I just got back from Nerdtacular where I took hundreds of photos, but I had to quickly share this particular photo that I snapped. I asked Veronica Belmont to pose with the warglave prop that I built and she graciously agreed! She is seriously the nicest person in tech and I couldn’t thank her enough!
It is done! It took me just over two weeks of crazy hard work and now my replica prop of Illidan Stormrage’s Warglaive of Azzinoth is complete! Check. It. Out.
With the lights on:
With the lights off:
Now, let’s dive into the build! I started by creating a vector of the warglaive and had it printed out full size (my cat helped). This printout gave me something that I could cut out and use as a guide when making the pieces. I got my references from the in-game model from wowhead.com.
I wanted to make the edges of the blade glow, so I decided to make it out of layered pieces of material and have the middle layer be clear acrylic so that I could shine LEDs through it. The outside black pieces are foam PVC.
I got my LED strips from superbrightleds.com. I picked up two 1 meter lengths of green LED strips. They are each 12 volts so I got some of those specialty 12 volt batteries so I wouldn’t have to do any math. I cut a groove into the acrylic so that the LEDs would have a channel to run through and end up in the middle of the foam PVC sandwich facing outward. I also cut out a piece of wood that would serve as the handle and connector for the two blade pieces. These were all epoxied and screwed together.
I then added a switch and carved a groove into the handle to connect the wires between both blades. I also had to make a AAA battery holder shorter so that it could accept the specialty 12 volt batteries I would be using.
Once everything on the inside was taken care of, I epoxied and screwed on the top piece of foam PVC.
To give the blades more thickness I added another layer of foam PVC to each side. This was a little thicker than what was already there. Before attaching it to the blades I used a belt sander and sanding drums with my power drill to shape the edges a bit. Then they were glued in place.
To shape the edge of the blade I used the belt sander/drill bit sanding drum combo again. I can’t stress how awesome those sanding drum bits were. I picked them up at Harbor Freight for $7.
Once I had the edges down to where I wanted them, I slapped in some Bondo to fill in or build up wherever I needed some mass. Bondo is one of my favorite things ever! Then the Bondo bits were sanded down flush with the rest of the PVC.
Finally at this point I could hit it with a coat of red spray paint (I like Painter’s Touch) primer. The first layer of primer gets sanded almost completely off, it’s just used to show where the low spots are that need some extra sanding. That’s why most people use red primer for this; it shows up well. Once it was all smooth, I gave it a shot of gray primer and it was ready for painting!
The shield bit of the warglaive was also made out of foam PVC. I layered three pieces and epoxied them together. For the detail pieces on the shield, I used 1/8th inch styrene. These pieces got epoxied to the large shield base. The shield also got the prime, sand, and prime for paint treatment.
Above you can see the holes that I put through the shield on either side. These are for 1/4 inch bolts that I used to attach the shield to the blades. Hell will freeze over before that shield falls off of those blades! The bolt holes were filled in with Bondo (yaaaaaay Bondo!) and then sanded flush. Then the whole thing was primed and ready for paint.
Most of the paint was a metallic paint that I got from Ben Franklin’s. I sanded all of the paint off the edges where I wanted light to come through. I also made a time lapse video of me painting, because hey, who doesn’t live time lapse videos?
That is it! Please contact me at punishedpixels at gmail dot com or follow me on twitter @chinbeard if you have any questions about the build! Also please check out my flickr photostream for more studio photos of the warglaive.
I am currently in “crazy project mode”. That means that I have a project build that I am working on and it has a very hard deadline (Nerdtacular 2011). I am building Illidan’s Warglaive of Azzinoth, it needs to be done/shipped in a week and I only started on it two weeks ago. Therefore, for the past two weeks, I have spent all of my spare time looking a lot like this.
Safety first kids! The goggles are to protect my peepers from flying PVC shrapnel and the respirator is to shield my virgin lungs from Bondo stank, spray paint fumes, and other various breathable particulate in the air.
Now, I have quite literally spent every breath of my free time in the past two weeks working on this project. This led me to ponder whether or not I had cut myself on that razor’s edge that separates obsession and dedication. I have not played video games, watched TV shows, or slept in for the duration of this build. Also, my blog and photography have taken a back seat. I’ve gotten lazy about my daily food preparation. I am very close to becoming obsessed with this project, however, I do believe that I have maintained a healthy level of dedication.
For one, I have a strict set of priorities and my health/fitness is on the top of that list. I do not miss a workout session, period. I am not preparing my own food as much as I would like to, but I am making to sure to buy prepared food that is appropriate for my current fitness goals. Secondly, I have made a very concentrated effort to get as much face time with my wife as possible. I only really get to see her on the weekends nowadays, so those are my days off from exercising and she gets my full, undivided attention. Thirdly, my cats aren’t dead and I fed them some as well as cleaned their poo box once. Fourthly! I am making sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep per night. I’ve started a new exercise regimen and my body needs the sleepy time recovery more than ever. Lastly, I do not miss and am never late to work. I don’t need to be reminded where the money comes from that funds these project that I do.
Anyway, I am extremely happy with how this warglaive project is turning out. When it is finished I will post many photos and a behind the scenes look at the creation process.
May 8th 2011 - Tukwila, WA
May 21st 2011 - Bellevue, WA
