Ramblings of a Would-Be Renaissance Man: Back to the Beginning

What did I start this blog for?

Oh that's right. It was to hold me accountable to finish my projects. And to share those projects of course.

Recently though, I've been busy. Really busy. Like closing on a house busy. All that's over and done with now, but that just opens the door to a whole slew of other things that take up lots of time, like painting, and cleaning, and moving, and trying to rein in the jungle attempting to grow in our new backyard.

The wife and I will be starting a new blog soon to track and record any and all improvements we make... once we can come up with what we want to call it. Any suggestions? In the mean time here's a peek at my current project.

My brother-in-law is going to another anime convention (so jealous) and once again I have recruited myself to help with his costume. Seriously. I don't think I even gave him a choice. It was like, you're doing what? You need what? Then I just came home from work with the materials one day and now I'm on the job. What job is that you ask? I'm making a sword.

The character he's cosplaying is named Alexander Hell and he has some sort of morphing weapon that usually takes the form of a giant, elaborate, multi-bladed scythe... but occasionally looks like a sword. In some ways this was a stroke of luck, but at the same time as the secondary less popular weapon it's also incredibly hard to find reference pictures. This is pretty much what I had to work with:

I don't think this is even official art. I have no idea where it came from. It just popped up on an image search. I did also find some other cosplayers who had made the sword, so I was using that as well which helped.

So, this is now the fourth weapon I've made (/am making?). Let's see *counts on fingers* one, two, three, four. Yep, fourth. The other three were all made of wood, but for this one I'm trying something new. At anime conventions they can be stringent on what kind of "weapons" they allow in the building. Apparently they don't want anyone damaging their fellow con-goers with semi-dangerous weapons. So for this sword I'm using insulation foam board.

Rather than purchase a sheet of foam board I was able to pick up some scrap pieces from work. Score! I did need to glue two pieces together so I used a construction adhesive called QB-300 which I also got free from work because it was damaged. Double Score!