Way to the Dawn Keyblade

Difficulty: Hard
Time: 21 hours
Price: $20

Eight days before Otakon, I decided I needed to make the Way to the Dawn keyblade to complete my Riku costume because my Kingdom Key just wasn't good enough. Was this a realistic idea? I did finish. Was it a good idea? I don't know. The keyblade turned out AMAZING, but I only got 3 hours of sleep Thursday night because I had to finish it and also the other costume I was going to wear.

Here's a rundown of how to make it and the timeline I used. It doesn't require any specialty tools to make - just a boxcutter, hot glue gun and paintbrushes!

8 Days Until Otakon: Shopping~!
All the materials I used:
-PVC pipe, two short sections
-Dowel rod
-Cardboard
-Craft foam, thin sheets
-Paper Mache
-Gesso
-Acrylic paints - red, blue, black, white, brown, and tons of brushes
-Waterproof sealer
-Electric Tape
-Keyrings
-3D paint, red
-Pokemon damage counters
-More hot glue than you can POSSIBLY IMAGINE. Actually, only about 10 sticks.

As a result of the materials I used, the keyblade turned out to be really light (about a pound and a half) and is not terribly unbalanced. However, I would consider it quite fragile.


6 Days Until Otakon: Create the base of the keyblade.

I started the keyblade by scaling it up to 41" long and printing a picture out so I would have something to go reference and use as a pattern for the entire process.








I wanted it to be structural, so the first part of the base I made was a PVC and dowel backbone for the handle and blade. Because I placed more value on making something that wouldn't fall apart than making an exact replica, I shifted how the blade was attached so that it ran parallel to the handle.







And this is the backbone laid on top of the keyblade.

Next step - trace the keyblade onto cardboard and cut it out!

To inlay the backbone in the cardboard, I cut the shape of it out of the cardboard and glued them together! It's starting to look like something already!

And because this horrid thing is textured, I used craft foam to build up the base of the texturing. The first step was to smooth over the backbone.

Then I built up the veins and claws or whatever the textural elements actually are. This is the almost finished state, aka, where I got really tired and needed to sleep.








Five Days Until Otakon: Prep for paper mache.
No pictures of this. After finishing the last of the foam texturing, I coated the foam in 2 or 3 layers of 50% elmers glue solution to create a surface the paper mache would stick to. I attached a clip to the handle and hung it from the ceiling so I could work on both sides at once for maximum rush efficiency!


Four Days Until Otakon: Sooooo much paper mache.

With the keyblade still hanging from the ceiling, I used a glue-based paper mache to cover the entire thing.

The paper mache preserved and smoothed out the textured elements! I was amused because the newspapers were leftover from around the holidays, so there was all this Christmas stuff. It made me happy.

And, pro tip. Do not use woodglue for paper mache. It makes you look like you have both jaundice and some horrible peeling skin disease. Having done a semester of research developing and testing nontoxic adhesives, I can tell you for a fact that there is little to no difference in the strength of woodglue and elmers glue (after you cure them), so I don't know why I decided to use the 'stronger' glue for a non-structural application. Luckily, the yellow did wash out enough not to show in the con photos.


Three Days Until Otakon: Watching paint paper mache dry.
I didn't want to risk the quality of the paper mache, so I let it dry for a full 24 hours + some.


Two Days Until Otakon: Startin' the paintin'
First, I sanded down the paper mache with 220 sandpaper. I wanted it to be smoother. I wish I had done more of this - if you look carefully at the finished keyblade, you can see some folds and edges of papers.



Then, it was gesso primer time. I used two or three coats depending on how lightly or darkly I was painting the different parts of the keyblade. After each step, I sanded when it had dried for smoothness. Don't skip the gesso step, I've learned from experience that acrylic is sometimes not happy sticking to what it's supposed to without the primer in place. Also, you need it to cover up the colors in the newsprint, especially for parts you are painting white or light.

After the Gesso, I painted a color primer layer to help me block off color areas. From this step forward, you have something that's quite functional.

Now I went color by color, section by section painting in the detail, arbitrarily starting with the blue. Mixing the correct colors of paint was quite fun. However, I found that acrylic doesn't blend well once you start painting with it. To try to get it to mix, I used a damp brush and blurred the color borders as best I could.

Here's a closeup of the some of the blues - you be the judge about the blending.

And the demon wing was my favorite part to paint.











One Day Until Otakon: Crunch time! Paint all the things! You can do it!

Painting the red, painting the red. Here I had to be careful about lining up the dark parts on both sides along the inside edge. And this kinda demanded blending colors more than any other part of the project.

The angel wing! It's not a replica of the original, but it's the same general idea. I was running out of time, so I didn't do any shading. It really wasn't necessary, though. It's cleaner this way.

And the HORRID ANGEL WING KEYTOOTH THING. GYAHDHJSGHSKDJGH AYW! This thing was the bane of my existence. This is it in progress. I didn't do any blending. I drew the outlines in and then colored in with the blues.

After the blue was in, I went over the black lines again to make everything crisp and perfect. Since I didn't feel like I had the skillz to make all the feather cutouts in the wing, I used the black paint to create the illusion of a cutout. This doesn't work as well on light backgrounds, but I was satisfied.

And now that you are done painting, wait for it to dry and coat it with some kind of waterproof sealant. I recommend something matte and spray on. Because the last thing you want to do is paint more stuff.

Random finishing details. The eye - it's a light blue pokemon cards damage counter. First paint the black stripe and then paint the entire back piece white. Aquarium marbles would work for this, too, for those who are younger or older than the Pokemon phase.

The keychain a bunch of pillaged keyrings from around the house. The heartless symbol is black craft foam with red 3D opaque fabric paint on the border. It's attached with hot glue and electric tape.

The handle is black and red electric tape wrapped around the PVC for the finishing touch!

Hooray! Now get some good rest! That was a lot of work!


0 Days Until Otakon: Also known as AT Otakon.

Time to slay some heartless! Some absurdly CUTE heartless! And incredibly well made!












And now to pose with the more emo version of myself. His keyblade was a bit more intense than mine.
Also, please excuse our REALLY RED faces. We were both overheating. It was 100 degrees out.

Closeups of some of the details:

Anime Boston 2011!

I was at Anime Boston this year! It was my second con ever. On Friday I was badfiction, and on Saturday I was Riku, both from Kingdom Hearts. On Sunday I needed to sleep late and do homework.

When I was in my Riku costume, soooo many people wanted photos with/of me and hugs! I was so proud that people liked my costume. My favorite was the fangirl who wanted me to sexypose with her. I don't know why I give into peer pressure so easily, but I do.

Unfortunately, all my pictures from Friday and some from Saturday were lost in a horrible reformatting of the camera memory card. Which is sad! Because on Friday, I wore my Organization coat and a piece of bad fanfiction with my silly colored hair and was Raesumyx, the nobody of Mary Sue and the newest and most important member of Organization XIII! I went around posing with any Organization members who weren't scared off by me acting 'in character'.

But a few Saturday pictures survived! And there are legit pictures of my Riku costume! Hooray! I'm still waiting on doing an actual photoshoot.

Me and a Sora. I was very impressed by her costume.

I met Sora again at the KH photoshoot.

Oh, fangirls and their photoshoot requests. I don't know why I decided to put up with this. But, the entire organization and its clones are reflected in the background. That's cool, right?

That's all the nonblurry photos that survived. There were so many good costumes there, so congrats to all the cosplayers! But I would like to say that I had the best Riku costume. I had the big zipper, the pants, ok, I'll turn the narcissism off now. Ciao!

Riku Costume

Difficulty: Hard
Time: 40+ hours
Price: About $100

I played Kingdom Hearts II this summer and loved it. I really wanted to be Riku for Halloween, but was a little nervous about tackling the seaming involved in making the vest (especially after I encountering it when I made the Organization Coat). But then I thought about the other two costumes I was considering - Marth with the armor and Balthier with the crazy vest and pants and then I decided it wouldn't be that bad.
The costume itself had some really hard parts (ugh! The vest!), but since it was three different big pieces, it broke up the work.

Alas, I was not able to get a good photo of me in the costume, but I'm planning on doing a legit photoshoot with it as soon as my camera wielding friend and I are not swamped with homework.

One nice thing about Riku's clothes is that they are more or less normal. I was able to base all three sewed pieces off of patterns. I used a generic button up shirt pattern for both the shirt and vest - I just got rid of the darts to make it boy shaped.

Black shirt:
All I did with this was follow the pattern. It was that easy. I wanted to do the zipper accurately, so I bought a second grey zipper and slipped it's pull on. Simple as that.

White Vest:
This was the killer part. I used the same shirt pattern as a guideline, making it a size bigger to go over the undershirt, but I had to do quite a few modifications because of the strange seams and collar. For all the seams, I marked where they would be, cut along the line, and then inserted a two inch thick piece of fabric with half inch seam allowances in. This made the desired one inch seam in the middle of the vest.


Unfortunately, one can see the yellow lining through white fabric, so I had to add an extra white layer in the middle. The zipper was from this shop.

Pants:
I traced a super baggy pair of pants. The pockets were a challenge to put on after the fact, so I would recommend attaching them before assembling the pants. Nothing special here.

Shoes:
I painted a pair of knock-off white Adidas and stole my brother's orange shoe laces.

I was pleasantly mobile in the costume. Here, I am pwning other people at a chopstick race at the Halloween party I wore this to.

And also wreaking zombie mummy havoc.

Boffer Weapons

Difficulty: Medium
Time: 1-4 hours per weapon
Price: Less than $10

Mock combat is super fun. Boffer fights are great, because they are generally hilarious, are easy to make absurd, and don't bruise (or cost) as much as paintball.

Making swords and keyblades and quarterstaffs and pillows on sticks is straightforward - there are plenty of tutorials around the internet. They also have safety guidelines, because when you die in real life, you also die in game. Funny how stuff like that works.

As for materials, I used PVC pipe for the cores of all the weapons, pool noodles as padding, and duct tape to cover them up. For the decorations, I used random pieces of foam, colored duct tape and electrical tape.


I found that I didn't need any kind of dowel core in the PVC to keep it from being flimsy because the pool noodles were thick enough, and the core just made it heavy and unbalanced. I had previous bad luck with foam pipe insulation because it was too thin. The pool noodles work great, but you can only really buy them in the spring....

At the time, I was suffering through my first semester of quantum. To be the bane of all physics majors, I made Bra and Ket.


I also wanted a keyblade. It's been useful. The handle and the key part were cut from the foam that came from some kind of packaging.


And a lightsaber.


Adding the handles or crosspieces or axe blades adds a lot of time to making the boffers. But the possibilities are endless. The most terrifying weapon I've seen is the pillow on a stick my friend made - it was an ENTIRE foam mattress pad that was going to get thrown out wrapped around a PVC pipe and wrapped up in duct tape. It didn't hurt when it hit - it just knocked all the air out of you. I am personally a fan of more elegant weapons. From a more civilized age.

Organization XIII Coat & Zexion Cosplay

Difficulty: Hard
Time: 40-50 hours
Price: $60

Organization coats are awesome. However, they are quite a task to actually make – especially without a for-real pattern. There’s some of nasty detail work you could, of course skip, but the end result is pretty awesome with it. And the finished coat looks better than most of the coats you can buy online or at cons. Plus, in the end, your Thermo textbook becomes far more awesome.

I like my cosplay stuff to be functional in the real world, so I decided to make my coat fully lined. This, and n00bishly having to do the double seams twice, added many hours to the making of the coat. However, once it cools down again, I will be wearing this to classes. Yay for campuses where weird is normal. I don’t know what I’ll do when I graduate.

So, I actually don’t have a lot to say about how to make a coat, because another cosplayer has already prepared an amazing tutorial. Same goes for the book - it's just using paint or fabric to turn a book black and applying decals.

I can, however give tips.

1. Make a mock up and tailor it to yourself. That way, your coat fits you like a dream. Also, get friends to help you pin yourself.

2. The double seams are nasty. The best way to do them is to use chalk and draw lines to pin and sew along so your stitching comes out even. Also, sewing from the corner out prevents random bunching of the fabric.

3. Pockets are super fun. They were my favorite part of the coat.

4. Attaching the hood is nasty. I’d suggest finding another pattern for help on attaching a hood instead of free-handing it.

Photos Galore!

Some random notes on supplies: For the hardware on the coat, I had fun at home depot. I used fan pulls for the dangles and browsed the plumbing isle for something that would be a suitable bead – what I wound up using was called a ‘nipple’. The chain was from Micheal’s. The zipper came from here. I used special effects hair dye for my hair.

As for fun Con stories – I’m tall as it is and I had 3.75” boots on with this costume. One person I met at artists alley said it was as if my character had been sent through a taffy machine. I also had fun showing off nasty thermo equations in my book. Too bad it wasn’t for a class I was taking this term – the masquerade line was long, but we got good seats. ^_^

Cosplaying during school is exhausting. Thanks to Omega and Puffin for the photos and to Red for being an extra set of hands during tailoring and for being brave enough to give me the strange haircut.