RWBY - Ruby Rose - SDCC 2013

I managed to catch the attention of Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, with the Weiss sword (Myrtenaster). As a result I was approached to make the Crescent Rose for SDCC2013. I told him that I was busy working on the Attack on Titan 3DMG for Crunchyroll's promotion at AX, which would mean I would only have a 10 day window to work with. Despite this constraint I was given the go ahead to take on the project.

It did. 

I got home from Anime Expo, tired and weary and with no time to even unpack. I got to work. Here is the reference I was given to work with.





Full Reference here

Ruby has my favorite weapon, without a doubt, and I like to think that my incessant fanboying over Crescent Rose's design was what landed me the commission.



First order of business was to scale it out correctly. Calculated that for a 5'6" female that Rose would need to stand 88.8" tall. The better part of me said not to go full retard. Scaled it down to 75". Shown is the full scale scythe head pattern and not the one I wound up using.



Started cutting out the scythe from 1/8" PVC foam. This stage I used a box cutter and yard stick to get the straightest lines possible. Decided to mount everything to a piece of .75"x1.5" pine. No plywood this time! Big thanks to Rooster Teeth for giving me a real people budget so I can stop making things like a poor person!



Started cutting out the scythe head and the detailing.





Started gluing it all together using Loctite Professional Liquid Super Glue.



Started wielding the staff and it was REALLY floppy. It might as well have been a flag.


I'm an engineer by trade, not an artist. So I figured that in order to solve this problem all that was needed was to increase stiffness while minimizing load. Stiffness of a beam is proportional to the moment of inertia, therefore as per the equation...

Where: 

I = Moment of Inertia
b= base of cross sectional area
h= height of cross sectional area

If we increase the height of the cross sectional area we will increase the stiffness by a factor of h^3.


In any case this is shown by placing these spines perpendicular to the blade face.





Blade tips and circle were cut from 3mm PVC foam and detailing was cut from 1mm PVC foam.



Blade tips were all beveled using a belt sander and orbital sander. Holes drilled using Forstner bits.



Blade tips attached with super glue.



Rifle section cut from  3mm PVC.



Glued directly to staff section.



PVC was used to surround the entire thing and enclose it like a box.



At this point we were running out of time. Had to toss some details out the window i.e the scope. Scope was added using PVC pipe and sprinkler pipe fittings for the knobs. Dowel drilled into the side and a breach made with acrylic and PVC. Magazine is another PVC foam box.



Bondo auto body filler was used to fill the seams, and then the body was sanded and primed. Then primed and sanded.



Used method of taping off sections and painting layers. Big thanks to Renoke and PHDPepper for taping and painting while I was gone in Los Angeles to take care of some exciting cosplay business! Also shout out  to Killer Tentacle Octopus for painting the red center cyber punk detail thing. Putting my SDCC house guests to work!





Completed Rose, stuffed it into my girlfriend's car and delivered it to SDCC. However... while all this was going on there was a little bit of prop drama developing with yet another RWBY prop that was never supposed to be made in the first place...

Ruby Rose - Aku Sesu

RWBY - Weiss Schnee - SDCC 2013

December 2012. I was messaged on my personal Facebook in the middle of a drunken haze for a sword commission. I didn't really think anything of it, but it would quickly lead into some of the most fun props I've had the honor of making. I wasn't given the name of what it was, where it was from or anything, just that it was an unreleased character from some unreleased show.





First order of business was to get a plan together and a pattern ready. Decided that I would build this using discs to guide my apoxie sculpt in making them a uniform cylinder.



Cut the silhouette from MDF board and added another layer to thicken the blade and handle.



Cut out some quarter circles and the fins from PVC foam. Then glued them perpendicularly to the wood base that was made.



Added expanding foam to the cylinder. Note the Alibaba dagger WIP. You KNOW I was working on this way before ALA.



Placed apoxie sculpt over the expanding foam then smoothed.





Added the end of the pommel bit with apoxie sculpt and a 1mm PVC foam bit to ensure a uniform height increase.



Added acrylic and PVC foam triangle details to the fins and cylinder.





Super glued some 3D scrapbooking details on the fins. Bondo'd the seams and primed. Lightly sanded for a smooth finish.





Spray painted silver with Rustoleum metallic silver. Painted red using Testor's enamel. Added weathering.

Top is weathered. Bottom is unweathered.



Apply soft black acrylic.



Wipe with towel.



Excess is the weathered portion.



Repeat for the rest of the piece.



Then the whole thing is done!





I would wind up finishing this before the trailer was released. I watched it after I was done.



Realized that the concept was all red. Trailer was rainbow...

I'm an adult...

The whole build was pretty straightforward, but I didn't realize it would spawn another set of projects entirely...

Weiss Schnee Cosplay by Sushi Monster

Attack on Titan - Eren Jaeger / Christa Lenz - Anime Expo 2013

Attack on Titan (Shingeki No Kyojin) was a monumental task that I inadvertently dropped on myself. I had a grand plan to get a group together from the Crunchyroll Ambassadors in order to promote the show, and thinking that the props would be quick and easy, I decided to make 2 sets in the scant 14 days or so we had to prepare. I got a bit in over my head to say the least. First off I want to give  a big thanks to our sponsors Epic Cosplay Wigs and Crunchyroll. Without their support we couldn't have pulled this group off!





*I want to note that not everything is in perfect chronological order, but in the order of which I feel is best for understanding.*

Now on to the reference! I used art that I found on Tumblr. Whether or not it is official I really have no idea, so I wound up cross checking with the stuff in the show.







First order of business was to draft some patterns, and in a first I was able to salvage (dig out of the trash) the patterns that I made and share them with you all. Granted what I could salvage was not all inclusive, but it's better than nothing...Click the link to grab a hi res. If I had to do it over I would have done the correct way of attaching the hip guns to the winch disc things, alas I will admit that I didn't quite fully understand the references OTL.

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I started by making the back engine. Using a PVC pipe to string all the pieces together I started getting to work on the center and working my way out. Cutting circles... endless circles. Luckily I had my circle cutting jig which made things go smoothly. Circles were cut from 6mm PVC foam.



Once all the circles were cut I was able to drill a hole large enough for the pipe and glue them all together.



The two discs on the side were made using the discs with walls cut from 1mm PVC. Additionally holes were drilled in order to decrease weight.



Hole was drilled on the side of the center part of the engine to allow the pipe to go through.



All of this was threaded onto the pipe.



Fins were glued to the pipe and the disc.



Then we sanded a shit ton and added holes to allow for a coaxial female bit.



Added the grappling guns with coaxial female bits for later cable attachment.



Swords were cut from plywood.



6mm PVC and bike brake handles added.





 Hole was drilled and coaxial bit was added.

Finally details were added with 1mm and 3mm PVC.

Boxes were the last pieces to be made. First the pattern was followed and the front grills cut along with the sides of the box.

PVC pipe with acrylic ball added along with PVC plumbing parts to make the top of the cylinder. Adhered with Loctite Professional Liquid Super Glue.

Inside of sheath allowed for dummy blades and actual blade to be housed at the same time. Far right is the sheath section for the real blade, left are the sections for dummy blades.

Boxes were gap filled with Bondo auto body filler and sanded.

Details and brackets were cut from 3mm PVC. Oppai mousepad is also important to the process...

Detailing glued to the sheath.

Painting was done with the usual method of taping sections off. Here is a picture from the last detail coat. At this point we were rushing to finish, so pictures are fewer.

Added parachute cord to the swords as well as 1mm PVC grips carved for texture.

Strapping was done using nylon web on the side of the box and looped through the belt on the waist. Engine was nylon webbed to the waist belt as well. Sheaths additionally were looped with the belts that came with costume to the thigh. 

**Story Time!!!**

For this group it was so much easier to just order from Taoboa, unfortunately when I got my costume (the day before the convention) I found that my jacket and my shirt did not fit AT ALL. My shoulders were simply too wide. So Susan (our Mikasa) came over and sewed a jacket together for me in 3 hours. Additionally Jen (Christa) managed to get my shirt together beforehand. If you look at our group pictures you can barely tell that my jacket is different. So happy! Thanks sewing people!!! Without you I could never really cosplay...

Hope that all helps! The group as a whole more or less followed a watered down version of this tutorial (I was writing it as I went) and their gear turned out very similar to mine. So hopefully that is a testament to the ease of this prop? Or perhaps the effectiveness of the templates? Let us know! Questions, comments and concerns don't hesitate to give us a shout!

My gear is on the right (Eren). 

My gear is on the girl on far right (Christa).