Commission : Straight-bladed katana (Dolfie Dream)

My first commission for a Volks Dolfie Dream (DD), this project had been a series of new discoveries for me. I need to thank my client who had been really patient with me and allowing me to work my magic with the prop.

The usual work methods aside, the paint job for this project is possibly the hardest I have encountered to date. Many a times I need to seek guidance with my mentors in order to complete it. As I have mentioned in my previous post, my airbrush had been damaged and sent in for repairs. The damage was worse after assessment, a bent pin and a cracked nozzle with overall blockage in the airbrush due to my bad maintenance. It is a miracle it managed to work thru all these and get the job done.

Let us get on with the gallery before I move on to explaining the method involved in doing this project.

The katana in its entirety, it stands at roughly 47cm. Yes, the blade is taller than Shia and still holds enough strength and weight balance for posing.

Here is another shot of it from a different angle.

The clear red blade which I am particularly proud of and the biggest challenge to this project. In order to achieve this degree of finish, the surface underwent sanding up to grade 2000 sandpaper before finishing off with polishing compound. Due to my workmanship, the surface is still not up to mark and flaws can still be seen. This is the main problem I faced when applying chrome as it is very unforgiving to mistakes. The entire paint process consists of applying chrome, clear red, UV gloss and wax in that order. The surface is then polished again to give it a shine.
 

The grip and binding, customized with color requirement and bind with a traditional pattern, is done with a new method that will be stronger and better in form for SD/DD sized dolls to hold.

Thank you for viewing !
Comments and feedback are welcome !

Random shots : A demonic fight

A random shoot that was born out of Sunday boredom, I was trying to achieve a fight scene of Shia vs a bigger opponent and her standing over its corpse. That is probably too difficult for my level now so I try to do the next thing. The aftermath of a fight with a defeated demon limp sliced off.

The entire scene was created with a portion from Shia's arsenal of swords and a cosplay prop that was on loan from a friend.

The fight scene, probably not the best combination of colours. I'll probably need to get a black background for this kind of scene.
 

2 closeup shots, trying out the side glance angle kind of shots. Doesn't look like I managed to do it very well, haha.

I probably will redo this shoot with more preparation, props and a proper background.
Thank you for viewing !

Random shots : A different kind of feel

Here I am back again with another random shots post for Shia, my MSD girl, with her starter weapon the buster sword. The prop is almost 3 years old but it never fails to amaze me with the effects it can still continue to project.

I have to apologise for the lack of updates over the past few months. The Japanese N3 exam that happened last year end and renovations for my new home has taken up a big chunk of my attention and time.

Please enjoy the following 2 shots !

I particularly like how the way the light bounces off the blade edge giving it a soft glowing effect.

A usual close-up shot, trying out for a different angle but doesn't seem to be able to capture what I had in mind...

Thank you for viewing !

Commission work : BRS katana (Kaito ver)

A commission work for a Singapore doll owner, this prop is modeled after the popular Black Rock Shooter series. However it is not for the usual female character but for the male Kaito variant instead.

Possibly the 1st SD-sized prop I have ever created and having no SD of my own to gauge and measure, a lot of it is done purely on numbers alone. Now... would this give me a perfect excuse to get a SD doll ? Haha.

As this is a commission work, I will not touch much on the WIP process.

Please enjoy the following gallery !

A little WIP section here

The katana (in pieces)

The katana and scabbard before painting

Thank you for viewing !
Feedback and comments welcomed.

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Halberd form (Further WIP+Mistake)

Everybody has their fair share of hit or miss, in this post I will be showing a mistake I made and how I improvise the prop on the mistake. I will also be touching a bit on how I glue the base shape together.

Here we go !

A simple enough process, I personally find sticking pieces of gunpla strips together is one of the harder things to do. While other mistakes could be easily rectify via sanding or using compound putty to cover over, the mistake of sticking gunpla strips pressured unevenly together and causing it to wrap sideways is almost impossible to recover from. After experimenting with various ways to maintain constant pressure during the process, the above picture is my way of doing it. I'm not sure if it is documented anywhere but hey, if it works I'm going to keep using it till I come across a better way.

The result of oversanding, I had to cut off the entire section and redo the tip. Mistake made but recoverable. One needs to be flexible and creative in recovering from mistakes rather than redoing the entire project and usually there are ways to do so.

A close up shot of the repaired blade tip compared against a traditional shaped katana tip. My tips are usually shaped in the temper patterns of yakitsume or o-maru as they are the easiest ones to reproduce.

A shot of Shia holding the WIP halberd. Not a great shot but demonstrates the prop potential in poses. 

Thank you for viewing !

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Halberd form (Completed)

The follow-up to the WIP post, this is the gallery post that I showcase the completed prop. In addition, I also did a few shots with the Raising Heart Force Blade form that I have previously posted before. Please enjoy the following series of photos.

Thank you for viewing !

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Halberd form (WIP)

The completed halberd

Here I am back again with another original variant of the Nanoha series. This time I'm challenging a new kind of weapon, namely the halberd.

Crafting a polearm kind of weapon has always been a problem for me, the selection of a shaft sturdy enough to withstand handling as well as being light and slender to be wielded by a MSD. Various issues of weight balance also comes into play such as the joining of the weapon head (in this instance, it is a blade) to the shaft is just an example of what I faced.

This also marks the first project that I complete the airbrushing by myself without guidance from my mentor. I felt pretty intimidated at first but overall it has been a wonderful experience and I must say I have fallen in love with airbrushing.

I have also taken more of my WIP process, so feel free to leave any comments and questions behind and I will try my best to answer them.

The base blade

Closeup of the blade tip

Finished base design with details

Finished base design with details (Sorry for the blurriness)

Finished design with base coat

Finished design with base coat

The full prop before painting

Thank you for viewing !

Previous works : The material of choice (gunpla sheet)

In my last post I talked about my earliest works made from epoxy putty. It was fun but unsuitable for me, I have to find something else to work with. I considered various kinds of materials such as wood, acrylic and plastic. It is purely by chance that I happened upon this certain kind of plastic known commonly in model kit circles as "gunpla sheet".

Gunpla sheet
Gunpla sheet, in the simplest words, is a portmanteau of "Gundam plastic". The very material that the popular Gundam model kits are made from, available in single sheets of various thickness starting from 0.3mm all the way up to 3mm. At least those are the thickness my regular hobby shop stocks.

Here we have my very first project made from gunpla sheet, a pair of twin blades. It is through this pair that I finally started on my journey towards serious prop making. My mentor, Sam, is an accomplished master of gunpla kits and his guidance is very much welcomed, however harsh it may be sometimes. It is also due to his influence that I constantly strive towards creating an ever better prop.

Not very long after, the buster sword project was born.

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Blade form (Posing and Weight)

While the buster sword is broad and a bit short, this project experiments with material rigidity. The entire sword is over 30cm long and I want to see how it can hold up. My swords are not of a monolithic design, therefore weight is an issue when joining the hilt to the blade itself.

The blade itself is stiff and does not wrap under its own weight. To achieve this, I used a layered piece instead of a thick piece of pla-plate on its own. I find that a single thick piece has a tendency to be less rigid toward the tip of the blade and is good up to 15cm personally. This holds true only for thickness of 0.5mm and 1mm pla-plates which I commonly uses. Recently I have seen 2mm and 3mm thick pla-plate popping up at the regular store where I get my supplies so I might test them out, time permitting.

I will do up a short post on my material experiments if there is interest.

Shia in an alter Nanoha costume with Raising Heart Force Blade

As we can see from the photo, the blade should be able to be pose regularly in most positions without much of a weight issue.

Competition photo

Last I will leave you with a shot for a photo competition I took part some years back but sadly didn't get into the top 10.

Here we come to the end of this series of posts for this project, thank you for viewing !

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Blade form (Completed)

This is the gallery post where I put up pictures of the completed project. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Blade form ! Feedback and comments are welcomed.

The completed blade

Close up of the blade tip and details

Hilt details

Hilt and grip

Thank you for viewing !

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Blade form (WIP)

Project : Original Variant - Raising Heart Force Blade form

My doll, Shia, is no stranger to cosplaying and she have a huge wardrobe of cosplay costumes. As for me, I prefer variant over canonical versions and so this project was born. To create an original variant of the female lead Takamichi Nanoha's "intelligent device", Raising Heart from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. The original was a wand but I wanted to do something alternative so I went ahead and designed a melee weapon.

Creating variants, for me personally, is a much more enjoyable process than trying to recreate the original item. It frees me to exercise my creativity rather than nip-pick on details of the original.

Looking back, I realised that I have little to none Work-In-Progress (WIP) records for my Buster Sword project. For this project, I made an effort in recording down work processes whenever possible.

The base form

Hilt details

Blade details

Click here for pictures of the completed sword !

Project : Buster Sword (Posing and Weight)

Here we have my MSD Shia (紫夜) holding the buster sword. I greatly favor using gunpla plastic/pla-plate as compared to epoxy putty. Firstly, my fingers are not nimble enough to produce something decent. Secondly, it is too heavy for my liking to provide the type of pose I aspire to have.

The above shows the sword still in the production stage but is able to be handled and posed. As this is the first weapon prop I have created with pla-plate, I shortened the blade length by a third to reduce the weight. In hindsight, I think it would not be necessary to do so.

The following two photos shows the completed sword being posed and held by my doll. Shia has jointed MSD hands which allows her to grip the weapon as a human would do so. Should the sword be made in epoxy putty, I believe poses like this would be pretty difficult to achieve without additional support.