Mollins
Active Member
I recieved a commission for the Steel Dagger (as well as the Hunter's Bow) from a customer for an Aela the Huntress costume a few weeks ago, with them being required for Eurogamer Expo in London.
I'm not almost finished with the steel dagger, all I need to do now is some weather and attaching the grip, which I will be doing tomorrow (hopefully), and will be able to get some finished up photos into this thread to go with the slew of WIP ones you're about to see now.
Since I was a dufus, and forgot to post up this thread whilst the blade was in production, I'm gonna do one big master post of it in progress, up to the state it's currently in, so there are going to be a lot of photos!
Here's the basic outline cut from some 5mm sintra, I drew up a blueprint of the entire blade on illustrator, then used it for my template through the build.
Some preliminary shaping on the blade portion, looking soft here, but got sharper with some sanding using something more rigid to back the sandpaper.
Here's the detail on the crossguard in progress, it was built up from (I think) 0.7mm plasticard, over something rather unconventional to get a texture underneath close as possible to what I could figure it to be like on the in game model, I used a 1/6th scale mesh vest, glued onto the crossguard then I used a kiddies art sponge to put some resin onto it, to fill in the deep recesses a bit, and impregnate the fabric to seal it, so the silicone wouldn't have a chance to impregnate it.
Here's the cleaned up detail on the crossguard, just took a little bit of trimming, gluing and bondo-ing!
This is the completed master, given a quick spray of silver paint just to make sure it was looking good, and the customer and I were happy with how it looked, so the next stage was getting it under some silicone!
And here's the master clayed up, waiting for a mould box, to say that I hate chavant clay wit ha passion would be an understatement, it is an absolute bugger to deal with! I'm thinking I should perhaps invest in some softer chavant, since I know the softer stuff isn't as much as a pain to deal with.
Mould box in place, made from some foamboard, since it's easy to use, keeps the silicone in, and cheap enough to not care about tearing it apart after making the mould!
Here's the first half of the mould with the master in place.
Now, you're likely looking at this thinking "holy crap, that looks ghetto as hell!", and you'd be right!
I had to make a second mould box (which thankfully worked out just fine), and as you can see, that is indeed tape holding it tighter across the top!
The mould worked though! No airbubbles in it, and has caught all the details perfectly!
Here's the first casting from the mould after a small amount of cleanup, and a quick hit of car paint, I don't know how I made it look so shiny, because it's not that bright in person!
So yes, there's the build process for my Skyrim Steel Dagger!
If anyone has any questions about it, or anything in the process, then please go ahead and ask!
I'm not almost finished with the steel dagger, all I need to do now is some weather and attaching the grip, which I will be doing tomorrow (hopefully), and will be able to get some finished up photos into this thread to go with the slew of WIP ones you're about to see now.
Since I was a dufus, and forgot to post up this thread whilst the blade was in production, I'm gonna do one big master post of it in progress, up to the state it's currently in, so there are going to be a lot of photos!
Here's the basic outline cut from some 5mm sintra, I drew up a blueprint of the entire blade on illustrator, then used it for my template through the build.
Some preliminary shaping on the blade portion, looking soft here, but got sharper with some sanding using something more rigid to back the sandpaper.
Here's the detail on the crossguard in progress, it was built up from (I think) 0.7mm plasticard, over something rather unconventional to get a texture underneath close as possible to what I could figure it to be like on the in game model, I used a 1/6th scale mesh vest, glued onto the crossguard then I used a kiddies art sponge to put some resin onto it, to fill in the deep recesses a bit, and impregnate the fabric to seal it, so the silicone wouldn't have a chance to impregnate it.
Here's the cleaned up detail on the crossguard, just took a little bit of trimming, gluing and bondo-ing!
This is the completed master, given a quick spray of silver paint just to make sure it was looking good, and the customer and I were happy with how it looked, so the next stage was getting it under some silicone!
And here's the master clayed up, waiting for a mould box, to say that I hate chavant clay wit ha passion would be an understatement, it is an absolute bugger to deal with! I'm thinking I should perhaps invest in some softer chavant, since I know the softer stuff isn't as much as a pain to deal with.
Mould box in place, made from some foamboard, since it's easy to use, keeps the silicone in, and cheap enough to not care about tearing it apart after making the mould!
Here's the first half of the mould with the master in place.
Now, you're likely looking at this thinking "holy crap, that looks ghetto as hell!", and you'd be right!
I had to make a second mould box (which thankfully worked out just fine), and as you can see, that is indeed tape holding it tighter across the top!
The mould worked though! No airbubbles in it, and has caught all the details perfectly!
Here's the first casting from the mould after a small amount of cleanup, and a quick hit of car paint, I don't know how I made it look so shiny, because it's not that bright in person!
So yes, there's the build process for my Skyrim Steel Dagger!
If anyone has any questions about it, or anything in the process, then please go ahead and ask!
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