Highlights of the year:

• Walking home with a heavy car battery when my car died
• Decided to buy a 3D printer to work with my prop making ideas
• Tried all sorts of ideas for making silicone molds, most of which failed
• Figured out that my 3D carver was skewed for at least a year or two, resulting in bad carvings (and a few bad molds)
• Started learning how to use an airbrush

And plans for next year:

• Get back in shape, I hope
• Make a bunch of cosplay props for people
• Finally quit one of my jobs
• Finish some armor!

Hope everyone out there has a safe and happy New Year’s.  Stay safe, use a designated driver, a cab, the tipsy tow service, or whatever else you can to stay off the roads if you’ve been drinking.

Stage 1: Make the master nice and shiny – carved insulation foam, coated with Smooth Cast 320 plastic, So-Strong black tint, then painted with auto spray primer and gloss black.

Step 2: Wax the master to prep for silicone – using Sonite Wax II.  I’ll probably switch to a spray-on mold release from now on, the wax leaves trails from being brushed on.

Step 3: Apply layers of silicone to make the mold – using Mold Max Stroke and So-Strong black tint.  3 layers, with registration keys added to the second layer to make sure the mold seats properly in the mold shell when making castings.

Step 4: Make a mold shell – using Rigid Wrap plaster cloth.

Step 5: Start casting – using Smooth Cast 320 and fiberglass surfacing veil (shown with a stand-in for the sword).

Step 6 (aborted) – lining the inside.  At first, I wanted to line the inside of the scabbard, but after I finished, I realized that the lining would drag against the painted sword more than the plastic of the scabbard would.  However, the way I did this was to glue fabric to the inside of the scabbard with tacky glue, in case anyone wants to include this step.  I later made a new scabbard without, personally.

Still to come – combining the halves, and painting.  Soon, soon…

Just needs some slight cleanup, then it’s ready for a mold…

Apparently the router melted some hot glue, which melted foam, picked up the foam bits, let them re-solidify into a disc, which then cut way more than the 1/8″ of the router bit would normally… first it carved the right side, but when it moved to the left it picked up the extra material, as seen in the first two pictures.  The result?  A whole bunch of cut away details that should’ve remained in the final picture…

On the plus side, I’ve improved the carving program since that carving, so it will be faster to re-create it.

Got some molds for the Eye of Thundera working, so cast some copies to insert into the swords and daggers I’ve been working on.  I think I’m finally happy with the shapes of the swords and daggers, so I can make molds of the full items shortly and start casting actual items.

The Zelda stuff is for later, but I was able to create it while waiting for stuff on the Thundercats work to dry and such.

Working on both old and new Sword of Omens, and a double sword stand for display and pictures.  So many props at so many different levels of completion…