been as productive as I would be otherwise. That and I've been playing Horizon Zero Dawn so that doesn't exactly help my productivity XD

Anyway, I wanted to show you all what I've been working on lately!

First up is the only project I've actually finished: Yang's Ember Celica from RWBY. I've made quite a few RWBY weapons at this point, both for myself and others, so I'm excited to get a shot to make yet another one!

These gauntlets are made almost entirely out of EVA & craft foam of a variety of thicknesses.

But of course it wouldn't be a Mikey prop if there weren't some weird pieces of trash incorporated somehow, right? So in this particular instance I used a small cardboard tube that I acquired god only knows where and sawed it in half to get the gun barrels, and I also used four plastic spools sliced down the middle to get the shells for Yang's ammo. Thankfully I've picked up a bunch of random spools of thread at thrift stores and garage sales over the years so I have them in abundance. However, a word of advice to anyone thinking of doing the same thing: remove all the thread first. I was lazy and tried to saw straight through the first one with the thread still on there and it made a tangled mess.

We've skipped a few steps here, but the pieces are all assembled and the plates on the back have a layer of worbla on them. Everything was coated with mod podge a few times and then I sprayed it all yellow! Yellow doesn't cover very well so I sprayed it to avoid having to paint 437 coats to get the color even.

Details are all painted by hand and I did a bit of subtle shading between the plates on the back and on the red shells.

And here's everything finished and assembled! The cuffs have velcro on the one end and are permanently adhered on the other so they're nice and stable, but are easier to put on & take off.

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Next up is Nero's sword from Devil May Cry: The Red Queen. I'm working on this for my friend Heckin Sleepy Cosplay. He's already put together a lot of the other pieces for the cosplay and has been posting photos on his instagram so you should definitely go check it out cause everything looks awesome so far!

I will be making the gun as well, but not until aster Matsuri.
The blade for the sword is MDF, and the handle actually came from an old rake that broke a while back. 

You can see the model in this photo too. It bleongs to Heckin Sleepy, but it's made of metal so it's super heavy and he wouldn't be able to carry it around at a con. I did some extra shaping with my dremel, as well as digging out the channel that run along the edge of the blade. The other details are all made out of a smattering of other things including craft foam, puff paint, masking tape, and worbla. The most interesting piece is the largest part at the start of the hilt. It's a weird plastic thing I found in my stash of stuff that I believe came from one of those giant rolls of paper. It ended up being a good size and the hole in the center fit snugly around the wooden handle so I went with it! Also, the goofy handbrake thing is a paper straw with worbla around it. 

Those three round, silver things on the blade are actually magnets (the super strong ones you can get at the hardware store) so that hopefully it'll just snap right onto his back to magnets incorporated into the coat. 

With everything assembled, it was time to start painting! I sealed the entire thing with a few coats of mod podge, then primed it with black paint. The next layer was the silver spray paint, and then I started adding the red details by hand.

And last up is all of the progress I've made so far! It looks done, doesn't it! But I haven't done any of the red details on the other side yet and the whole thing needs mod podge slathered over it so I have about another day or two before it's totally finished.

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Last up is a Skyrim shield I'm making for my cousin's kid. Apparently he loves play sword fighting with sticks so his dad decided he needed a legit shield to play with. I had to make the thing pretty heavy duty so it could take the beating without falling apart! As such it's all MDF & hardboard, with worbla for the emblem on the front.

I'm not following any particular design for this guy, my only request was to have the Skyrim symbol on it so there he is smack dab in the middle! I haven't started painting yet but I think I'm going to go with dark blue & silver for the front.

And that's all we have this week! I hope everyone's enjoying their summers and don't forget to put on sunscreen! this has been a friendly reminder from your neighborhood ghostly white ginger.

Dragon Priest Mask and some Steampunk Stuff

I'm taking a hot second to show off my finished dragon priest mask and then I'm disappearing back into my cave where I'm assembling a million and one paper flowers out of magic cards. So here 'tis!

I'm super happy with how the paint job came out and so is my client, so BOOYAH!

Also, while I'm here, here's my (finally) finished steampunk shotgun that I've been half working on forever and finally got my shit together to finish weathering it and everything. I debuted it in its final form at a steampunk event in the Cuyahoga Valley (you know, that park that used to steal my sou... I mean that I used to work at).

It has been dubbed "Nidhogg" and is much more menacing in more modest lighting.

And here's a few photos from the event, coutresy of Three Rivers Modeling Co.

More Masks!

Hey folks, as promised I have some updates on the second mask I've been working on, now that the RWBY one is finished.

The process was pretty much the same as the last one, but the shapes were a bit more organic this time which made things interesting.

This is the dragon priest mask, from Skyrim. I don't know a ton about skyrim, but I do know this is a pretty cool mask. Just like last time, I put together the pattern on a wig head using cardstock. The shaping was a bit harder to figure out and I had to tweak things a bunch to get them right, but ultimately I had a viable pattern to use.

You know what comes next, make it again out of paperboard and cover it with worbla!

A note about using worbla over  detail pieces: start in the middle and work your way to the edges to avoid any bubbles.
Another note along the same lines: Popsicle sticks are great for pressing the worbla into the details. You can see how I did it with the eyes and cheekbone ridges.

The mask construction is done! Now it's time to add the loops for the straps to attach to. I did kind of a bad job of explaining how I made those last time so I tried to take pictures of the steps this time.

Start with some heavy-gauge wire. I think the wire I used was gauge 16, I wouldn't recommend anything thinner than that. You start by folding your piece of wire into a rectangle with the two ends overlapping on one side. Then take a long rectangle of worbla (I used two layers, and would recommend you do too for extra stability), and put it through your wire loop. Then heat up your worbla and fold it around the wire loop, over the edge where the two raw ends are. Then heat it up again and mush the soft plastic into the surface where the loops need to go. You definitely want a layer of worbla on the surface underneath the loop, because the worbla will stick better to other worbla than most other surfaces.

And that's were are now. I'll be priming and sanding for a few days and then it's on to painting! Huzzah!