Dat hilt

It's been a few months since I actually finished up putting on the decals and painting the sword. Here's more or less what it looks like now. 

Not that great I know, but since it's had a VERY long time to dry after the whole paint and polish process, I think it's ready for a second coat. The blade came out very nice though it's not pictured. It had a really good metallic sheen to it, with a bit of a mirrored effect. Not as great as what you get from shiny chrome automotive paint but it had staying power.

I still feel the middle part of the hilt is a little bare though, but having a square design like that its rather hard to factor in any organic designs. The tape is still holding on fairly well but it took a bit of damage at the con and is peeling a bit at the top. I'm contemplating changing it to a faux leather wrap but am doubting the strength of it's hold. But that would be a modification for another time I guess.

I'm not quite done geeking out at the paint job ^^

Hand-me-down claymore

I very recently traded in a gaming mousepad for a wooden claymore made by one of my maker buddies. Long story short, he didn't want me to pay for it and I didn't want to get it for free, so it's a fair trade in a sense.

It was decked out in these red gems (which I didn't feel suited the costume it was going to go with) so I set off to completely repaint the thing and give it a few minor modifications.

I'm generally quite terrible at thinking of detailing designs, but after trying out a whole load of things I ended up with this one.

Having just gotten a heat gun recently, stripping off the gems and glue was a breeze. Sadly I used a bit of a too high heat setting and the paint bubbled a bit. In the end I decided to sand off the blade's paint and use thinner to strip off the rest.

 Using 3D fabric paint is the worst. You have to have an insanely steady hand for it. After maybe 5-6 attempts to draw it on properly, I finally got down something decent. (though I'm still not entirely satisfied with it) and left it to dry overnight.

After scraping off a little bit of access paint, which was easily done with a boxcutter blade, I decided to do a paint test. Not really the best considering I didn't have the right shade of paint to get that gold lustre, it looked somewhat decent despite the slight lumpiness.

LSP approves!