The Hunger Games "Arena Bow" replica

well, obviously since I'm posting in the off topic, non SW section, it means I've got yet another prop that I want to build that is from another movie franchise. I'm still waiting for a nice day outside to re-pour my LOZ Master Sword pedestal, and in the meantime, I took my sister to see Catching Fire. Seeing that movie reminded me of how much I liked the first Hunger Games bow (even more than the recycled avengers bow in the second one) so I set out searching for the right replica. It became clear within 5 minutes that I was gonna have to tackle this one myself. There is a company that claims to sell replicas of this bow, but really they aren't even close.

My Hunger Games - View topic - Katniss' Arena Bow and Arrows TUTORIAL

I stumbled upon this, and it was a pretty good tutorial, but I don't really feel like doing all of the woodwork and the bow used is totally inaccurate (I don't need a super expensive custom bow, but the bow in the movie is a recurve bow and the tutorial used a longbow), so I started hunting for a base bow and meanwhile, whipped this model up in autodesk inventor software. Took me all of 2 hours while watching the movie in the background. Since I didn't mention it earlier, this model would be the custom handle of the bow. If you watch closely in the movie, you can see the filled and sanded screw holes on the front of the bow where they attached the custom handle. You really have to be paying attention, but if you see it, it's dead obvious.





Then I found it. The closest bow I'm gonna get within the ~$100 total budget that I was allowing for this prop. It is curved much closer to the way the movie prop is and seemed like 50" was the perfect length for such a bow.





Well, only one way to find out if the length is good or not. I got extremely lucky and found this picture of Jennifer Lawrence holding the bow parallel to the camera lens, standing up straight, and a head to toe shot.



A quick lookup of her height (and factoring for the boots) was all I needed to have a good estimation of the length of the bow, and it came out to 52.6" Not bad. My bow could wind up within 2% of the movie prop, especially when you factor in the bow being in front of her in the shot.

So, with that shot, how does my 3d modeled grip compare? The measurements from the picture come out to about 12.78" and my 3d model is 13.026" long. For a prop like this, that's just about perfect once again.

I'll be tweaking my model to bring it closer to the accurate length (and double checking my measurements to be sure it needs tweaking) and I'll either be ordering the handle from shapeways or having it 3d printed in a less expensive way somewhere else. with .1" walls, it's $65 on shapeways. I also need to wait for the bow to arrive to take final measurements so I can be sure that the custom handle will actually fit the bow, where I assumed I would be using the dimensions of the bow in the tutorial I posted above when I first made the model.

Anyway, thanks for looking guys!

Really? No love for the bow?

Well, good news, bad news, good news.

the bow arrived today, but it doesn't look like it's gonna work. the edges on this bow have like a .25" (radius) rounded edge, and there's not enough material to just remove it and have it look right. I may still make up this bow anyway, and bondo the crap out of the handle (not the round edge, just the front where it's supposed to be flat) and have this be a functional replica or give it to my sister. It would still look great to the average fan, and way better than the pse snake that is being sold as a replica on the site I linked earlier. I'm a bit more anal retentive than that, so it has to be done right for me.

As far as I can tell, there's 2 props in the movie (at least). An aluminum bow, and a painted fiberglass or wood one. At first I thought it was just my imagination, but this picture looks too convenient to be just good editing. They probably also have one of each in the permanently drawn position. Some shots need a bow like that while others could just be drawn and fired. I read they had a regular and permanently drawn bow for the hunting scene at the beginning of the movie, so it's not a stretch to imagine they did the same here.



There is some serious sheen there.

Then, any time the bow is seen being drawn, it's clearly a painted bow.





So, not to be discouraged, I've got 2 options here. I can try to bend a non-functional bow out of aluminum, or I can cut one out of wood. I'm not going to blindly try bow after bow, and even this one I have now with a good number of pictures available looked right, but when I got it, it wasn't even close. Obviously, cutting one out of wood is not an ideal scenario, but if it's what I have to do, I'll put in the time. No sense making one that's half right and then redoing it later when I decide I'd rather have accuracy.

Also, I found someone to make a nice custom plaque for this that I'm going to send off to be signed.



So, that's where I stand right now. Either way, I'll be doing more research tonight and fully blueprinting (well, drawing to scale. Not really a great way to blueprint such complex curves) the design that needs cut or bent. Heck, I could even make one out of fiberglass like I did my armor, but I don't see the point in that. It still wouldn't be functional.

EDIT: Here's my 1:1 template. Still not sure how I'm gonna make it yet, but I'm gonna give it a go





And there is the template vs the bow I bought.

Cool, I look forward to see it done!

The one picture is a force bent attempt out of a piece of scrap and the other is the finished one piece bow shape. Still needs lots of sanding and finishing, but it looks great. When strung it should hold a 95% perfect shape.

To get the final shape, I used an oxy/acetelene torch to heat the aluminum stock and from there I was able to bend it nicely. One side is perfect while the other has some high spots that need sanded. In the end, it cracked in 3 spots, but luckily one of the guys at the shop knows how to tig weld, so he welded it back up for me and I grpund it down.

I had to cut a piece of 2" aluminum stock lengthwise because they didn't have any 1 1/8" by 1/4". I took it nice and slow on the bandsaw and it came out perfectly. All in all, i'm way over my expectations for this prop so far.

sanding has commenced. After doing my pep master chief suit, I rarely find myself complaining about how long something takes to hand sand.







This is the picture I'm trying to match



I'm gonna have to try and get a good shot of the bow in the same position and see if I can replicate "similar" lighting. That will determine if the bow needs polished or not. This seems to be the only scene where the bow is unmistakably made from brushed aluminum as everywhere else it's too grey to be metal. I seriously doubt they went through the trouble of making the bow look shiny with CGI in just this one scene but not anywhere else. That goes double because all you can see here is the back of the bow, and it's not a closeup. If they had gone through the trouble, I bet they would have covered the mismatched screw holes on the front as well.

so, I primed and painted it last night, but the paint didn't want to sit right for some reason. So, I re-sanded everything and I'm all set to paint it again. I did snap some pics in the meantime though.

I wound up hand filing most of the arrow rest in the bow (the bow follows the cutout in the grip) and the notches for the bow string. The notches came out 95% perfect after some cleanup, which I'm fine with since the string will cover a good portion of them. It's also not a very fun project to file through .25" aluminum, and that's really the only reason they aren't 100% perfect. Usually I have no problems filing matching geometry on parts, but the thickness coupled with the weird angle made this one really tough.















Now, be careful if you compare the last picture to the promo pic I posted way above. The grip is totally different in the promo pic. In the movie, on the edge of the grip that traces the arrow rest, the further up the bow you go, the more radiused the edge of the grip becomes. In that promo shot in the first post, it's totally flat edged there. That's not the only difference, but it's the big one for sure.



and that's where I sit right now, ready for a repaint.

Oh yeah, the bowstring pictured will not fit this bow, it's just there for show. The actual string will pull the bow tighter together and will be all black, just like in the movie.

Really nice

thanks! I'm probably still going to have a grip 3d printed, but making the wood one was really easy (even after having to start over by splintering the first while drilling the arrow rest hole) and this way I can include pictures of my "finished" bow when I send the plaque to get signed. Don't have to delay one or the other.

The wood grip is "good" but I know I won't be fully happy with the shape unless I have it 3d printed from my model. I just have to tweak the model to match the bow (I initially designed it based on someone else's plans, then later decided I'd rather do an accurate bow from scratch) and I can have it done.

Just out of curiosity, how are you going to get that plaque signed? I have something I like to get signed..

BTW that bow looks amazing!!!!!

Thanks. There is a PO box listed on the internet in a few places where you can send stuff to supposedly get signed. I figure it's probably halfway legit. You probably send it, and if it's just a normal thing, her agent (or someone that actually knows her) probably just has a stamp or something with her signature. I'm hoping, however, that for something like this, they will bring it to her attention and it will actually get signed by her.

Worst case scenario, I wind up with a fake signature and have to do some serious hunting/research to figure out how to get it signed for real. The plaque was only $15, so even if I never see it again, it's worth the risk. I'm really crossing my fingers though, as this won't be an easy signature to get otherwise. It's one thing to get a signed picture, but to try and get an item you already have signed, that's a different story.

Well that would be probably the coolest thing in the world if she actually signed it! I hope that works out for you!!:thumbsup

so, I wrapped this up today, and it came out fantastically. I still need a bowstring, but I'm not entirely sure where to start for that. I'm not sure if I can just order a 47.5" longbow string or if I have to figure out how that converts into recurve bow strings. I also have to make sure the loop at the end is wide enough to fully slide over this bow. Since it's made from aluminum, I can't overextend the bow and then let it flex back into the string. I have to start from the middle of the bow and work my way out. anyway, here are some quick pics I took of it in my backyard this morning. I'm gonna find a better spot and take some good pics tomorrow, but for now, this is what it looks like. Might need one more coat of paint on the grip too, but I'll determine that later on.









At this point, I'm also gonna add accurate arrows and a quiver to my "to do list" which always seems to get longer no matter how many tasks I complete. The quiver looks to be an aluminum tube cutout to look like an upper and lower band with vertical stripes in between and most people think there are only 2 stripes, but I'm convinced the pattern goes all of the way around. The fletching is totally custom, and I guarantee they have hero fletching and functional fletching. No way the 1/8" acrylic fletching would fly at all once it hit the arrow rest.

I was looking into the catching fire stuff too, since I already know what kind of setup she uses (hoyt buffalo with silver riser and black limbs, 58" by my calculations, easton x7 eclipse arrows) but I hit a wall when I found that the arrows don't come in full black and you can't even buy a broadhead for them. Sure I can powdercoat them (since they're aluminum) and find some 99% accurate fletching in black, but the tips will be tricky. I'll have to wait for the bluray to come out so that I can model the tips and identify the nock and fletching. It would also help to know what kind of length to use, but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 23"-25" (guessing by measuring, lol). If I could find the arrows in the proper length with factory black nock and fletching, I'm sure that would be what they used, but the tip still has me guessing.

But, yeah, I was so happy with how this turned out, that I went ahead and ordered a new 2014 hoyt buffalo in the correct silver/black color to match the catching fire one. I'll probably have to paint the limbs to cover the logos, but otherwise, it should be perfect. Not to mention it will be functional, which will be pretty dang cool. I always lean toward accuracy over function, but in this case, I'll get to have both.

EDIT: Looks like to "accurize" the buffalo, I'll have to spraypaint the limbs silver and then put carbon fiber tape on the front and back of them.

So, I've been doing some research about the signature part of this, and it looks like the fan mail address isn't valid anymore. It's 99% secretary signatures coming out of there now. So, I've got 2 options now. I can send my plaques anyway and hope to God they get signed based on how cool my project is (pics of the bow would be the winner there) and even include a polite "either pass this on to jennifer or return in original condition" note in my request letter, or I can somehow begin to hunt for the autograph.

Heck, if I could find stickers signed by her that were the right size, I could stick them to the plaque itself.

I wish there was a company I could pay and send my plaques to to get signed. I've never been one to care about autographs until now. The second I ordered that plaque, something clicked, and now these builds won't be complete until I get the autographs. I'm never gonna just "happen" to bump into her in my lifetime either. Even if I carried the plaques with me every day of my life, I live in ohio. Far away from anywhere an "in person" autograph would ever happen. That said, I would never "stalk" a celebrity to get an autograph. I've got far better things to do than obsess over a few lines drawn in ink.


Oh yeah, and I've got a video link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OICDdpFBo6Y