Fevereon Props

Assassin's Creed II- Ezio's glider

2011-12-05T11:19:00.002-05:00

For those who aren't familiar with the thing, the glider I'm working on is Leonardo da Vinci's "flying machine" from Assassin's Creed II. Decided to make this thing because.. well, I wanted to see if I could.

I had started this in early 2010, but other pressing matters relegated it to a pair of wooden pegs in the basement til this past September, where it (again) resides til I finish off some end of year projects. At this moment, the arm and foot rests need to be made, some corded accents, and a base for it needs finishing.

The blueprints were (for obvious reasons) rather large, so i just printed the main body and one wing.. I made it 15 feet across (scaled down from the 23 or so I guesstimated ), because the components need to fit in my car.

Since I don't have an oversized printer, after drawing up the blues, I printed out i think around 60 sheets of 8 1/2x 11s, and spent the day taping the buggers together PosteRazor would have made this easier :p

The main body is mdf on one side, and masonite/insulation foam/tagboard on the other. The body was painted with some old thick paint and a cheapo brush that I intentionally let paint dry on

I've been using 1/8" thick masonite for the top, insulation foam for the core, and the sides are tagboard. Though individually flimsy, when glued together (using hot glue lol) they're actually fairly strong.

So yeah.. lots and lots and lots of this :p

left to right-

-Masonite board, cut to shape

-insulation foam, also cut to shape (i later found if i just glued the Masonite to the foam sheet, I could then just use the edge to cut it out faster.)

- cut out & glued together

-hot glued the sides on :)

I found that a quick way to cut the tagboard strips (instead of measuring out every one) was to take a straight edge, and attach some tagboard scrap to the bottom, laid out the width i needed for the edge. I then just slide the sheet under it til it butts into the tagboard glued underneath, and cut away. Think I had to do around 100 or so strips for one size alone :p

I am concerned with (amongst other things) Torsional strength. (twisting the spines), I'll need to work around that real quick, though I think (and hope) the fabric they will sandwich will help provide additional support.

Here's the state when it was ditched in July 2010 ^^; Its a lil more beige now from all the dust.

September 2011

Over the last 4 days, I've cut and assembled the other 28 spines that are left.

Some of them I had doubled up, to provide extra support and give the wings more dimension.

Though i had a vague idea of how i was going to connect the part together, I hadn't actually done any blues/ schematics for the connections. Wound up engaged in a lot of snip/glue/ bull****tery here til the parts connected right. The layers alternate between those of the inner and outer wing assemblies, and a peg will be run through the entire lot when done. here's to hoping that its strong enough! *fingercross*

Once one side was assembled, I flipped it over and mirrored the other parts by assembling it right on top of the finished one (hope that makes sense!) . It may be a couple mm off from the original blues, but as long as its aligned to the layer that will be attached to the other side, it'll be fine.

The outer sides of the spines will be covered after the fabric is stretched over them :)

And here's the current state of one side. I can't easily lay it out fully though, til that side of the basement gets cleared off

September 25, 2011

After assembling the rest of the pairs of outer wing spines, these were all painted. Again I used the thick old enamel leftovers so I got thick streaks and the like.

After it dried, I sprayed the parts with rustoleum brown primer, and did a quick wipe with an old bedsheet.To bring out the texture more, I used some sandpaper.

Left them all out to dry, it was like having two gliders in the basement with both sides of the wings splayed out in the basement lol

Time to start stretching the fabric onto the wings! Since the spines would move around when setting them, I decided to temporarily tack the thing to a large sheet of insulation foam using the hot glue gun. This would keep the spines from moving while i did the fabric.

Did my best to stretch the fabric on there, and hot glued it all down. You can't bounce a quarter off it, but it'll do.

The other half was aligned and glued down after some of the trimming was done

I laid a bead of hot glue around the edges that would remain "raw" to keep it from fraying and stretching too much. Used a scrap piece of silicone to press the bead flat :)

Here's one of the outer wings almost done! I still need to tagboard the outer edge though

September 27, 2011

Did a test fitting of the first of the wings yesterday.

Then set back to work on the inner section of the wings. I still needed to add more spines, so rather rinse repeat with the glue!

Foam scraps were tacked onto the spines to stop them from moving around while stretching the fabric

Added some wood bits to one side, because the spines added would get crushed if the outer wing pushed into them. That did the trick!

another fitting check,

and strength check. I also held the thing horizontally to see if the wing will crack and crash/burn, but it held fine, and I heard no telltale squeaking/crunching sounds of a dying joint, so it looks like this will work!

The wing weighs about 11 lbs so far (the outer wing is about 5 1/2 lb) .. it'll probably go up to about 13 by the time I add the last segments (I forgot a major piece of it, so I need to go back and add that )

September 29, 2011

And more of the same.. though i'm a lil behind, its coming to its home stretch

I forgot to add a section on the top of the wing, so I put those in.

Quick bodged the footrest, and the hand grips will be added as soon as I finish the bar that connects it to the fuselage

September 30,2011

The next step was getting the wings to connect to the fuselage. These segments wre made out of plywood, as they would be taking a massive amount of pressure from the wings. Holes were cut, and the wings (and fabric) were pulled through.

The fabric was hotglued in place. I snipped the fabric on the inside, so i could evenly glue it down. The

The wooden peg is epoxied in place. It actually extends into the wing for added support. This had holes drilled in, and its what connects the wing to the fuselage (along with another peg further down.

Here's the current state of the glider. It weighs around 30 pounds, which isn't bad for a 15 foot x 7 1/2 foot.. thing. Will update this blog posting when its completed!

Dragon Age 2- Hawke's belt

2011-02-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

Hello all, apologies for the lack of updates (again :p), I really prefer to post full start to finish wips here, but lately I've have been making slow progress on about 15 different projects, between making accessories for another costume maker! If you want to see some of these things as they progress (and occasional webstreaming), check out my facebook page (no fb membership required! )

Anywhoo, this is a bit of a panic project, as I thought that the convention that this was needed for was at the end of the month, not in 6 days. So the schedule is very messed up, and much coffee was involved!

For those unfamiliar with the character, Hawke, here's a reference. He's from the upcoming Dragon Age 2 from Bioware.

Guyverion is getting the other items from someone else, and I believe he's making the armor bits, tabbard and such

Here's what he has so far (the belt is of course, going to be replaced by mine)
http://fevereon.com/props/propbuilds...an_tabbard.jpg

Here's a foam mockup I did to get the layout right. I found foam great for patterning because it behaves similarly to the damp leather I'll be using for the belt

I showed him some really cool looking rings, and he opted for them instead of the plain ones I had snagged earlier. He also gave me artistic liberties, so time willing, i might do a couple textured accents & such. We'll see though, since there's going to be a lot of sewing involved & I'll have to do it by hand, since I don't have a machine that can get through this.

Here some of the parts have been tooled, and some dyed, and I'm pretty much swapping out things as I go along.

More dyeing done, and preparing things to start sewing! Added texture because i thought it would look nice

And the buckle!

I rough cut the shape with a dremel

forgot to post a photo inbetween here, but I continued wok with the Dremel, and got the shape generally done. Since this was plywood, I coated it with some stuff called "tuf" that Wes from The Engineer Guy gave my fiance when he picked up stuff i purchased. sands smoother & sexier than bondo. Love it

sprayed a coat of Rustoleum stainless steel industrial spraypaint on there, because it dries relatively fast, and sands nicely without clogging up sandpaper.

Here's the finished buckle, after a lil tweaking. I'm leaving it a bit rough, to retain the feel of Hawke's rough design. This of course, was sprayed again after the sanding, and I applied some silver & black acrylic washes to weather it more.

From this point on, things were so hectic that my wonderful fiance pulled a major assist!

I layed out, cut, tooled dyed the leather, and punched the sewing holes, then gave the parts to him to assist in sewing. I unfortunately don't have a sewing machine, and hand sewing takes a good while. I wound up pulling 3 allnighters, and he pulled one getting this done in time XD

Here's some of the straps, in various stages of work.

Here's some up on the stitching pony that he was using. I chose to use a basic stitch that was not only faster, but was more accurate to the references than the saddle stitch that I usually usually use on everything. Most of the stitching done on the belt here was decorative, and though I considered not doing it for times sake, the belt would look kindof plain.

the pouch was again mocked up with craft foam, then transferred to leather.

Decided to use 3 oz. leather on the side pieces, and 5 oz on the main body. I started the sewing to get the things aligned, and my fiance sewed the rest up and added the clasp

While I was sewing the fur onto the back of the belt (sewing fur onto belt= sloooowwww), my fiance made a faux clasp for the leg strap. Its made from Sintra and Mighty Putty, and painted with a subsequent acrylic wash.

Here's some photos of the finished belt! There's a strap that my client would hide underneath the tabbard and bolts to the belt to stay hidden (much like a garter belt, but much more manly)

after taking this photo, I decided that the sack of holding was a little low, so I raised it a bit!

Again, I'm really happy he let me deviate from the original design and put these rings in!

My client is (obviously) much larger than me XD

Fall Update smorgasboard (part 1)

2010-11-07T20:39:00.000-05:00

The hectic Spring/Summer convention season has passed, so its time to play catch up on all the propwork that had to sit on the sidelines while we were bouncing around from convention to convention.Regardles, theres been a lot of materials flying around down in the shop!

Here's whats been going on over the summer, but hadn't gotten off my butt and posted to the ol' blog (May?? sheesh!)

Thundercats- Lion-O's sword
Tthis has been on the project list for a very lonng time, and I'm getting around to it (finally).

The eye is a huge xmas ornament, that I cut open and poured resin into. This was the first take on the eye. the white is styrene, that was heat formed over it.

The recessed textures are being done by using sandpaper (in this case, 3M sandblaster sandpaper), and gluing styrene to it . Found that its a great way to add a nice even texture. These bits are sintra, sandpaper, and styrene.

Here's the current state of the blade. Next up is the handle, and remaking the claw part of the guards, because i'm not too fond if their shape,

FFVIII- Squall's gunblade

Though the blues are not done, they're at least readable (for me anyways), so I'll start building off them once a couple of these are out of the way! So many nitpicky giblets on that prop, especially since the bullets will be removable and the rest of the bells & whistles!

and some Bonus busters...
My kid neighbors a fan of games (namely the Final Fantasy variety) so thought it would be fun to show him a bit of propmaking by building a basic buster sword with him. I'm making a second one as well. They're being made from insulation foam, tagboard, sintra, foamcore, and a dowel.

part 2 coming in a bit!

LOTR- Boromir's Shield straps

2010-05-23T09:42:00.004-04:00

Mike of blindsquirrelprops and I are "tag teaming" a set of Boromir's shields from Lord of the Rings. He's working on the shields, and I was to do the leather straps.

Here's some reference photos. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of them to work from...

The first thing I did was make the stamps, since hand tooling the entire thing would be insane. I did the initial sculpt from Super sculpey, then poured resin into it. Since I didn't bake the sculpey, I was able to scrape it it out after the resin set relatively easily and used some paint thinner to clean the tighter crevacises. Though the stamping worked, I realised that I sculpted it in reverse of what i needed. Oops!

These are the ones I remade, and mounted them onto wood blocks to provide support. Did a test to make sure they were correct!

Laid the leather, wet, on a table, and used a C clamp to press them onto the leather, since they're too big to beat with a mallet, and i didn't want them to shift. The diamond ones were pressed harder than the others to emboss them deeper

Here's one of the straps, with the tooling finished, the edge was embossed with an overstitch wheel to use as a guide when punching the holes.

painting & dying the straps. First I laid down the black & red, then went over the whole thing with an antiquing gel. Those I got from Tandy leather factory the black straps were dyed with an alcohol based dye I tried out, which penetrated the leather nicely. A coat of black gel antique was added over that, and the straps were sprayed with a woter resistant spray.

The next phase was the pain in the... since I don't own a hand sewing machine they had to be sewn by hand. Since the leathers too thick to just sew through, I had to prepunch the holes with a diamond shaped punch, then use a set of pliers to pull the needles through. I recruited my fiance to help with some of the sewing. It took almost two days of solid work from both of us to get em done. Used a basic saddle stitch, which involves two needles. Here's my fiance toiling away!

Yay! The sewing on the straps are done, and our hands are sore!

The next step was adding the bluckles. Mike had welded together 3 of the lil' buggers and sent them to me to rivet. I did a lil' trimming of a couple, drilled holes, and riveted the straps from the underside after gluing them down. Mike's going to have plates engraved to cover the ones he did, since trimming them made them uneven. That'll cover up the holes I had accidently drilled too high as well ^^;

Aaand finished straps! I'll be seding these to Mike, and he'll be sewing them to the shield. Have fun with that Mike! (sarcasm!)

TF2 and WoW wips..

2010-04-15T17:46:00.000-04:00

Working on a bunch of projects in between commissions and such, and these puppies have been slowly making progress.

TF2- Intel case-

Here's a couple of photos of a TF2 intel case that I'm working on. This is for a commission, so it taking priority XD

Will be adding buttons and faux dials and such. The panel is made of Sintra.

5 minutes with a router became a full day with rasps & a surform, since I don't have a aforemetioned router :p

Turning the intel box into an intel case, by cutting it apart with a tablesaw

WoW- Sister Benedron cosplay

I never played World of Warcraft, but I saw a figure of Sister Benedron at a comic shop, and loved the design.. large axe & book of smackdown, lots' o' armor, and coincidentally, a white hood, which seems to be a common element in all the personal costumes I've made to date.. (pure coincidence!!)

Began work on the costume almost immediately after seeing it, though it got put aside when I saw the first images of Ezio from Assassin's Creed II. When Ezio's done, I hope to return to this project.... someday...

Built the base from cardboard, with a hook to attach it to back armor.

For the plates, I used Sintra sheets, which i engraved, and kickstomped in the driveway to give it the beaten metal like the figure.

Used hot glue to add texture in the carved out holes, and cut the excess off so the plates would fit over it easily.

And some painting to see how they look so far :)

Temari's Fan- Naruto

2010-04-06T13:21:00.004-04:00

I was commissioned to make Temari's fan from the anime series Naruto.

This was originally going to be a modification of one of those large fans that you can find at asian trinket shops, but I completely didn't trust it to hold up the rigors of cosplaying.

An 11th hour idea that came to me to use slats from a set of window blinds.

Since the ones i got were faux wood (plastic), i added some spokes that were wooden molding for support. I stacked them up and drilled a hole through the set of spokes.

after bolting it, I laid out the curve onto paper.

I mounted fabric to the front of paper, to give it strength

The purple dots were added by ironing on pieces of purple fabric with some heat & bond sheets.

made sure to measure out the spacing carefully, then used a straight edge to fold the fabric.

After tapering the spokes to ensure that the fan can close, I used double sided adhesive tape to secure the spokes to the fan.

aand thats about it! One really big fan!

After taking this photo, I had to let the gal who commissioned know that it would be unwise to open it outside. There was a slight breeze outside, and it was a challenge trying to make sure that the wind didn't take off with it...

Assassins Creed 2- Ezio's belt

2009-12-18T13:52:00.006-05:00

Been working on a personal project, full cosplay of Assassin's Creed 2, big fan :)

One of the tougher elements has been the belt.. its not only located in a spot that would mean breakage for the thing unless it was was made from metal, but the design itself just wouldn't work, because the posts on the buckle are facing the wrong way, and even if they were, they'd be a b*** to buckle.

first of course, was layout.. Drew up the design and made a tagboard and plywood mockup to lay out the belt. Will sculpt the insignia onto the plywood.

Then began the sculpting. Used super sculpey. I don't remember how long it took because I wsa working on & off between projects.

I had sculpted and baked the insignia in sections, to help avoid fouling up areas that already sculpted.

A lot of sanding was done to smooth out imperfections and such.

After a quick acylic paint test (and subsequent stripping of the paint, which proved tougher to do than i thought), I cast it in Moldmax 30, and poured a plaster support to keep it from losing shape when doing pours.

After brushing the inside of the mold with aluminum powder, I poured smoothcast 325 into the mold. Here's the result of the cast once it set.

After sanding the reverse side of the cast to remove the flashing and even it out, I did a "wash" of sorts using spraypaint and a rag.

theres the finished components. Added bolts to the back of the insignia, to connect it to a backplate shaped by heating 2 layers of Sintra and gluing them together with an epoxy to add strength. It'll protect the insignia when ones bending, as well as provide a base to mount the buckles onto. I cut the roller bars off the buckles, and they're mounted to the plate using framing wire. Added padding so the wire won't jab the wearer in the stomach.

The sash is actually fabric wrapped over a piece of vinyl in the approximate shape i wanted. Bunched it up to look as close as i could get to the references. slots and holes were cut into it to add it onto the backplate. Added hook and loop onto the ends of the sash, to make it easier to put on. the seam will be covered by the sash that hangs off the side.

The insigna was then bolted onto the backplate :)

Time to cut out & test the belt straps! When done with those, the insignia will hold the partial pieces of leather in place., because Ubi didn't' make a design that would actually WORK and theres "magic" involved XD

Used the cardboard mockup as a pattern for the leatherwork. After hooking the sash around the waist, I buckle the straps in the -back-, since that setup back there actually -does- work based on the references.
The AC logo in the back is purely decorative, since I'll be clipping pouches to the back of the belt once they're completed.

Since the insignia required a mold, I can make more insignia assemblies if one might be interested. Belt n' sash not included.. Here's some info and a request form here

Other elements of cosplay gear (left bracer, daggers, paulron clips etc. ) will undergo similar treatment XD

Drakengard 2- Caim's Sword

2009-10-29T00:11:00.001-04:00

I was commissioned to make Caim's sword from Drakengard 2. I was to make the sword based on the older form of this character, where its more worn, quite battledamaged, and there was a color shiift from blue to red :)

To get the recessed area of the blade, I glued thin panels to the sides...

...then tapered the sides of the blade as normal. That left a nice clean inner bevel :)

The "arch" was made from 3 sandwiched segments of wood, with a space to insert the blade.

I added the center section of plywood, using craft sticks to center the plate. Bondo was added to fill in the gap, and the inner arch was carved in.

I cut out a slot to accomodate the plywood plate.

the arch was fitted,and glued to the plate

The unserside of the hilt was made from 3 layers of wood

I glued two of the sections together and bored out the center to help keep the sword as light as possible.

They got connected to the base

After gluing the bottom piece (which didn't get bored) I added a pair of screws to add additional strength.

Three sections of wood were glued together to compose the "basket"

I cut the groves and sended the parts smooth

.. then glued them onto a scrap piece of wood to shape

Rough cut them using my bandsaw

and shaped them into the shape I wanted using files and sanding blocks

The segments were cut off the scrap block. Here's the segments!

They got glued onto the actual sword :)

And here's where I went into a building frenzy and forgot to take photos..
After squishing bondo between the cracks I scraped at it while it set, and before it cured (its easier to do than carving it when its hard!) to acheive the depth I wanted. The curve in the back was built up using wood and bondo. The grip was also made and connected. Here's the end result after I sanded it and applied wood hardener.

The pommel was carved using a Dremel, files and sandpaper :)

After finishing sanding, and a coat of primer, I used a dremel and a hacksaw to add major battledamage!

sand, detail, and yay!

Drizz'ts Swords- Forgotten realms

2009-10-05T17:56:00.004-04:00

This is a pair of swords I had done based on designs by Todd lockwood

After going over a couple ideas and get feedback on the design for the blade edge (made three rough drafts from insulation foam), I went and began shaping the blade.

A light held close to the edge of the blade helped show details, and I funetuned the edge with files and sandpaper.

The elven text was "engraved" by woodburning, since woodburning creates recess in the wood.

I tried out using bondo to build up the grip, but in the future I'll just go and use wood, it would be less of a pain ^^;

Here i sprayed a coat of Kilz.. its thick, and can be sanded down really smoothly. between coats of paint I took a needle and scraped out the paint, to make sure it didn't get completely filled in.

After sanding the blade smooth, I laid down a coat of satin black, which takes aluminum powder nicely

I then used aluminum powder and rubbed it onto the blade with my finger when it was almost dry (but not too tacky)

Though there appears to be silver powder stuck in the engraved areas, it was later blown out with a can of compressed air. I left it looking a bit worn, since the character looked to me like he wouldn't be toting fresh out of the blacksmiths shop weapons...

Now Its on to the grips!. Here's a big pile of strips i cut to wrap the handles with

I laid down double sided tape onto the handle, and pretty much trial and errored my way into wrapping the handles. I started in the middle, and worked my way out :)

Think I got lucky when it all interlaced correctly on the other side!

I found the perfect bits from the scrapbooking section of Michael's to add to the handles. ..

Drilled holes into these square headed brads, and inserted some zirconias into the holes. They got glued into holes drilled through the handle

AAnnnd the finished blade!

Kingdom hearts- Axel's Chakrams

2009-09-30T17:31:00.007-04:00

Disclaimer!! This was how I went about making these chakrams. It takes forever, and sucks to be honest! If you could find another way that would be better than doing it this way (unless you LENJOY spending a couple hundred hours sanding T_T )

I was commissioned to make a pair of rather spikey chakrams based on Axel from Kingdom Hearts.

This is the third "take", as the first one was begin carved in wood, and took waaaay took long, and the second (in which i used this mold) I had casted in pure resin, and the chakrams weighed about 13 lb each and were brittle. Boring out the centers was also taking waaaay too long)

I sculpted 1/4 of one side of the Chakram to save on casting the cost of the mold rubber. In retrospect its a complete nightmare, and if I was to do this again, I'd sculpt and make a mold of one full side..

Heres how I went about making the mold a bit, Click for a larger view.

1- laid out 1/8th of a chakram on matboard, used hot glue and shims to define facets

2- hotglued some insulation foam into place to use as filler so i wouldn't use up all mah bondo

3- slopped bondo on there, and used the shims to help guide tools to make facets even.. this is the result after lots of sanding

4- gold has a habit of making imperfections show, so thought i'd take advantage of it for once.. sprayed it with the gold, and did more cleanup.. figure that fizing it now would prevent having to fix it 16 times over later

5- glued part onto MDF, put lil putty around edges to keep silicone from getting underneath, then used hot glue and tagboard to build a box around it. seal up ALL crack lest it dribble out

6- used smoothon sorta-clear 40 silicone rubber on it after applying mold sealer and rubbing off excess (its waxy). crossed fingers that i did it right and waited 16 hours (attempt to save on rubber by adding a couple chunks of insulation foam failed, they floated to the top)
after it cured, this would have been a better time to add layer of plaster as a support!

7- pulled everything apart and viola! a big rubbery 1.8th of a chakram! woke up fiance by sneaking into bedroom and lobbing it on him

8-after pouring plaster support structure underneath, i thought I'd try adding some silver here. after spraying light coat of mold release, dusted on some silver aluminum powder that i got from pearl art supply. (think flouring a pan here) used can o' comlressed air to spray excess off.

I dusted the inside of the mold with aluminum powder.

I made the "shells" by laying down two layers of fiberglass. Once they cured and i popped them out of the mold, I laid them across a belt sander to remove the excess and flashing.

Filled the cavity with Great stuff foam, and let it set for a day

After cutting off some of the excess with an exacto knife, I again took to the belt sander and flattened it out

Added a flat sheet of fiberglass on top of 1/2 of the chakram segments.

After pairing off segments and gluing them together I assembled them into a full chakram.

Beginning main assembly.

One of the chakrams fully assembled. This needed a lot of sanding work done, as I made a bit of a mess when gluing them together (used fiberglass resin)

Once assembled, i began the long process of puttying up imperfections and sanding them smooth.

A WHOOOOOLE lot of puttying, sanding, and puttying again, and the segments are smooth enough to primer. Decided to primer areas that i finished sanding, to keep track of whats done and whats not...

There were still a bunch of lil' bubbles n' such, so I went back and sprayed the thing down with Kilz, its thick and cakey and fills in holes good. Laid a thin coat of gold so i can see what needs work easier.

a whole lotta sanding again, working down to 400 grit..

Laid down Krylon brilliant silver,

aaand time to paint it,

After wrapping the grip using the foam taken from a rake handle, one completed chakram! (repeat above for the other one T_T)