Terry Lyons
New Member
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any prop projects, but that’s only because I took on a project that has been keeping me busy for nearly a year-and-a-half! I’ve just finished a detailed write-up of the project, available on my blog (Part 1 and Part 2), and am finally ready to post about my Witcher 3 Superior Wolf School Swords and Harness.
The Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games, and after finishing it and loving the design and attention to detail, I was determined to make something from it. I enjoy leather crafting, and the armour pieces and scabbards appealed to me, as well as the witcher’s signature pair of swords, Steel for humans and Silver for monsters. These swords presented an interesting and challenging application of my prop making and leather crafting skills, and I was determined to make the pieces as accurate and realistic as possible. Along the way, I faced plenty of complications that needed to be overcome, and honed my existing skills as well as learning new ones. My write-up covers the whole build process exhaustively, so I’ll just give an overview here.
The masters for the blades were fabricated out of sheets of MDF laminated together with styrene, with embedded steel rods for strength. The MDF was shaped with Dremel sanding drums, a palm sander, and hand sanding, and were coated with Smooth Cast 300 after rough shaping to give a better surface when sanding the final forms.
The cross-guards, grips and scabbard hardware were made with styrene, MDF and Apoxie Sculpt. Symmetrical pieces were molded and duplicates cast, glued together and finished. The pommels were sculpted using epoxy putties and Super Sculpey Firm, again making quick molds to cast duplicates.
I worked with carbon fibre for the first time when making the scabbards, creating a shell that fit within very tight tolerances but offers plenty of strength and protection for the swords inside. The scabbards were created in halves, shaping the carbon fibre over a buck. The halves were lined with foam to securely hold their corresponding sword, and joined together with a final carbon fibre layup along the edges.
Between the scabbards and harness, I spent a lot of time cutting, dyeing and hand-stitching leather. The leather for the scabbard was wet-formed over the carbon fibre shell, the design marked in, stitching holes stamped, dyed, and stitched. The harness was first patterned with cardstock before cutting out the leather, figuring out how the pieces fit together, then stamped, dyed, stitched and finished.
All of the metallic parts of the swords and scabbards were molded and cold cast. This involved making a dozen two-part block molds for the smaller pieces, and two huge matrix molds with a fibreglass shell for the blades. Cold casting the blades was a complicated process which included multiple pours per blade, embedding a steel rod into the casting, slush casting and backfilling.
The castings were all buffed with fine steel wool and polished with automotive polish before assembly. Weathering was achieved by mixing black ochre powder with water and brushing it over the parts, wiping away most of it to leave the recesses blackened.
Thanks for reading,
Terry
The Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games, and after finishing it and loving the design and attention to detail, I was determined to make something from it. I enjoy leather crafting, and the armour pieces and scabbards appealed to me, as well as the witcher’s signature pair of swords, Steel for humans and Silver for monsters. These swords presented an interesting and challenging application of my prop making and leather crafting skills, and I was determined to make the pieces as accurate and realistic as possible. Along the way, I faced plenty of complications that needed to be overcome, and honed my existing skills as well as learning new ones. My write-up covers the whole build process exhaustively, so I’ll just give an overview here.
The masters for the blades were fabricated out of sheets of MDF laminated together with styrene, with embedded steel rods for strength. The MDF was shaped with Dremel sanding drums, a palm sander, and hand sanding, and were coated with Smooth Cast 300 after rough shaping to give a better surface when sanding the final forms.
The cross-guards, grips and scabbard hardware were made with styrene, MDF and Apoxie Sculpt. Symmetrical pieces were molded and duplicates cast, glued together and finished. The pommels were sculpted using epoxy putties and Super Sculpey Firm, again making quick molds to cast duplicates.
I worked with carbon fibre for the first time when making the scabbards, creating a shell that fit within very tight tolerances but offers plenty of strength and protection for the swords inside. The scabbards were created in halves, shaping the carbon fibre over a buck. The halves were lined with foam to securely hold their corresponding sword, and joined together with a final carbon fibre layup along the edges.
Between the scabbards and harness, I spent a lot of time cutting, dyeing and hand-stitching leather. The leather for the scabbard was wet-formed over the carbon fibre shell, the design marked in, stitching holes stamped, dyed, and stitched. The harness was first patterned with cardstock before cutting out the leather, figuring out how the pieces fit together, then stamped, dyed, stitched and finished.
All of the metallic parts of the swords and scabbards were molded and cold cast. This involved making a dozen two-part block molds for the smaller pieces, and two huge matrix molds with a fibreglass shell for the blades. Cold casting the blades was a complicated process which included multiple pours per blade, embedding a steel rod into the casting, slush casting and backfilling.
The castings were all buffed with fine steel wool and polished with automotive polish before assembly. Weathering was achieved by mixing black ochre powder with water and brushing it over the parts, wiping away most of it to leave the recesses blackened.
Thanks for reading,
Terry
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