Deathstalker II
Well-Known Member
Meanwhile, I believe I'm finished with the sculpt of the blade body itself, and have moved to fine tuning the teeth of the blade. I'm interpreting shadows to craft contours on both sides, and I'm making sure they all seat easily in the gumline should this thing become a kit.
To that end, I've talked to someone on the forum here whose work is incredible, and - if he likes the sculpt and his time permits him to do so - he'll cast it and see about a run.
I've also told him that he should go ahead and tweak my work as necessary, as he is an incredible sculptor and I'd be lucky to have him do so - 'cause it'll lead to greater...I don't know if "accuracy" is the right word...
Andrea, you said you were looking at real jawbones at one point, and in doing so, I think you probably found - as I did - that the First Blade does not look entirely like a jawbone. Artistic liberties have obviously been taken.
I've thought a lot about the make-believe origins of this prop - as well as the artistic and practical realities that might have been considered in its creation - while at work on it.
If we look at a real jawbone, we see that it has a angle/curvature that the First Blade does not have. The curvature exists to unite with the other side of the jawbone, and there is visual evidence on the real bone that the front of the jawbone does in fact dovetail into the front of the other mandible. That detail does not appear on the prop.
When looking at a real jawbone - we see that the teeth of this omnivorous beast of burden are really thick. They look a lot like a side-by-side six-pegged LEGO brick. As the rear teeth would be molars, they're not at all sharp, either. The teeth on the First Blade, however, are thin and sharp.
We come away from this, then, with an understanding that what we see on the show is a piece of bone entirely reshaped and repurposed. The joint that feeds into the skull has been cut/torn/ground away, and a handle has been bound to the remainder of the bone. Additionally, the teeth have been filed down and sharpened to points. I would imagine that this was all done by the blade's only owner (prior to Dean) - Cain.
Not Dean Cain, just so we're clear.
It's important to note that, in the Old Testament of the Bible - specifically Genesis, where the story appears - it is never said that Cain murders Abel with the jawbone of an ass. It is, in point of fact, SAMSON who decimates a thousand Philistines with a jawbone in Judges, which comes much, much later. Artistic depictions of Samson's one man war usually show him brandishing his jawbone like a cudgel - holding it by what amount to the Supernatural version's blade, and striking people with the gnarled joint (that has been removed from the show's version). This looks quite dopey most of the time - hence a dagger fashioned from the bone. One might assume that Cain may have bludgeoned his brother to death, but upon assuming his duty as a Knight of Hell, fashioned the bone into something a little more effective - that is, if we're considering the dramatic aspects of the show.
As for the prop itself, I swear that, like Ruby's knoife and the Angels' Blades and Dean's God-detector pendant, we're seeing multiple versions of this prop - some of which seem to be very crude indeed. Some of the only available images of certain aspects of the blade seem to be of a blade that's thinner, flatter, and less detailed than the showy image from Guy Bee's Twitter. I figure the different blades owe to rubber/stunt versions that get used in production all the time. At least one blade seems to have simply scribed lines to separate the teeth from the bone - while the Twitter pic (as posted above) shows definitive, detailed sockets. An image of the prop on its side in the episode it debuted in is much thicker than an image of the blade wherein Dean is threatening Tessa, for example.
So while I've tried to very much capture crucial and obvious details - my teeth rest in sockets, and aren't merely sculpted in place - some of the details on the prop do not hold up to close-up scrutiny at times, which has forced me to take a degree of artistic license. To that end, some of the contours and textures come from studying real bone - including how it looks after aging for some time.
In many ways, this project has become something of an idealized prop replica.
At least, that's what I hope.
To that end, I've talked to someone on the forum here whose work is incredible, and - if he likes the sculpt and his time permits him to do so - he'll cast it and see about a run.
I've also told him that he should go ahead and tweak my work as necessary, as he is an incredible sculptor and I'd be lucky to have him do so - 'cause it'll lead to greater...I don't know if "accuracy" is the right word...
Andrea, you said you were looking at real jawbones at one point, and in doing so, I think you probably found - as I did - that the First Blade does not look entirely like a jawbone. Artistic liberties have obviously been taken.
I've thought a lot about the make-believe origins of this prop - as well as the artistic and practical realities that might have been considered in its creation - while at work on it.
If we look at a real jawbone, we see that it has a angle/curvature that the First Blade does not have. The curvature exists to unite with the other side of the jawbone, and there is visual evidence on the real bone that the front of the jawbone does in fact dovetail into the front of the other mandible. That detail does not appear on the prop.
When looking at a real jawbone - we see that the teeth of this omnivorous beast of burden are really thick. They look a lot like a side-by-side six-pegged LEGO brick. As the rear teeth would be molars, they're not at all sharp, either. The teeth on the First Blade, however, are thin and sharp.
We come away from this, then, with an understanding that what we see on the show is a piece of bone entirely reshaped and repurposed. The joint that feeds into the skull has been cut/torn/ground away, and a handle has been bound to the remainder of the bone. Additionally, the teeth have been filed down and sharpened to points. I would imagine that this was all done by the blade's only owner (prior to Dean) - Cain.
Not Dean Cain, just so we're clear.
It's important to note that, in the Old Testament of the Bible - specifically Genesis, where the story appears - it is never said that Cain murders Abel with the jawbone of an ass. It is, in point of fact, SAMSON who decimates a thousand Philistines with a jawbone in Judges, which comes much, much later. Artistic depictions of Samson's one man war usually show him brandishing his jawbone like a cudgel - holding it by what amount to the Supernatural version's blade, and striking people with the gnarled joint (that has been removed from the show's version). This looks quite dopey most of the time - hence a dagger fashioned from the bone. One might assume that Cain may have bludgeoned his brother to death, but upon assuming his duty as a Knight of Hell, fashioned the bone into something a little more effective - that is, if we're considering the dramatic aspects of the show.
As for the prop itself, I swear that, like Ruby's knoife and the Angels' Blades and Dean's God-detector pendant, we're seeing multiple versions of this prop - some of which seem to be very crude indeed. Some of the only available images of certain aspects of the blade seem to be of a blade that's thinner, flatter, and less detailed than the showy image from Guy Bee's Twitter. I figure the different blades owe to rubber/stunt versions that get used in production all the time. At least one blade seems to have simply scribed lines to separate the teeth from the bone - while the Twitter pic (as posted above) shows definitive, detailed sockets. An image of the prop on its side in the episode it debuted in is much thicker than an image of the blade wherein Dean is threatening Tessa, for example.
So while I've tried to very much capture crucial and obvious details - my teeth rest in sockets, and aren't merely sculpted in place - some of the details on the prop do not hold up to close-up scrutiny at times, which has forced me to take a degree of artistic license. To that end, some of the contours and textures come from studying real bone - including how it looks after aging for some time.
In many ways, this project has become something of an idealized prop replica.
At least, that's what I hope.
