Been a while since I've really updated any of this. A lot of things have happened since my last real post and as a result not a lot has gotten done in the prop department. Back in July of 2015 I moved to California for a job right out of college. It paid well, was mildly fun, but I was very disposable.
3 months went by and then it was time to move back to AZ. California was cool, but it wasn't my cup of tea and although I enjoyed the job I really disliked the people and the atmosphere. The beaches were beautiful and the coastal weather was a nice change of pace.
I was jobless for a month of two after moving back and then found a job with a couple fellow grads at a 3D printing startup company. If you don't know the nature of startups it's a lot of work. Just juggling my etsy prop orders was becoming a challenge.
Thankfully after 5 months things have started to calm down. Just in time for Phoenix Comic Con!
Well I had plans to do a group cosplay of TF2 characters those fell through, the person I was originally going with had to bail due to family reasons it happens, but it stinks. A buddy at work who I didn't know was into cosplay told me he was and that he needed a prop - so a long way of getting around to the actual build at hand.
His Brother is doing Vash the Stampede so he's doing Nicholas D. Wolfwood (As you could have gathered from the title of this blog post).
I had a grand scheme for this project but with a week to work on it I stumbled a little through it.
tldr - finally back and working on prop stuff
BUILD:
The original goal was to laser cut the core support for the cross.
I was able to get the wing portion of the cross cut but there wasn't appropriately sized material when I had access to the laser to cut the bigger portions. So I did it traditionally
I'm not going to go into great detail here and it won't be a picture heavy build but it should give a good general idea of the process and what I did here.
The main dimensions of the cross are 67inchs tall (5ft 7in) 48 in wide, the cross wings are 18 in wide and 12in tall, the whole cross is 6in deep, the top is 15.25 tall. I faced the core structure with another wall of 1/4 in MDF. Due to the shear size of this piece I had to use a couple of sheets of material you can see how I cut the top surface out clamping it in halves after everything had been sanded smooth.
In the middle of gluing up the second panel of the first side I had a mental questioning/change of heart. My buddy was going to be lugging this around the convention floor for a couple hours and it weighed roughly 35lbs, which was just to ridiculous. Why I didn't think about this to begin with is astounding to me but either way. I had to switch mid stream to everyone's favorite lightweight prop building material, Pink Insulation foam board.
Similar construction methods were utilized in the making of this version, the difference is I busted this out in 2 days. I utilized a table saw to cut most of the dimensional pieces and an olfa blade to cut the rest. If you're planning to cut foam make sure you have a really sharp razor knife and plenty of new blades as this stuff chunks out really easily if you're not careful, and it's not easy to fix it. The glue I used here is Glidden Gripper White Primer and although that may seem weird it works well for foam to foam contact be careful not to glue it to the plastic sheathing that covers the foam otherwise it will just pull right up.
The last picture of the build (pictured above) is to show that I went from extremely heavy to extremely light, therefore I added some weight to the bottom otherwise it would just be blown away super easily by the wind. So I added a foot to the bottom - maybe 2-5 lbs. now it acts more like a rock-em-sock-em robot where it's bottom heavy and not prone to tipping over. This will help as well when my buddy want to set it down during the con and he doesn't have to worry about it falling etc.
I gave him the cross blank and he was in charge of wrapping it and doing the strapping/clips. Below is a picture he sent me this morning and damn is this thing gonna kill it, I cannot wait to walk the convention floor with him and his buddy. Comic Con see you in 3/4 days.
I'll plan to do a photoshoot sometime after comic con with both of them so I will make a new thread with finished pictures from that shoot.
Thanks as always and if you have any questions feel free to hit me up.
Stay tuned for more updates on current projects and a ton of new stuff happening soon.
Cheers,
Kevin
