Hey! I'm Sam and this is my first contribution to this community!
This post contains my genderbend Ruby Rose cosplay for AnimeNEXT and NYC ComicCon.
The reason I made two of these scythes is simply because I couldn't take my original wooden Scythe to NYCC due to their regulations on props.
The one I made for AnimeNEXT was made out of Plywood and a long Wooden Plank while my second one for NYCC was made entirely from White Foam Presentation Board.
*Just a side note: I'm missing some details still on the foam one due to it being rushed at the time. I'll explain later on* 
I started this build by first pulling up a head-on picture of the scythe which I put in the Paint tool on my computer. Then I carefully traced around the edge lines of the scythe using the picture as a template. Then I printed it out on I what I believe was 5 x 7 sheets of paper to get it to the size I desired. Which I then continued to cut and tape together to get my Outline which is seen in the next picture
On the next step I cut out the individual pieces from my paper template and traced the paper onto poster board to use as a permanent outline (Luckily doing this made my second build a lot easier). After I cut out the piece from the paper, I would tape the paper template back together so I could cut out the remaining pieces until I was done.
These next pictures are of the template I created.
*
Side Note: In the first 2 pictures they're a bit bent since they're a year old*
After I was done with my template I began to trace it onto the Plywood and Wooden Plank that I purchased from Lowes.
(All together the wood for this project was about $15 I believe. They also cut it into pieces for free at Lowes)
Next came the fun part where I got to cut and sand the heck out of the individual pieces.
(Different stages of the cutting and sanding of my project)
For my Foam Scythe I used the templates to cut all of the pieces out of the foam board which was a lot easier and much faster than the cutting and sanding I had to do for the wooden Scythe. Here's a picture of most of the foam pieces that I had. I say most because there was roughly 12 pieces in total for the entire staff part of the scythe. I had to super glue all of the pieces together in order to make the entire scythe a sturdy piece. When I made the extra inner pieces for the staff I made each inside piece different lengths from one another so it wouldn't just snap in half. I can shake it around and not have a problem. It survived 2 full days at ComicCon so I guess that says a lot.
(Foam Pieces. Not including the 6 or so extra inner pieces of the staff)
One of the last steps was the fun part where I got to spray paint all of my individual pieces. In order to get a lot of the straight and curved lines I had to use painters tape(Which kinda sucks on these projects because a little bit always got through :C and I had to do touch up paint. Ugh.).
Finally all I had left to do was glue the scythe head pieces together with super glue. I used super glue for both the wooden and foam scythe heads. With the wooden scythe I had to attach the head piece to the staff by drilling 3 holes on either side of the scythe head which I secured tightly with 6 black screws. For the Foam scythe I was able to just super glue the staff to the head piece and it worked out just fine. Now here are some pictures of both the Foam and Wooden scythes.
(Side Note about the Foam Scythe: On my way to NYCC, just a day before the convention, I was not yet finished with painting and gluing the foam scythe. Before I left I put all of the scythe head pieces in the trunk of my car. What I didn't know is that my trunk didn't shut all the way. Both the large middle black piece and the pointed tip of my scythe fell out of my car a mile from my house. I know this because my room mate found them in the street the following morning. When I got to the city I freaked out about it and decided that the next best course of action was to find some cardboard on the street so I could hand draw and cut out my two missing pieces. Luckily I was able to get them painted and re-created by 4am the morning of the convention. I finally super glued everything together about 5 minutes before we left the apartment to head to the Javits Center where NYCC is held. Nothing is more stressful as a cosplayer than finding out you're completely missing a good chunk of your cosplay/prop. This is also why the pointed tip of the foam scythe has a visible bend to it. I'll eventually replace the pieces with foam if I ever sell it or use it for another convention.)
Now here's some pictures of my genderbend Ruby Rose cosplay! In my photos from AnimeNEXT my costume was purchased from a website b/c I got lazy, but my NYCC costume I put together myself. The only parts I kept from the costume I purchased was the red hooded cape, the bullet lined belt and the bullet lined wristband. I added the boots and red laces, the finger-less gloves, the black bomber jacket and those sexy black faux leather pants.
(These first few are from NYCC. I'd post the ones from the convention but they're on my friends camera still.)
(Photos from AnimeNEXT 2016.)
For this years AnimeNEXT I am most likely going to do Ruby again for one of the 3 days, but I'm adding some sick EVA Foam Armor and I will be creating the entire Transforming Crescent Rose to challenge my prop making skills. I'm also adding a really awesome and realistic version of the scythe in its gun form that I'll be making from EVA Foam. I will also be cosplaying as another genderbend character from the show named Coco Adel which I'll be crafting her huge yellow gatling gun! I'll post my creation for Coco to this website when I am finished which will most likely be before May of this year! I'm super excited to start working on that! Maybe I'll even start tonight!! ^_^
One last thing before I end this post. I just want to say that when you are going to buy props from an online dealer, a cheap product normally means it's poorly made. For example: In the picture below I had tried purchasing Crescent Rose and it came to my house as that garbage little dinky one next to the one I created. The only good thing that came out of that purchase was me getting motivated to start creating my own props. In a way I'm kind of thankful for that $60 paper weight. Oh well,,,you live and learn.
Now here are some things I learned about prop making along the way:
If you've made it this far I would just like to say thank you for looking into my project! Both of these scythes took a lot of money and many hours of work to complete. I love making props and putting together different cosplays and I am only going to get better at doing it. Thank you so much for viewing my post!
Much appreciated,
~Sam
This post contains my genderbend Ruby Rose cosplay for AnimeNEXT and NYC ComicCon.
The reason I made two of these scythes is simply because I couldn't take my original wooden Scythe to NYCC due to their regulations on props.
The one I made for AnimeNEXT was made out of Plywood and a long Wooden Plank while my second one for NYCC was made entirely from White Foam Presentation Board.
*Just a side note: I'm missing some details still on the foam one due to it being rushed at the time. I'll explain later on* I started this build by first pulling up a head-on picture of the scythe which I put in the Paint tool on my computer. Then I carefully traced around the edge lines of the scythe using the picture as a template. Then I printed it out on I what I believe was 5 x 7 sheets of paper to get it to the size I desired. Which I then continued to cut and tape together to get my Outline which is seen in the next picture
On the next step I cut out the individual pieces from my paper template and traced the paper onto poster board to use as a permanent outline (Luckily doing this made my second build a lot easier). After I cut out the piece from the paper, I would tape the paper template back together so I could cut out the remaining pieces until I was done.
These next pictures are of the template I created.
*Side Note: In the first 2 pictures they're a bit bent since they're a year old*After I was done with my template I began to trace it onto the Plywood and Wooden Plank that I purchased from Lowes.
(All together the wood for this project was about $15 I believe. They also cut it into pieces for free at Lowes)Next came the fun part where I got to cut and sand the heck out of the individual pieces.
(Different stages of the cutting and sanding of my project)For my Foam Scythe I used the templates to cut all of the pieces out of the foam board which was a lot easier and much faster than the cutting and sanding I had to do for the wooden Scythe. Here's a picture of most of the foam pieces that I had. I say most because there was roughly 12 pieces in total for the entire staff part of the scythe. I had to super glue all of the pieces together in order to make the entire scythe a sturdy piece. When I made the extra inner pieces for the staff I made each inside piece different lengths from one another so it wouldn't just snap in half. I can shake it around and not have a problem. It survived 2 full days at ComicCon so I guess that says a lot.
(Foam Pieces. Not including the 6 or so extra inner pieces of the staff)One of the last steps was the fun part where I got to spray paint all of my individual pieces. In order to get a lot of the straight and curved lines I had to use painters tape(Which kinda sucks on these projects because a little bit always got through :C and I had to do touch up paint. Ugh.).
Finally all I had left to do was glue the scythe head pieces together with super glue. I used super glue for both the wooden and foam scythe heads. With the wooden scythe I had to attach the head piece to the staff by drilling 3 holes on either side of the scythe head which I secured tightly with 6 black screws. For the Foam scythe I was able to just super glue the staff to the head piece and it worked out just fine. Now here are some pictures of both the Foam and Wooden scythes.
(Side Note about the Foam Scythe: On my way to NYCC, just a day before the convention, I was not yet finished with painting and gluing the foam scythe. Before I left I put all of the scythe head pieces in the trunk of my car. What I didn't know is that my trunk didn't shut all the way. Both the large middle black piece and the pointed tip of my scythe fell out of my car a mile from my house. I know this because my room mate found them in the street the following morning. When I got to the city I freaked out about it and decided that the next best course of action was to find some cardboard on the street so I could hand draw and cut out my two missing pieces. Luckily I was able to get them painted and re-created by 4am the morning of the convention. I finally super glued everything together about 5 minutes before we left the apartment to head to the Javits Center where NYCC is held. Nothing is more stressful as a cosplayer than finding out you're completely missing a good chunk of your cosplay/prop. This is also why the pointed tip of the foam scythe has a visible bend to it. I'll eventually replace the pieces with foam if I ever sell it or use it for another convention.)
Now here's some pictures of my genderbend Ruby Rose cosplay! In my photos from AnimeNEXT my costume was purchased from a website b/c I got lazy, but my NYCC costume I put together myself. The only parts I kept from the costume I purchased was the red hooded cape, the bullet lined belt and the bullet lined wristband. I added the boots and red laces, the finger-less gloves, the black bomber jacket and those sexy black faux leather pants.
(These first few are from NYCC. I'd post the ones from the convention but they're on my friends camera still.)(Photos from AnimeNEXT 2016.)For this years AnimeNEXT I am most likely going to do Ruby again for one of the 3 days, but I'm adding some sick EVA Foam Armor and I will be creating the entire Transforming Crescent Rose to challenge my prop making skills. I'm also adding a really awesome and realistic version of the scythe in its gun form that I'll be making from EVA Foam. I will also be cosplaying as another genderbend character from the show named Coco Adel which I'll be crafting her huge yellow gatling gun! I'll post my creation for Coco to this website when I am finished which will most likely be before May of this year! I'm super excited to start working on that! Maybe I'll even start tonight!! ^_^
One last thing before I end this post. I just want to say that when you are going to buy props from an online dealer, a cheap product normally means it's poorly made. For example: In the picture below I had tried purchasing Crescent Rose and it came to my house as that garbage little dinky one next to the one I created. The only good thing that came out of that purchase was me getting motivated to start creating my own props. In a way I'm kind of thankful for that $60 paper weight. Oh well,,,you live and learn.
Now here are some things I learned about prop making along the way:
- Don't leave painted pieces on top of each other unless you want them to stay that way forever. Paint is sticky....so so sticky >_<
- I was melting the non-paper sides of the Foam Presentation Board with the spray paint so I purchased white paint and gave the foam sides 3 layers to prevent it from melting.
- Sanding takes a lot of time and it much easier if you have the proper tools to make it easier.
- MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EVERY PIECE OF YOUR PROP/COSTUME!!! Make sure it is secured in a place where it WILL NOT fall out. Trust me...it feels bad man.
- Don't wait until the last minute. Pieces you order online can take a while to show up sometimes. It's also super stressful staying up until 4am for the entire week before the convention. Trust me...I've done this...more than once...I should really take my own advice .-.
If you've made it this far I would just like to say thank you for looking into my project! Both of these scythes took a lot of money and many hours of work to complete. I love making props and putting together different cosplays and I am only going to get better at doing it. Thank you so much for viewing my post!
Much appreciated,
~Sam
