Legend of Zelda: The Musical

[EricHart]

Hi everybody,

So I've lurked on this forum for a few years now, and even posted to a thread now and again, but this is the first time I'm posting about an honest-to-goodness replica prop I am working on. I'm usually pretty busy making props for theatre, and even with my own small shop, I haven't really had time to make anything just for myself.

Then I found out a local theatre company is doing "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Musical". I called them up and told them I had to make some props for them.

First on my list to tackle is the Master Sword. They need the regular one, one for Dark Link, and then a "nice" one that they can display in the lobby, since the others may get beat up during the show.

I decided to use wood to keep it cheap, but strong. I found a good reference image of the sword here - the theatre wants the props to be as accurate to the video game as possible. I scaled it up to 42" long and printed it out on a few sheets of paper. Then I cut a full size pattern out of mat board.

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The image was pretty pixelated, and after cutting it out I realized it wasn't quite symmetrical, so when I traced it onto my 3/4" plywood, I just traced one side, then flipped the pattern and traced that same side on the other half of the wood.

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I cut the shapes out with my jigsaw and cleaned up some of the edges with my belt sander. The shape may look a bit "off", but that's only because I have a plan for attaching different pieces to it - I hope my plans work out!

Tomorrow I hope to start putting the bevel in the blade and figuring out what I'm going to use to sculpt the details on the guard.

 

[EricHart]

I'm taking a break for lunch now and thought I'd share pictures of shaping the bevel on the blades. I got one sword down; the other two should go quick now that I am all set up.

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First I marked where the bevel would end along the side of the blade. If you wanted a sharp blade, you would mark the center, but since these are being used on stage, I'm leaving about 1/16" of a flat edge.

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I cut out another pattern with some mat board to mark where the bevel began (I also cut out a triangle to place where the engraved Triforce will go, but that's for later).

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To make the bevel, all I had to do was remove all the material between the line on the flat surface with the line along the edge. I started by rough-shaping it on my standing belt sander. It's a little tricky to see both lines when using that, and it's easy to accidentally remove too much, so I only sanded off a little bit. Then I took my big ol' ******* rasp to shape the bevel. It takes a lot of physical effort, but it actually cuts pretty fast, and you get a very precise and very flat surface. After that, I smoothed it down and cleaned it up with a sanding block.

Back to work!

 

[jsather89]

Looking good!

 

[Assassin9]

Fantastic works! Do you know if they plan on filming the musical?

 

[EricHart]

I have no idea. It's a small community theatre group, and I've never met any of them. So far, I've just spoken on the phone and exchanged emails.

They'll probably post some videos. They did a production of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" a few years back and have some videos of that on their Facebook.

 

[EricHart]

I was under the weather for most of this weekend, but I did manage to get some more progress on the swords. For the handle, I turned some poplar pieces to match the shapes on my reference picture. For the part on the guard, I cut a rectangular hole so it could slide right onto the handle. For the pommel, I fed a bolt through it, and attached it to a nut buried within the handle.

The white piece is a section of PVC pipe I had around that matched the dimensions on my reference picture.

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[J EM]

You went with my favorite version of the Master Sword, art wise! So cool seeing someone's take on that one. Anyway, everything looks good so far. Can't wait to see further progress

 

[EricHart]

Hey, thanks! I haven't seen many replica swords from Ocarina of Time, and the only reference images I have are either from the game or the cover art, so I hope I'm not veering to far from what others think the sword should look like.

Speaking of ocarinas, I had some luck at Hobby Lobby yesterday. The director was trying to sculpt an ocarina, but was having trouble with materials and with making it smooth enough. I came across these papier-mache eggs which I think will make a great base for the two ocarinas (the Fairy Ocarina and the Ocarina of Time).

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[EricHart]

I'm also making some rupees and the spiritual stones for this musical. I thought vacuum forming them out of a clear plastic and then painting them with a translucent paint would be the cleanest and easiest way of making them.
First I cut out a wood version of Kokiri's Emerald and used it for vacuum forming some scraps of plastic I had laying around.
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I liked how it looked, so I went out and bought a sheet of thin plexiglass from Hobby Lobby. I figured I would make two of these and glue them together.
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That's a picture of them before I glue them; I think I'm going to paint the insides before joining them together, that way the paint won't come off in the actor's hands, plus the surface will remain smooth. The seam is a bit messy, I know. Acrylic is pretty brittle, so it wants to crack when I'm trying to cut it out. It was also difficult to get the wooden buck out of the plastic after it cooled, so after this one, I began popping the buck out while the plastic was still hot and slightly flexible.
Next up is the rupees. Again, I cut out half of a rupee from wood.
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I vacuum formed it in the same plexi.
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I'm going to make these like the emerald, where I form two halves and glue them together to make a whole rupee.

 

[EricHart]

I began work on the Hylian shield yesterday. I know, I have a lot of different projects going simultaneously. Hopefully, I'll soon have some of them in a more finished state.

My idea for the shield is to make a plaster cast of a positive, than papier-mache several copies (there needs to be at least two-a regular one, and a Dark Link one). I'm pretty sure I can make the papier-mache strong and sturdy enough, and even if it doesn't work, I can still use the same mold for a fiberglass version, so I'm not building myself into a corner. But the papier-mache should be a lot safer and far cheaper.

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First, I'm building the shield that I will mold. I started out with some strips of masonite to define the outermost profile, along with some plywood pieces to make a sort of "topographic" version of the shield.

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I'm going to add some spray foam over top of this and then carve it down. The idea with the wood and masonite is that it gives me a guideline of how far down to carve, so I know I will have the correct curvature and that the shield will be symmetrical.

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Above is a picture right after I sprayed some foam on. This is outside because the fumes from this are really harmful, and I don't want it to be offgassing inside my shop for the eight hours it takes to cure.

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Above is the foam after just a few minutes to show how much it is expanding. I didn't want to lay down more than one "layer" of the foam, because when I've done that in the past, if you have too much foam in one area, it doesn't cure. That's another reason I built up the "topography" of the shield, so that I would not have any place where the foam would be more than 3/4" thick.

 

[EricHart]

I made some more progress on the shield over the last few days.
To make the raised decorations, I decided I would use some EVA foam sheets ("Fun Foam" from Hobby Lobby). First I scaled a full-size drawing into Inkscape, then I drew lines to show me exactly where to cut the pieces. I printed these out full-scale.
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Since the shield is symmetrical, I cut each piece out twice.
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Back to the shield itself, with the foam cured, I could start shaping it. First I used my snap-blade knife to cut away as much as I could.
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Then I started refining the shape with my surform, rasp, and sandpaper.
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I was happy I took the time to lay out all the "guides" in plywood and masonite, because I basically just had to sand the foam down to match them, and the shape of the shield was perfect. I have a lot of filling to do before I make a mold, but that should be pretty easy. In the picture above, I have also started building the mold box around the shield.

 

[MooCriket]

Hahaha! I'm absolutely loving this. Spent many, many hours playing all the Zelda games..a musical would be awesome!

 

[EricHart]

Thanks Anthony! I wish I could be around to see it, but I'll be out of the state when the show actually runs. Hopefully they will post some pictures and video.

I also finished the rupees yesterday. I painted the insides of each half before gluing them together, that way I wouldn't have to worry about paint wearing off as the actors handle them.

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For the green one, I tried watering down acrylic paint, but I didn't like the effect that gave. So for the blue and the red one, I used spray paint and dusted the surface.

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I glued the two halves together and there you have it. I was pretty happy with how well they turned out.

 

[mydigitalvoid]

Wow, I love the way you are doing the various props! Amazing work.

 

[EricHart]

Thanks!

I've been making some progress on the spiritual stones, particularly Goron's Ruby.

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Like the rupees, I made the gemstone by vacuum forming the front and back halves separately, painting the inside with spray paint, then gluing the halves together.

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I cut the setting out of a piece of 3/4" MDF.

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I cut the angles out on the table saw, and shaped it a bit further with my belt sander.

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I'm keeping the top little bits separate for now. When they are attached, they will help hold the gemstone in place. But I'm going to paint the setting before attaching everything so I don't have to worry about getting paint on the gemstone.

 

[MooMooEgg]

The props are looking really good. :thumbsup but...

Is everyone going to sing EXCEPT for Link? I DEMAND THAT HE STAY VOICELESS lol:lol

 

[EricHart]

Haha, I really don't know. I haven't seen a script or been to any rehearsals. But the director did mention that the boy playing Young Link had a good singing voice, so it looks like they may be breaking from canon on this one.

 

[EricHart]

I finished up the spiritual stones.

They were basic cutting and Dremeling some 3/4" MDF. The tricky part was getting the stones to fit precisely.

Some primer and paint, and they're ready to go!

 

[EricHart]

I haven't posted pictures of the Master Sword in awhile.

I added some 1/4" MDF to the handle to bulk it out; they also have the lines cut into them like in the reference pictures. I cut out some 3/4" MDF pieces for the guard and shaped them with my belt sander and Dremel, then glued them to the sword.

Once the glue was dried, I carved in all the ridges with my Dremel.

Then I primed the whole handle and guard assembly and masked off the blade so I could spray paint them.

Oh yeah, I also cut and shaped the jewels. I painted them before attaching them so I wouldn't have to worry about masking anything off.

 

[Minion2454]

What are you doing with all the props when they are done with the play? I call dibs lol