Zidane Tribal: Dagger, Finished?

Yup, I'm finished with it. Picture to follow as I'm in a hurry.

I've also done a couple trial runs with the tail around the house, the only problem is it drags on the floor walking DOWN stairs, and I can't really sit down with it. Not bad goin'!

White Mage/Steampunk : The Story Continues

Started putting the cloak together today. I've got as far as the sleeves and decided to call it a night. I could really do with a dress makers dummy or manikin right now, but I shall persevere!

White Mage/Steampunk: It's Arrived!

The Material is finally here. Last night me and mum cut out the pattern and it's all ready to go. Now I just need to take it slow so I don't screw it up. =D

White Mage/Steampunk: lack of Material

My wonderful mum bought the material to make this last month. It's still not arrived. I'm crapping it that it's not here. I can't start making it. I need this for the end of May.

Please Mr. postman, deliver my material. >.<

Zidane Tribal: Tail demo!

Here's the demo. I've done things since I took this, so it moves better now, but you get the idea.

Where did the title come from?

Quite simply, the title was inspired by a wonderful vocal version of a track from the FFIX soundtrack. Find the song here.

Zidane Tribal: Tail, Blog 2

After building a new rig, it works, I even got my sister to take a photo! Wxcuse the fact it's attached to a bright green belt, it's the one I'm using right now for my jeans. XD This will of course be covered with fur before actually being used and will be UNDERNEATH the clothes, so you won't actually see the belt or any of the 'mechanics' anyway.

Zidane Tribal: Tail, Blog 1

The tail itself is fine, but the rig that was connecting it to my belt broke off completely. However, here's a photo of the tail.

Zidane Tribal: Dagger

When I was a kid, I used to go all teary when I got bored. One Summer holiday my parents had this idea to give me a load of balsa wood, my mum taught me how to make these pretty little boxes by using Balsa cement, pins, pictures from magazines, and PVA glue. Since then, I have loved working with the stuff and jump at every opportunity that comes along. This was one of them.
More recently it's just been steampunk stuff I've made. I was really rather proud of the plaster holder I made, and the weenie pill box with rotating lid, too. But honestly, when the idea popped into my head to make a DAGGER out of balsa, I was a little stumped as to HOW I'd do it to begin with.
Well, first thing to do, was decide WHICH Dagger I'd make. I plan to make a Thief Sword at some point for this guy, but for now, just a dagger. Settling on the Mythril dagger was a choice helped by my friend Katie, and my mum.
Initially I thought about just building it from memory, then realised that was probably a bad idea, and located some pictures and did some rough measurement in Photoshop. I had my laptop with me the whole time I was building this(It was also supplying the music, so made sense).
I drew the basic shapes as patterns on paper, then transfered these to the wood. The basic dagger shape was probably the easiest part to make to be honest. The 'blade' was easy to shape, just carve away at it with a scalpel blade at an angle, and then sand it down till it's nice and smooth.
The Hand guard proved a problem once I realised it wasn't totally flat on both sides! Problem solved by adding some extra balsa on the blade side and carving that down to a nice shallow angle. Then realised that it wouldn't sit properly on the blade... Carve out the shape of the blade. Right, DONE! The extra side detail on the Hand guard was all my idea. Well, one side anyway. I only had some very vague pictures to work from, so had to wing it on most parts. One side has a heart and vines sort of design, the other, a rather clever little 'ZT' interwoven design. Playing with the idea this dagger was one Zidane may have had for a long time and had 'personalised' or something.
Anyway, onward! To The Hand Grip! This was another challenge, lack of images made it a bit difficult really. Solution? Find a picture of a Mythril SWORD, and work from that. This was where I discovered a new technique of patterning/carving/shaping balsa. Being a soft wood, I always knew that I could press things into it to shape it, but I'd never through of pressing into it and sanding at the same time! That's how I got the cross design on the hand guard to be raised. To create the 'ridges' I used a round craft tool I got in a cheapy set of craft blades ages and ages ago.
The Pommel. Not so hard really, layering and shaping of balsa to fit and look good. I'm proud of how it came out really.
Blade detail. It wasn't so easy to do this part. I didn't want to draw straight onto the blade I'd made so found some thin-ish balsa, and worked on that. Now, I assumed this design went up and over the top of the blade as well as on either side. I worked with this, refusing to give up. I traced the design onto the wood, cut out the basic shape, then set about making the detail pattern. Deciding I didn't want both sides identical, I managed to split off one of the 'vines' into two over the top, so there's an extra vine woven into the design on the other side! Another task of pressing and sanding to make the design stand out. Done.
The blade ridge detail was done by eye, so the two sides aren't identical. but it might have been a bit hard to make a pattern for that one anyway.
Right now this dagger is STILL unpainted. I'm awaiting the arrival of my air brush, and then I can go out and buy a can of propellant and start base coating this baby! =D
The picture is the 'ZT' detail.

General Beatrix: An idea?

Laying in bed this morning, trying to wake up, I remember something I did back in art college (I did graphics in the end). We had to pick apart a regular shirt and put it back together as something else. Mine ended up reminding me of Rinoa from FFVIII, but looking at Beatrix, it's a little bit like her 'coat' too. I might look into using it as a base idea for that.

The inset photo is the back. I made this on a mannequin which was, sadly, smaller than me, even then.

Garnet Til alexandros XVII: Necklace Crystal

Well, after many different ideas for making this, from buying one similar, to buying one totally different, being the perfectionist I can be at times, I've decided to MAKE it.

Started out with THREE blocks of Fimo clay. True, two of them were the small blocks and they weren't actually whole to begin with, but still. So there I sat, with an ever growing, colour changing lump of clay in my hands. The BASIC shape was really quite easy. Roll into a ball, flatten SLIGHTLY, between your hands, then shape one side to a point by rolling it on a flat surface (it's hard to explain, but not hard to do), then make sure the other side's nice and rounded.

After this stage I put the clay, suspended over the rim of a Coke glass (The third lot of non can shapes McDonald's did a couple years ago), in the fridge. My reasoning being, while working the clay, my hands had become increasingly warm and so the clay was warm and pretty flexible. This is what happens with Fimo I'm sure most of you guys know. So, in the fridge over night, and then for some reason I got the idea to put it in THE FREEZER for a couple hours. Not sure this served any purpose, but oh well, It might have.

Next day I looked at it and thought, right, you need shaping and cutting. So I found the cutscene from the end of the game and paused it right at the moment Garnet loses the necklace while running to Zidane. First I shaped the actually thing, it's not a perfect circle after all, it has dinks and things. Using the handle of a knife I shaped that. Then came the cutting of the back. I considered using the same knife, but realise that probably wouldn't work as it&amp;#039;s got a rather blunt blade and I wanted some quite severe cuts. So, Out came the Scalpel! Now, I may have used that blade in making Zidane's Dagger, BUT, it's still quite sharp.

Score a line where you want the rough centre of the 'facet' to be, then cut in a V-shape on either side. Et Voila!

I'll upload a photo later.

The next process will be to buy some Mould making Silicone, make a mould with this, and then get some clear plastic resin.

So really, this project is something fun, but also something I've wanted to do for a very, very long time. =)