Materials Monday: MDF

Well, it's been a while since I've done one of these so I figure it's high time I got a regular thing started here... at least until I run out of useful materials to talk about.

This week we're going to talk about MDF, which stands for Medium Density Fiberboard.

MDF is very similar to wood in the way I use it in props. It comes in thin, flat boards that can be cut and sanded to fit your needs. I would even go so far as to say I generally prefer it to wood, and here's why:

1. Unlike wood, MDF will be perfectly flat, and remain so, even when you're working with thinner boards. Thin craft wood can often warp or bend, either before you purchase it from the store, or even after you start working with it.
2. MDF doesn't have a grain. This means that you won't have to sand/coat/sand/coat.sand/coat/etc. as much as you would with wood to get a perfectly smooth surface. In addition, it's going to be sturdier than wood when you have thin pieces. 

The scissors I made for Ramos are made out of thin craft wood, and the skinny parts that connect the handle to the blade section on each piece both snapped along the wood grain. I plan to make a new set of shears with MDF for the next time I cosplay him.

• MDF comes in a lot of different thicknesses so it's pretty versatile for different projects. Wood does too, but it's hard to find the variety you need for some projects.
• MDF usually comes in long, wide boards which mean you can buy a single board and often use it for multiple projects, depending on what all you're making
• MDF is a little "softer" than most craft wood. What that means is it's a little easier to sand. I've used my dremel with a sanding bit and gotten a really nice beveled edge on some of the swords I've made with MDF
• MDF is pretty easy to work with, assuming you have the right tools. You will need a jigsaw or something comparable to cut it, and you'll probably want a dremel as well to make sanding easier. But of course you can always sand your stuff by hand, it just takes longer.
  
  The only real downside to MDF is that it tends to be heavier than wood, so if you're using it for larger projects they're going to be a lot to carry around at a con.

MDF is great for a lot of different types of projects, but is probably most useful for swords and other blades because it's thin, flat, and sturdy!

Now, let's look at a few MDF projects I've done! 

Photo by Madster Cosplay and Photography

The FF XV engine sword I made for Heckin Sleepy Cosplay has a base made from MDF. 

Now there's a lot of weird details on this sword, most of which are made from random plastic things, but this little guy is also made from MDF, so you can see it works well for smaller stuff too.

You can also see in this photo that I sanded the edge of the blade into a nice bevel, as well as sanded out some details, like the line across the top of the blade. I did all of that with a dremel tool & sanding bit, and then used some fine-grit sandpaper to smooth things out.

The second major thing I made using MDF is the Rengar set from League of Legends. Both the base of the large sword, as well as the smaller arm blades are made from MDF.

I cut out & beveled the small blades directly on the MDF, but for the big blade, I ended up using foam board to achieve the bevel, since it was too wide to have easily been able to do directly on the MDF. I did, however, bevel the small points around the guard on the sword.

MDF worked out great for this project because of the width of the blade. It would have been difficult to find a wood board that would have been wide enough to make this, and even if I found one, there's a good chance it wouldn't have been perfectly flat, making the foam board more difficult to mount effectively.

If you're curious about the work I did with the foam board here, you can check out my first Materials Monday post, which is all about foam board.

The other project that comes to mind when thinking about MDF is the Crescent Rose I built for my husband. 

Now most of this was done out of foam board, because to have made it all out of MDF would have been super heavy and downright unwieldy! But there are a few spots that would have been too weak to make out of foam board: the blade on the end, and the spear point on the back.

I don't have any photos of the spear end, but here's the front blade. With it being made out of MDF, there's no worry of hurting the end if it accidentally get's whacked, and you can set the point down on the ground to pose with the "sniper rifle" mode, because of course it's also a gun. 

I put it on my foot here, because of course I could still chip the paint if I wasn't careful, but if that were foam board this wouldn't even be possible!

So, I hope this has been helpful and informative for all of you folks!
I'm hoping to do Materials Monday about once a month, on weeks that I don't have Throwback Thursday posts, so I hope you'll tune in next time to learn about more great prop-making materials!

Here Kitty, Kitty

It's time for another Throwback Thursday episode here at Mikey Does Cosplay! This week we're going to take a look at my furry friend Ranulf. Ok, I shouldn't call him furry because Laguz are not furries. THEY'RE NOT OK.

Ranulf is one of my favorite FE cosplays because he's so nice and comfy, and he's also pretty recognizable. There are plenty of characters from the Tellius series that no one would recognize, but he seems to have somehow become a poster boy for the series along with out Hero Ike and his taciturn *coughlovercough* tactician Soren.

I made Ranulf back when I was still living and working in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I got the brilliant idea one day that I should go for a hike with one of my coworkers dressed up so we could get some good photos of him. I later repeated this with my Sothe cosplay, though instead of a coworker I recruited my then boyfriend (now husband) to be my photographer.

The scenery was certainly perfect for Ranulf, considering his homeland is one giant forest. These are actually some of the best photos I have of any cosplay that weren't taken by a professional photographer. 

Bright blue and orange don't exactly make the best camoflauge...

It's been a while since I've worn him, but after looking through all of these photos, I really want to wear this again. We're planning an FE cat group for Colossal this year, and while I'm slotted for King Caineghis, I'll probably opt for this if I can't get him finished.

Fun fact: One of my friends has actually worn this to a photoshoot. He was our Ranulf for the Tellius meetup at Youma last year, in which we had all of the bird lords, a cat, and a branded. There were no full-blooded beorc to be found.

Photo courtesy of Justin Pineda

That's all for this week, thanks for stopping in, my loves!

Care of Magical Creatures - Part 3

It occurred to me, as I spent nearly 20 minutes poring over my blog posts to find some specific creature photos, that I missed a few in my first two lessons. So I thought to myself, why not have a third? After all, I never did show off what are arguably my most impressive creatures (though the Swooping Evil is pretty awe-inspiring), as well as all of my creatures that are not explicitly from Harry Potter canon. If you missed the first two, you can find them here: Lesson 1, Lesson 2.

So, on to my final magizoology lesson (at least until I make more critters).

Phoenix

The phoenix might be the most iconic creature in the Harry Potter series, second perhaps only to dragons. We come to know and love Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, through the books, and he comes to Harry's rescue on a number of different occasions.

The phoenix is a large and highly intelligent magical bird. These creatures can be fiercely loyal to witches or wizards with whom they have a strong connection. Phoenixes have a number of magical properties, the most notable of which is their periodic rebirth by way of self-combustion. The phoenix ignites and a new body is born from the ashes. The creature retains all of its memories, however, and as such can live for a very long time. It is unknown how many times a phoenix can be reborn. In addition, phoenixes can carry immensely heavy burdens with ease, they have apparition powers, allowing them to disappear and reappear at will, their tears have very potent healing properties, and their song also has mysterious magical properties.

My phoenix was created from a lawn flamingo. I started by painting the flamingo red. The feet are made from heavy gauge wire, wrapped with a thinner copper wire to give them better texture. The legs are threaded through holes in the bottom of the plastic flamingo. The tails are stiff red felt with metallic gold painted around the edges. They are all hot glued together to form the three individual tails. For the bright orange underbelly I pulled apart a stuffed animal and glued the fur to his underside. The red fuzzy feathers are marabou feathers I glued to the flamingo's body. For the wings, I used more heavy gauge wire threaded through holes in the sides of the flamingo, and then hot glued a small piece of red felt around the wire to form the base for each wing. The feathers are then attached to the wing base with more hot glue, which allows the wings to be folded. for the head, I used a combination of different types of feathers to make a crest on top. He's perched on a piece of branch from our back yard that I turned into a stand for him.

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THUNDERBIRD

The thunderbird is another large magical bird native to the western United States. These massive raptors can create storms simply by beating their six wings in tandem. These creatures require a very large, wide-open spaces for their habitats and claim territories several hundred square miles in area. Thunderbirds were hunted nearly to extinction and very few of them are living in the wild today. As such they are very closely protected by the magical law enforcement in their areas.

My thunderbird is essentially a plush with a wired underskeleton. The face was made with sculpey and then painted. The base body I patterned out myself and sewed with a suedecloth fabric, which you can see on the tails. I then massacred several different stuffed animals to get the different shades of fur on his body. The wings were a part of the plush pattern, and parts of the wire skeleton extend into each wing to make them pose-able. Most of the pinion feathers on the largest pair of wings actually came from a pheasant tail I purchased from a taxidermist. A lot of the other feathers came from masks or other unusual sources, since I wanted them all to be natural colors.

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RUNESPOOR

The runespoor was initially intended to be in the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them but the scene was deleted. You can see it on youtube here.

The runespoor is a three-headed snake native to Africa. It is highly venomous and can reach up to 7 ft. long. We have learned from parselmouths that each head serves a different function: the left is the planner, the middle is the dreamer, and the right is the critic. As such, the right head tends to clash with the other two often, and it is not uncommon to find wild runespoors with only two heads, if the planner and dreamer get fed up with the critic and decide to bite him off.

My runespoor is simply a snake plush with a couple of extra heads. I modified the pattern I used to make my occamys and made it with tiger-striped fur, since runespoors are generally black and orange striped. There is a wire skeleton on the inside so he can be posed as I please.

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ACROMANTULA

We all remember this terrifying thing from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Acromantulas are gargantuan spiders native to southeast Asia. Their venom is highly toxic, but is also a very valuable potion ingredient. these spiders are highly intelligent and are capable of human speech when the get older. These are also social creatures, unlike most arachnids, and can form colonies of hundreds of their species.

I admittedly didn't make this one, I just bought it on Amazon.

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PUFFSKEIN

You might recognize these guys' smaller breed, the pygmy puff, bred and sold by the Weasley Twins.

The puffskein is a small, cushy, harmless creature that is a favorite pet for young witches and wizards. They are incredibly durable and don't care about being cuddled or tossed around.  The most unusual thing about the puffskein is their taste for bogies, and they tend to use their long, flexible tongues to clean out their owners' noses while they sleep.

This guy started out as some sort of plush I found at the thrift store... I think it might have been a duck. I cut him open, reorganized some stuff, and sewed it back together in a sphere. The tongue is fleece with wire in it so. it can be curled up.

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AMPHISBAENA

From this point onward, we are out of the Harry Potter canon. The amphisbaena is a two-headed snake originating in Greek mythology.

The amphisbaena is a two-headed snake, thought to be related to the runespoor. However, unlike is other multi-headed cousin, the amphisbaena has a head on either end of its body, rather than all heads facing the same direction. As such, the heads do not function independently as the do with the runespoor, but rather work in tandem to accomplish the creature's goals. These snakes are also venomous, and the venom is an uncommonly-used potion ingredient. In addition, the skin has certain healing properties and is best harvested shortly after it is shed.

I made my amphisbaena just like i made my runespoor, I just modified the pattern a bit to accomodate the extra head.

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PYGMY ARCWHALE

Flying whales show up in a lot of different fantasy settings, these are my own interpretation. Just add wings.

Standard arcwhales have been soaring the upper atmosphere for millenia. It is said that the first whale dreamed of being free of the sea, and rose from its waters, ascending to the heavens above. Arcwhales feed on dream energy from witches and wizards; they tend to function in a similar fashion to dreamcatchers, filtering out bad dreams and leaving the sleeping witch or wizard with only pleasant ones. As such, you can see their appeal, and that is how pygmy arcwhales came about: they were bred to be kept as pets, since the full-sized arcwhale would not be able to fit through your door.
In addition to feeding on dreams, arcwhales (pygmy or otherwise) generate cloud or mist around them when they fly. This helps obscure them from muggle vision, and can indicate a pod passing through a residential feeding zone when a heavy fog rolls through. 

My whales are just plushies I found at the thrift store and added fleece wings to. I did use wire in the wings so they can be posed.

I hope you enjoyed the next installment of my Care of Magical Creatures lessons. I have plans for a lot more critters so hopefully some time down the line I'll have time to add to this continuing segment here at MDC.