Bulwark of Azzinoth: Fat Wednesday

Wednesday was the day of reckoning.

AND WE WERE TRIUMPHANT.



Look at that. Smooth as butter. (well, except for that one chunk that got gouged out, but that'll be filled in later.)

So after smoothing out the top part, we trimmed the angle in the sides.



Second verse, same as the first.

So after sanding/trimming both sides, we added the handle and strap!


Don't worry, the handle wont' stay that shiny. Once I get to painting I'll weather it and wrap the grippy bit with leather.

So once that was done, we flipped it to the front in order to lay out where the spikes would go. We decided to make the spikes removable for the time being, to cut down on bulk. We cut holes into the foam on the front and glued on some wooden dowels. I didn't take a picture cause I forgot, hurrr durrr.

But! I did get a picture with the spikes on!


Next post will be borders. Awwwwww yeeeeaaaaa.

Bulwark of Azzinoth: Monday MONDAY Monday!!!(and Tuesday)

So finally Monday rolls around and I get me some more fancy wood. Yay!

The very first thing we did was bend and secure the first piece of wood, apply glue to it and to the back side of the next piece, add more glue to the other side and to the side of the third piece and then clamp the whole fucker down together. As illustrated by my unnecessary run-on sentence, this was an extremely stressful race against the clock.

But finally the beast was restrained!


Getting the wood ready was actually so unfortunate that we just called it quits for the day once it was done.

So Tuesday!

First things first we removed the wood from the jig. It held together rather well, but we added a few more staples with the pressurized gun for good measure. So then we went to see if the curves of the foam we'd carved matched with the wood. Failure struck again. When we removed the wood from its jig, the curve relaxed a bit. I didn't think it was a problem until we went to match it up with the foam. Biiiig difference. We attempted to reshape the foam, but it was just too time consuming. So then the plan changed completely.

First we attached two wood blocks to each side to give us something to screw the handle and strap on to.


And then...(insert dramatic music here)


SPRAY FOAM


MANY SPRAY FOAM

This solved all of our problems and should have been the first choice. But at least we learned something, right?


...right?

Bulwark of Azzinoth: Set this Failure to Cataclysmic!

So day two(and three and four) began with disappoint.

Turns out the 3/8ths plywood was way too thick to just bend with steam. Upon releasing it from the jig it snapped back straight and some of the veneer tore off. That meant I had to go back to the special wood store for more special wood. Only it was new years eve and it was closed and wouldn't be open again till monday. Balls.

So instead of getting the wood together, I worked on the spikes!


Before I got to my dad's I picked up this nifty hot wire cutter that slices through foam like a hot wire through foam. It was fabulous.



Except when my hands decided to shake like Micheal J. Fox and this happens.


We also worked on the other block of foam carving out the concave curve. This was both exceedingly difficult and annoyingly time consuming. It alone took over two days of work.




So by the end of the weekend, we added some foam on top of the foam.

Bulwark of Azzinoth: humble beginings

Alrighty, first post! I made this blog separate from my regular art blog so I can post things that are only somewhat arty. Also to help myself organize or something. Like that'll ever happen, lol.

So the first project that'll be shown here will be my first attempt at prop making. First up to bat is the Bulwark of Azzinoth!

So one of the reasons I picked the bulwark out as my first prop-making attempt 'cause I figured that it's fairly simple shapes would be pretty simple. But I was oh-so-wrong. It got off to the wrong foot with multiple trips to Home Depot because I'd forget something each time. No pics of supplies cause hurr durr I forgot.

Also, my dad helped me with this cause he's awesome.

Day 1!

The plan was to use a core of wood as support, then rigid insulation foam for the details in order to cut down on weight.






So we started out with a 1/8th inch piece of plywood which we steamed and bent over a rough jig. We then steamed and bent a piece of 3/8th on top of it and stapled both down. While we were working on that, we'd also glued down several pieces of the foam together so that it was thick enough to carve the curve of the shield into it later.

Once the wood was bent and drying, we started carving!



Lots of belt sanding and planing later, we made an unholy mess.





Go to the next post for day two!