League of Legends - Tryndamere - Fanime 2013

BEHOLD!!! The most well documented armor build I've done to date! I have 80+ pictures available but Lord only knows if I'll use them all.

I always wanted to cosplay Tryndamere since his redesign was released, but I was too scared to try and do it. Then on Christmas morning we were having breakfast with Yaya Han of all people and she convinced us to make the attempt. I wound up finishing a month late since we were supposed to cosplay League of Legends together at Anime Matsuri, but better late than never.

**Note: This is not in chronological order of how things were fabricated, but arranged in line for ease of understanding.**

Let's get started!!! Here's the reference!



First thing I started knocking out was the sword. Made a wood base with a border. The border was to allow the separation of PVC foam and expanding foam so as to save some weight.



PVC was added on the outside of the wooden border.



This was then ground down using an angle grinder. A hole was cut to allow for an even greater weight reduction.



Expanding foam was added and sanded flush with the wood.



Lastly a styrene (important it is styrene since styrene is harder than PVC foam) plate was added to the whole affair.


The bases for the large gem were built from styrene and PVC nibs at the ends. These nibs were ground down later on with a sander.





Cardstock pattern for the wacky detailing was cut from the game art.



If you blue tape your pattern to the PVC it stays on better for a more accurate trace and, eventually, cut.



The gems were PVC and acrylic extrusion, then filled with apoxie sculpt.







Additionally the large gem was filled with model magic (for weight) and then PVC plates were placed on top instead of my typical apoxie method.



Painting time! Prime it, sand it, prime again. Base coat, finish coat. weathering. Always tape stuff off for maximum sharpness!







Helmet time! Started its life as a construction helmet then PVC was glued to it.




Horns were made even larger from initial pattern.





Ring guides added to give a uniform shape.





Bondo EVERYWHERE to get the damn thing smooth.





 OOPS!!! Had to bring the eye slits in and round them out. But also added acrylic extrusion and 1mm PVC detailing!





Model magic interior of horns.



The infamous aftermath of the prior shot where the helmet glued itself to my head and I lost an eyebrow in the process....If you're interested it doesn't grow back the same anymore.





Apoxie sculpt shell for the horns.



Prime it and sand it!



Base coat it!



Detail paint it!



Don't know where to start with armor. First progress picture again for it chronologically.



Guard was added to pauldron. Stacked PVC.



PVC extrusion was added to all pieces, example in bracer.







Skull belt patterned from cardstock. Used exacto knife and paper folding method to get symmetry.



Skull belt placed onto 3mm PVC.



Skirt armor! Used a PVC guide to give uniform spikes on the ends with apoxie sculpt.





Another example with the bracer.







Not shown.... priming and sanding portion.

Base coat down!



Tape it all off for the detail coat!









Had to paint the gem bits. Used a mix of the Testor's Flat Blue and Green Metal Flake. Put down 1 coat of blue then 1 thin coat of metal flake.





Strap it! Clam shell strapping is shown below. I labyrinth my arm in there with elastic for the clam shell effect.





Skirt is just nylon strapping.



Pack it into a tub for the con!



That's about it. I didn't use all the pictures, but they're mostly redundant. See you all on the Fields of Justice!!!

League of Legends - Bloodmoon Akali - Fanime 2013

Bloodmoon Akali's weapons were a small side project I decided to do for a friend in our group. So here's the reference.



First step was to cut the profile of the weapon to make a pattern.



From this the shaft was cut from plywood while the blade was cut from expanded PVC foam (Sintra/Komatex).



From here these pieces were glued together using Loctite Power Grab.



Once the glue was able to cure an angle grinder was used to round out the shaft and bevel the edges on everything.



The hole in the middle was cut using a hole saw.



I realized that the inner portion of the ring needed to be beveled, so the easiest way to do that was to cut another circle at an angle using the jigsaw's built in... angle... thing.



Once this was done 1mm PVC was added to the blade for the arcane letter detailing and acrylic extrusions were added to the shaft.



The grip was made from brown vinyl tape and weathered with soft black acrylic paint. Happy cosplay! Hope to see some of you on the Fields of Justice!!!

League of Legends - Spellthief Lux - Fanime 2013

Spellthief Lux was one of those projects that I was scared of the entire time and solely because it was so simple. I mean, if you screw up 1 thing on the costume itself you're going to look silly. That being said, I was very happy that I was only tasked with making the staff. So let's get started! Here's the reference!



My first task was to go out to one of the many online League of Legends model viewers on the web and take a screen cap of the staff. Once I had it I could get a nice template from it and get the correct proportions.



First the pattern was laid out onto plywood and cut. I cut 3 pieces in order to achieve the correct thickness.



Once the staff base was cut out and glued together an angle grinder was used to round out the staff. Please note the rectangular notch cut into the wood.



The notch is cut there so that the other half of the staff head could be slotted into the staff itself then glued in place.



This was glued together then ground down with an angle grinder... a hand held angle grinder... it was the least safe thing I have ever done.



Finally when a rough shape was ground out the two pieces were ready to be glued together.



The shape is a bit awkward, but, not pictured, a Dremel rotary tool with sanding drum was used to clean up those nasty seams.





Staff is ready for staining.



The staff was stained with a dark walnut stain and OMFG it was WWWAAAAYYYYY too dark, so lesson learned... staining plywood is really a crapshoot. Try it at your own risk. I was able to salvage the whole affair using a bright silver trim I found in the scrapbooking section of Michael's. Unfortunately I couldn't find it on their website though but it should be there.



Hood was embroidered and test tubes filled with blue hair gel, then we were off to the convention! Questions, comments, concerns? Give us a shout in the comments!