Kate Bishop's Soul Bow: Lighting Options

[Kate Bishop]

Hey! I'm doing a Kate Bishop cosplay for my first comic con. The costume I'm making is the Young Avengers version, because in vol. 2 she has the coolest weapon ever:


I really, really, REALLY want to make the bow, and make it light up. I was thinking of using EL wire around something stretchy like thin bungee cord, that way the tension would be put on the cord rather than the wire, which I've heard can be easily breakable at thinner widths. Are there any better options out there for creating a lighting effect? Have any of you worked with EL wire before?

 

[Ikras]

I've not done anything with EL wire before but I can't think of anything other than what you've described which would allow for the flexibility you want. You'd need to be very careful that the wire wouldn't overstretch when at full draw so it would probably need to be coiled around the cord.

I think that you would need to secure it to the cord somehow though to make sure that when you relaxed it again the wire would coil up again. I'm not entirely sure how best you would go about that though.

Hope you get some more input as well.

 

[Kate Bishop]

I've not done anything with EL wire before but I can't think of anything other than what you've described which would allow for the flexibility you want. You'd need to be very careful that the wire wouldn't overstretch when at full draw so it would probably need to be coiled around the cord.

I think that you would need to secure it to the cord somehow though to make sure that when you relaxed it again the wire would coil up again. I'm not entirely sure how best you would go about that though.

Hope you get some more input as well.

Thank you, I'll make sure to be careful with the wire and the chord together. My con is quite a ways away, so I'll have plenty of time for trial and error

 

[Cormac]

If you could make the ends of the bow hollow you could have the excess EL wire run inside when the bow is relaxed. If you attach lengths of elastic to the ends it would allow the bow to be drawn and would pull the wire back into bow as you release it.

For the section that runs perpendicular to the bow string i wonder could you use something like this? http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/...lanyard-anti-theft-key-chain-mobile-phone.jpg

if you could attach the wire aling the length of the helix it might give the right effect.

 

[Kate Bishop]

Thanks, that should work great! I'll have to make sure the bow itself is sturdy too, so that it can support the elastic and all the pulling.