This is my first DIY prop, please be gentle on me.
For those of you that don't know, Morrowind is the third game in the Elders Scrolls series and is the predecessor to Skyrim.....I'm sure all of you have heard of Skyrim so you should be familiar with the series. That is all I'll say about the history of the dagger, now onto the prop.
this is what the dagger is supposed to look like when all I said and done.
I started off extracting the 3D file, unfolding in Pepakura, etc... The pep process has been covered here hundreds of times so I didn't take too many pictures of the building process. But I got a few since I think all WIP needs pictures. I will however say this is my second pep project (the first one didn't turn out so well) so I feel that I'm experienced enough to offer advice. Build little sections at a time, don't build it all off of one cut-out. As you can see in the photo below I build the "more difficult" sections separately then put it all together. Doing it this way will allow one to compensate for minor mistakes and allow them to be somewhat corrected. On my first project I built everything off of the first piece I cut out, and I noticed after the glue dried some of the pieces shifted and didn't line up properly. At the end of the project almost nothing lined up. Anywho, on with the project....
After I was moderately happy with the over all shape of the blade I started to add the accent's to the blade. I don't own a Dremel or any rotary tools, so I carved my blade accent's the old fashioned way; with a scribe and a small pointy needle file. I did my best eyeballing on the details to be drawn out and carved into the blade. I know they aren't perfect - as you can see on the first picture below it took me a couple tries until I was happy with it.....pencil doesn't erase too well from primer either by the way.
Being this is my second pep unfolding project, and first to be actually cut out and built. I'd like to say I nailed the scale perfectly for guessing my way through that part.
I started carving the other side of the blade out last night, I only get to work on this a few hours a week so updates will be few and far between. Right now I'm waiting until payday to buy some more materials. But I have to ask, is there an easier method of forming all the complex shapes and crevices on the handle? I planned on building up some Bondo and carving them out like I did on the blade....but that took forever and really fatigued my hand. I've looked at forming the accents with the milliput stuff I've seen mentioned here numerous times. But it seems rather expensive for what appears to be a little amount, so is there anything out there that is similar but cheaper?
For those of you that don't know, Morrowind is the third game in the Elders Scrolls series and is the predecessor to Skyrim.....I'm sure all of you have heard of Skyrim so you should be familiar with the series. That is all I'll say about the history of the dagger, now onto the prop.
this is what the dagger is supposed to look like when all I said and done.
I started off extracting the 3D file, unfolding in Pepakura, etc... The pep process has been covered here hundreds of times so I didn't take too many pictures of the building process. But I got a few since I think all WIP needs pictures. I will however say this is my second pep project (the first one didn't turn out so well) so I feel that I'm experienced enough to offer advice. Build little sections at a time, don't build it all off of one cut-out. As you can see in the photo below I build the "more difficult" sections separately then put it all together. Doing it this way will allow one to compensate for minor mistakes and allow them to be somewhat corrected. On my first project I built everything off of the first piece I cut out, and I noticed after the glue dried some of the pieces shifted and didn't line up properly. At the end of the project almost nothing lined up. Anywho, on with the project....
After I was moderately happy with the over all shape of the blade I started to add the accent's to the blade. I don't own a Dremel or any rotary tools, so I carved my blade accent's the old fashioned way; with a scribe and a small pointy needle file. I did my best eyeballing on the details to be drawn out and carved into the blade. I know they aren't perfect - as you can see on the first picture below it took me a couple tries until I was happy with it.....pencil doesn't erase too well from primer either by the way.
Being this is my second pep unfolding project, and first to be actually cut out and built. I'd like to say I nailed the scale perfectly for guessing my way through that part.
I started carving the other side of the blade out last night, I only get to work on this a few hours a week so updates will be few and far between. Right now I'm waiting until payday to buy some more materials. But I have to ask, is there an easier method of forming all the complex shapes and crevices on the handle? I planned on building up some Bondo and carving them out like I did on the blade....but that took forever and really fatigued my hand. I've looked at forming the accents with the milliput stuff I've seen mentioned here numerous times. But it seems rather expensive for what appears to be a little amount, so is there anything out there that is similar but cheaper?
