Sword of Protection : She-Ra And The Princesses of Power (complete)

[saint357]

FOR THE HONOR OF GREY SKULL!

So since quarantine is driving me out of my mind I thought I would show everyone my latest sanity project. After making Connie's new sword from Steven Universe I thought I would try making a similar sword from my other favorite cartoon, the new She-Ra and the princesses of power on Netflix.

There you have it a work in progress sword of protection. I used a template I bought from a YouTube cosplayer and made it out of Eva foam.
Honestly this whole project has been a exercise in problem solving. You might notice the blade and cross guard are different materials.

That's because I normally use Eva floor mats in my prop building but forget tp the floor mates are the real thing stores are sold out of I cant find them any anywhere. Must be a lot of board cosplayers out there like me. Luckily I had a roll of this other foam to make the cross guard and handle out of. Problem is its slightly smaller then the floor mat foam. So instead of being able to carve the cross guard details in like I was I originally planning. I had to build them up out of thin craft foam which actually came out looking really good.

But I thought I only had to build up the wings on the side so I cut a glued those first. Then i realized I needed to bulk up the handle, and then the center piece as well. If I had know I would have saved myself a lot of head ache and just cut the whole sides as one big piece. Oh well were always learning as we go if that means i have a lot of seam gaps to fill in later so be it.

That's all I have for now sorry i don't have more pics from earlier when i was cutting the main body but it was really simple. just cut out the two halves cut a channel down the center to put in a fiberglass marking rod from home depo. honestly those things are my favorite new core for foam props there cheap, readily available and fairly strong for how thin they are.

next i just have to grind the edges and bevel everything tomorrow to refine the shape. I got a new belt sander to do that with which I'm super excited to use I'll post more as progress is made. may also have to make a jig so i can use the belt sander standing so i might post pics of that. if anyone has any tips or wants to point out something horrible I'm doing wrong please say so down bellow. So till next time peace love and death to the horde!

 

[saint357]

FOR THE HONOR OF GREY SKULL!

So since quarantine is driving me out of my mind I thought I would show everyone my latest sanity project. After making Connie's new sword from Steven Universe I thought I would try making a similar sword from my other favorite cartoon, the new She-Ra and the princesses of power on Netflix.
View attachment 1297561

There you have it a work in progress sword of protection. I used a template I bought from a YouTube cosplayer and made it out of Eva foam.
Honestly this whole project has been a exercise in problem solving. You might notice the blade and cross guard are different materials.
View attachment 1297562

That's because I normally use Eva floor mats in my prop building but forget tp the floor mates are the real thing stores are sold out of I cant find them any anywhere. Must be a lot of board cosplayers out there like me. Luckily I had a roll of this other foam to make the cross guard and handle out of. Problem is its slightly smaller then the floor mat foam. So instead of being able to carve the cross guard details in like I was I originally planning. I had to build them up out of thin craft foam which actually came out looking really good.
View attachment 1297563
But I thought I only had to build up the wings on the side so I cut a glued those first. Then i realized I needed to bulk up the handle, and then the center piece as well. If I had know I would have saved myself a lot of head ache and just cut the whole sides as one big piece. Oh well were always learning as we go if that means i have a lot of seam gaps to fill in later so be it.

That's all I have for now sorry i don't have more pics from earlier when i was cutting the main body but it was really simple. just cut out the two halves cut a channel down the center to put in a fiberglass marking rod from home depo. honestly those things are my favorite new core for foam props there cheap, readily available and fairly strong for how thin they are.

next i just have to grind the edges and bevel everything tomorrow to refine the shape. I got a new belt sander to do that with which I'm super excited to use I'll post more as progress is made. may also have to make a jig so i can use the belt sander standing so i might post pics of that. if anyone has any tips or wants to point out something horrible I'm doing wrong please say so down bellow. So till next time peace love and death to the horde!

F-FOR THE HONOR OF... GREY SKULL?

So day two of the She-Ra build and I got everything sanded down.

and dear God was that one disaster after another. First the belt sander I bought originally didn't work. Well it did but it also tore the belt through half the side of it before I noticed so yeah that went back.
Instead of replacing that one I splurge at harbor freight and got the nice $80 table mounted belt sander and disc sander combo. Something I wanted for a long time.

This thing oh my God what a piece of ****. Right from the beginning this thing was a nightmare to put together. First step the little rubber feet on the bottom my God why were they so hard to put on. Seriously they have to slot in around the curve on the bottom and rubber so hard what should have taken two seconds seriously to 20 minuets.

Then you have to build the whole side disk sander assembly because it would be added an inch to the box to have put it on at the factory.
Just everything with this thing is such a pain in the ass.the belt arm can adjust to change the angel but you have to loosen and tighten these bolt every time to do so. And there not wing bits you have to put a wrench in behind that ******* sanding disk a d its fiddly as hell.
Then to change the belts you have to remove two panels including the whole back of the belt sander its 8 Fing screws every time you want to change a belt why?!.

And way enough about this piece of crap I will probably be returning at least once I got it set up it did a good job beveling the edge of the blade.

Then I went in with my dremel and did the edges of the cross guard and the handle.

I also scored the lines in for the wing details with a conical bit.

I did the best I could with the pomelo but honestly I might just cut it off and glue a foam rubber ball from the dollar store in its place depends on if I can find a right sized one.

The last step was to hit the whole thing with my heat gun. This served two fold to clean of all little bits of fluff from the sanding as well as heat seal the foam.

Now I'm just applying light coats of waterdowned pva wood glue to finish sealing the foam. Waiting on the first coat to dry now. I have to do this like seven times on both sides so dont expect much more from me for awhile. The things I do for Eternia.

 

[thegnome]

Awesome!

 

[saint357]

So work on the sword of protection is going well. I finally got all the coats of wood glue on and God was that a process. I don't thing i will be using this method in the future.

I liked how it got the foam to harden up but it just take to much time, os to messy and at the end of the day it's just a hard coating on the foam. Which found out when I dropped the sword before painting and the tip cracked and broke. Another 2 coats of wood glue on just the tip filled out the cracks but I will look in to better sealer in the future.

Anyway I then primed the sword grey and boy did that reveal some blemishes I had to fix with some quick seal. Which can I say is a God send love this stuff must have for anyone working with foam.

So hear the sword after the base coat and the sword blade painted with a sparkly metallic blue which I love but am torn about. It doesn't really match the show but I love it. For reference hers the sword of protection in the show.

Now I found a paint that matches that really well here it is on a test piece.

And here is an experiment with the lighter blue over the sparkly metallic.

Not great but pretty much what I will get if I cover the sword now. So I need you help guys what should I do for the sword blade? Should I go more screen accurate which it already isn't or do I go with what I have which is the awesome metallic?
Either way some other stuff I did was cut off the ugly old pommel I had, you might have noticed it was the test piece. And replaced it with a foam ball left over from the Connie's sword build.

Looks much better right!
Another problem with using the wood glue method is it ended up filling in a lot of the detail line of the wings in the guard.

I had to go back in and re cut them with a box cutter. Also now I wish I had done some more grinding to better define them but to late now.
Well that's it for now let me know what I should do about blade color as I get the guard painted gold.

 

[saint357]

FOR THE HONOR OF GREY SKULL I AM SHE-RA!

So at long last my sword of protection is finally finished just in time for the end of the series. No spoilers but I cried when you know who finally kissed.Anyway with the water works out of the way here's the last update on this build. I started by painting the guard a beautiful bright gold.

I also decided to stick with the metallic blue for the blade. Yes it's not screen accurate but its pretty and my sword so yeah I'm keeping it.
After that I gave the whole thing a few passes of clear coat and got to work on the rune stone in the center. Originally I was going to use an Easter egg like so many other people have done. But the stores were out of Easter stock by now so I thought I was out of luck till I found these vegetable scrubbers at dollar tree.

The back were the perfect shape even better then an egg. so I pried out the brush part and cut them down with a saw then got to painting.

So first I gave it a base coat of white primer and then painted it using a blue glow in the dark nail polish. Then went over that with this clear polish full of sparkles.

The end result is a beautiful opalescent sparkly gem stone the looks amazing once I glue it on the sword. And since I could find any where if the sword of protection had gems on both sides. Please if you know this tell me! I made a second one for the back of the sword.

Then I used a silver paint sharpie to draw on the details on the blade including the center line and the first ones tech symbol.

With that complete I just weather and brought out those panel line in the guard with some games work shop agraxes earth shade. Then several more layers of clear coat and its finally done my very own sword of protection in all its glory

Just in time for She-Ra to get a whole new sword. Agghh...I'm gonna have to make that one next aren't I?

okay so as much as i love this sword there are somethings i would do differently if i was to do them again and most of them are my own fault i didn't take enough time of i didn't research enough. anyway first i wouldn't have made the sword as one piece. i found another tutorial after the one i used to make this and they basically did it the way i did Connie's sword from Steven universe. which was the blade and guard separate. this would have made for thinner edges on the guard and made sanding the sword and guard much easier. as it stands i wish had done more sanding to make the guard more refined of a shape but it still came out pretty well.

next while i liked using the fiber glass marking rod for the center support of the sword. its strong and thin enough to do the job. i would have added a PVC pipe to act as the handle of the sword. just because the foam even with the support i can feel it bend slightly under its weight and my grip. so feel like i cant really swing this sword around like others I've made using a PVC core. its fine this is going to be a wall hanger anyway. it also would have made it so i could easily have carved in the detail work the grip of the sword is suppose to have. as it stand i omitted that detail.

finally i wouldn't have used the wood glue method for sealing the foam. it just took to loon and while i did like how it stiffened up the foam and made it more ridged. it also made it fragile because if the sword is banged or dropped that outer casing of hardened glue can shatter, which did happen during painting. of course that can be fixed with more glue and some sanding but its a massive pain. i also think i did it wrong i don't think i was suppose to put seven layers on other tutorials i saw mentioning this method only use about three. also the You Tuber i got the tutorial from is German i found out and in Germany they call white school glue wood glue. so i think that's what i was suppose to use not real wood glue. which isn't much of problem since the stuff i used is just better white glue. any way i think ill go back to my old method of sealing namely plasti dip. or maybe a mix like a layer or two of glue to stiffen the foam and then plasti dip.

other then that its just a few little things i wish i drawn the first ones symbol with straighter lines the one sides kinda crooked. theres a little bit of a gap with the gems where i dint sand them flush . also i wish i had waited a bit longer for the paint to dry on those, i left a few finger prints i had to smooth out. but even with all its flaws i love this sword i wanted to make it since the reboot of she-Ra first hit Netflix. and will look great hanging above my bed right next to my Steven universe Connie sword.

 

[saint357]

FOR THE HONOR OF THE CRYSTAL GEMS!

Okay so with my she-ra sword of protection finally done I thought I would share one last pic of it in its final resting place. On my bedroom wall right next to my connie sword from steven universe. with that done this build and thread are complete. so goodbye friends of Marra may your future be full of love, happiness and magic1