Sunday, September 06, 2009

Where You're Going, You Won't Need Hats

Decided to deviate from the usual merry weapons making and revisit the simplicity of bladed weapons. The task isn't too difficult: it's nothing harder than gluing a cutout of a blade onto a stick. I've yet to devise a standard for melee weapon making as I now have for firearms. So far, I only have a rough guideline for grip diameters and blade thicknesses. I'll iron out something formal in the coming weeks when I experiment with different weapons.

"My, what a big blade you have!"
"The better to cleave you with, my dear..."

This week, I decided to build the Devilscale from Drakengard. Loved the weapon in game, and decided that some variety in my projects was needed. For this, I worked around in-game screenshots and a standard handle width of 4mm to scale up the polearm. The blade is rather massive and required stock material of a length of two card lengths. I tried to use some of the X-Men TCG cards I acquired for this task, since I'm never going to get rid of those otherwise.

Regarding material properties, here's a quick comparison:

Magic seems to be a bit less resistant to bending than the X-Men cards. Slight difference, but it's noticeable. The thicknesses are however equivalent. Further testing is needed.

I pretty much half assed this weapon since the references weren't too helpful in determining details. Can't really see much from a polygonal PS2 model built for quick renders. However, the staff part turned out better than I thought.

Anyways, what does one now do with a 1:6 scale of a giant bladed polearm?

"I'll teach you to hit on me via teamchat!" -Hotaru

For this photo, I decided to make use of a technique I saw in a LEGO diorama: use of the aquatic red bushes as an excessive blood spurt effect. I actually love that effect so much that I've stocked the LEGO parts close by for quick access. It's conveniently the right scale for a 1:6 scale decapitation... (Is it a bad sign I have a blog post tag for "decapitation"? Maybe...)

I've also kept around the sprues from my Gundam kits, in the event I need some thin plastic rods. With the clear ones, you can use them to suspend random body parts in the air. I've jammed the rods down the clothing for the Sniper and Scout to help support the heads hanging.

Anyways, next time: I'll attempt to make a simple task of sword making idiotically difficult!

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