Zelda's bow / Hyrule warrior Need a touch of help here

Kusak3

New Member
Okay a bit of background here. I myself am a member of the 405th group. As such I have just recently finished my first HALO Odst build. And must say I loved my first con. And after an extended day of being in my armor well I have a lot of mods I will be doing between here and my next con in may at Sci Fi Valley con in altoona pa.

But anyhow what does this have to do with Zelda's bow you ask. My wife Ash and I have found some cosplay friends in the local game club we belong to and the one young lady has asked my wife and I to assist her in building her first costume that isnt purchased from a vendor. I being more of the prop guy of the mix have been asked to build her Zelda's bow

Light_Bow_and_Arrow_Draft_by_devaintdoa.jpg
In particular that one pictured above. I have been asked to create one that will be a vacuum formed piece that she can add some lights to. Which I said that I will do in the long run but first I need to perfect my vacuum forming skills a bit more and my vacuum table is going to need a bit of expansion to handle this piece. So in the interim I am going to build her an all laminated wood version of the bow that she will be able to carry in an upcoming con in our area. Here is where the help begins. I am not the most skilled when it comes to drawing things free hand and in manipulation of items in the various art programs.

I have done a couple of searches on the site for a possible template of the arms of this bow for me to be able to work with and come up blank. I was curious if anyone has seen a sliced version of this or has done a scale able set of drawings that they would be willing to share. I really do not wish to have to reinvent the wheel if someone has already done it. I am continuing to search for this on my own because I am aiming to get started on this within the next week or so being time is not my friend and I have a rather large project list to complete between here and May when Sci Fi Valley con in altoona pa strikes. I am sort of against a do or die I am not explaining to my wife why I am not ready for the renewal of our vows at the con in costume cannot be done.
 
Hello Kusak3,

This is certainly an ambitious project, as bows can be enormously difficult to complete (by this I mean real bows, but I am going to assume that you are not aiming for this to be functional in any way). I do not have a template, so I cannot help on that account, but I am not quite sure what you need exactly; knowing this may help get you better answers, so I have a few questions:

What do you mean by "all laminated wood version"? In Bowyer terms, this puts you in the "making a functional bow," as many real bows are laminated wood category. That may not be practical. So are you looking for function or form? Are you committed to wood, as I have seen excellent bows made from worbla or apoxy sculpt?

In terms of scale, what are you looking for? The image you provided, with a bit of computer resizing, would be perfect to start designing the project. So do you just need it scaled to a specific size? Do you just need the above image chopped up so each of the designs can be made into a stencil? I can easily trace a version of the image into a vector graphic so it can have the different parts moved about, but I am not sure if this was your goal.
 
Hello Kusak3,

This is certainly an ambitious project, as bows can be enormously difficult to complete (by this I mean real bows, but I am going to assume that you are not aiming for this to be functional in any way). I do not have a template, so I cannot help on that account, but I am not quite sure what you need exactly; knowing this may help get you better answers, so I have a few questions:

What do you mean by "all laminated wood version"? In Bowyer terms, this puts you in the "making a functional bow," as many real bows are laminated wood category. That may not be practical. So are you looking for function or form? Are you committed to wood, as I have seen excellent bows made from worbla or apoxy sculpt?

In terms of scale, what are you looking for? The image you provided, with a bit of computer resizing, would be perfect to start designing the project. So do you just need it scaled to a specific size? Do you just need the above image chopped up so each of the designs can be made into a stencil? I can easily trace a version of the image into a vector graphic so it can have the different parts moved about, but I am not sure if this was your goal.

My bad and <chuckles> I should know better. Okay non functional is the word being it is going to be a con piece. As to scale I am looking at making the bow about 4 1/2 ft in length. The length is chosen for the growing number of con size restrictions. Laminated wood for strength. Due to the fact that the bow has areas that are extremely thin which would tend to not go over well with one piece of wood. (it will be a true weapon in the fact that it will be solid as a tank when I am done and make a great club even if it wont fire) I am going to build this in a sliced format so that I can use my shop full of power tools to quickly cut the basic form. In this case I will most likely be using 1/2 inch 4 ply acx plywood in this build. Going this route it is a build that I should be able to complete in two pleasant weekends of flying sawdust and bondo dust. And I stress pleasant for me perhaps not my wife's sanity.

As to the drawing. The drawing I posted I already know will make a great base for what I need. My problem being I am no good with the required software/and dont have it to take one of the arms from this picture and resize it to approximately 2 ft in length.

Obviously I will have to post some pictures as this develops along its path to life.
 
Send ya a PM with a resized PDF of your image. I am not sure if this will help, but let me know. I can chop up the parts to they fit on standard paper if you want (this way you can do the print at home and tape it all together method) instead of going to a local print shop for a larger print.
 
Send ya a PM with a resized PDF of your image. I am not sure if this will help, but let me know. I can chop up the parts to they fit on standard paper if you want (this way you can do the print at home and tape it all together method) instead of going to a local print shop for a larger print.

Nova that would be great if you could chop that puppy up.. I greatly appreciate it. This will permit the chaos to begin here real soon.
 
Small update and hopefully I will have some pictures to post here later today. Weather has kept me out of the shop now for the last month. Just to cold and takes to long to heat the old work shop up to a point that I can get into it to work. Well today is finally warmer. Thanks to Nova I have the drawings I need printed out now. Time to go start digging into this project time is quickly not becoming a friend here being I have a may deadline on this.


wouldnt you know it. get the pieces laid out and go to cut them out and snap my last roto zip blade off. The pieces are to long for my small bandsaw so I guess will have to wait till I make a trip to get some more.
 
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Still need some blades for the roto zip but I did get two of the required forms cut for one arm of the bow. Here is a picture of them stacked.



A lot of sanding and work with the dremel to come but should be good
 
Project has been put on hold because the young lady I was doing this for changed what she wanted to cosplay. So currently working on Yuki Cross's scythe for her from vampire knight.
 
I love this bow. I'm currently 3D printing one that will have neopixels inside to light up the appropriate sections. I should get all of the electronics next week, but the 3D print will take some time as my Hylian Shield is taking up most of the printer time at the moment. The model is complete aside from cutouts for the buttons on the handle and the mounting pieces for the LEDs. The bow opens in half and magnets hold the other half in place to allow me access to the guts.
 
I love this bow. I'm currently 3D printing one that will have neopixels inside to light up the appropriate sections. I should get all of the electronics next week, but the 3D print will take some time as my Hylian Shield is taking up most of the printer time at the moment. The model is complete aside from cutouts for the buttons on the handle and the mounting pieces for the LEDs. The bow opens in half and magnets hold the other half in place to allow me access to the guts.

Sounds like that is going to be really nice. I would love to see some pictures when you have it done. 3d printing is something I would love to have the ability to do. eventually.
 
I'll post a picture as soon as I get a chance, hopefully later today. I printed a section of the bow last night. The edges aren't rounded like I wanted, but that is a limitation of the software I am using. I use 123D Design because I haven't had the motivation to tackle learning Fusion 360 yet.

It looks like mine might end up being smaller than what you were building. How long is the piece in the photo? That section is about 20" long on mine, which makes the full size about 46".
 
I'll post more when it is finished, but here is what I've got so far.

This is the bottom left piece. The top left is finishing printing as I type this. I got some strings because the temp is too high. The weather outside has gotten more hot and humid, so it is messing with my print temps.
uhrEWUc.jpg

Here is a look at the inside. I'll superglue the magnets on those posts. The posts on the opposite side are longer so that the piece can't slide horizontally as easily.
SKumknc.jpg

I'll test fit the clear pieces before painting, but everything on this print is quite snug. After the bow is painted, I'll plastiweld the clear parts into place and fit the electronics. The only thing I haven't modeled yet are the trays that hold the LEDs. I will use magnets to hold those in place also and they will go across each clear portion with lights on both sides. The batteries go in the smaller portion in the middle of the top photo, and the Arduino Gemma goes on the solid area in the center of the 2nd picture. This way all of the electronics are fully removable and contained within half of the bow, which allows me to remove the right side panels to access everything.
 
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