Tutorial: Rikus keyblade (Patreon)

Alright guys! I have talked about how I made props before and even have a video on it, my gunblade tutorial is sort of similar so if you are still unsure how I did this by the end of this tutorial please check out that video as well!

WELL HERE WE GO!

All my props are made from insulation foam, insulation foam is supposed to be used for the interior of walls but I used it for props! It is a light weight sturdy dense foam and once sanded and carved can be shaped into whatever you can imagine, to me it is perfect for keyblades.

This stuff...is big and our care is small so we had to break it down a little lol.

First, you want to print out a picture of the prop you are working on and scale it to your height (most of the time I just make them 48"). Make a grid over the printed out picture of the keyblade with 1 inch squares and count how many squares tall and wide it is. Riku's keyblade ended up being 8 squares tall and 2 squares wide, so now we have our ratios and it's time for some fun math. 2/8 is our printed picture ratio and x/48 is our real size ratio, where x will show how big we make our squares onto the foam.....that's a lot of math haha, I am bad at explaining this part BUT this wikihow explains scale drawing rather well!

Once you have it all grided you want to now draw out your keyblade onto the foam with a sharpie, I free hand the entire thing myself.

NOW RELEASE THE BEAST FROM THE FOAM! In order to cut out into the foam I use a heat wand, you can buy these at hobby lobby!  You want to be VERY gentle with this and do not rush the process or you can snap your heat wand. Also do this in outside with a protective mask on, fumes do come off the foam as its being melted/cut and you do not want to breathe those in.

Now that you have it cut out you are going to want to sand it all down! I first take my dremel and sand down all the rough burned edges we have leftover from cutting the foam out, this is a long process so get comfy. I also bevel the foam with my dremel as well, again, make sure to be wearing a face mask during this part AND some protective goggles so the bits of foam don't come into contact with your eye.

Once dremeling was done I went back over the sections I dremeled with sandpaper (150 grit) and then once more with 200 grit sandpaper for a nice smooth finish to the edges.

Now comes the repair and build up process, when you sand some pieces of the foam will chip off but do not worry, you can fix this. I use a really light air dry clay to fill in any holes and spots that need fixing up. I also use this clay to make the raised pieces found around the handle. I took some craft foam and bordered the edges of the handle with this as well (attaching it with wood glue) to give the keyblade more dimension and for the rivets I used large googly eyes!

Anything I attach to the keyblade I use WOOD GLUE. NEVER USE ANY GLUE THAT HEATS UP/IS HOT TO BEGIN WITH! You will melt your prop and your really do not want to do that, so no E6000 or hot glue!

Now that you have everything patched up and built onto your keyblade you need to prime your prop! For foam props like this I used gorilla wood glue! This works wonders for protecting your prop and making it that more sturdy, it also helps keep everything you just placed onto keybalde stay put. I do three layers of glue (brushing the glue on with a paintbrush). In between each coat of glue I also took my 150/200 grit sandpaper and sanded down the glue, you want to make sure to sand down each layer  so your prop will have a smoother finish at the end.

This is a lot of waiting for the glue to dry, just keep going at it. I have found that three coats usually does the trick.

 I forgot to take a photo of the next part but all you are doing is spraying your prop with a layer of Plasti dip! Plasti dip is just a primer that will help you later on when painting your prop! Plus it is just nice to have base color to paint on.

Now comes my favorite part, painting! I used basic acrylics for the most part and went back in with silver leaf rub n buff to highlight the edges and placed some on the parts I felt would look shiny like the rivets.

The chain for the keyblade was just a black plastic chain from lowes and the mickey head is sculpted from the same airdry clay we used to sculpt the raised parts on the keyblade!

And that is pretty much how I made his keyblade, as always, if you have any questions feel free to ask! <3