Yesterday was Drawing Day! What’s Drawing Day? Well its basically a day that this guy made up to promote drawing and more online art community activity. Which I thought was pretty cool so I enrolledPaperDemon as an official participant in the event. We were listed as a Gold Supporter because of the prominent exposure we had on our site for Drawing Day.
Here’s my main submission for Drawing Day. I hadn’t done any really good Link illustrations in a while so I thought this would be a good time to do one:
I had so much fun at FanimeCon this year that I decided to go with some friends to AnimeExpo in LA. So if you’ll be attending that con, be sure to look for me! I signed up for a photo shoot with Consplayers.com to get some nice professional photos of my costume. This means there’s even more pressure to make sure my costume looks fantastic.
There are a couple things I will attempt to fix in my Link costume before the con. First, my gauntlet is a piece of crap. Every TP Link at Fanime had a better one than me. I found a great tutorial online for making a similar armor piece out of craft foam. I’ve also got my acrylic paint handy for adding details and weathering. Plus this should not take too long to make compared to other parts of my costume.
Secondly, the hilt of my sword. The blade looks fine but the hilt is not the right shape or color. I’d like to see if I can figure out a way to make a better hilt out of craft foam. I remember going to a panel in 2001 at Fanime hosted by the Stitchin’ Babes in which they described their process of making props out of craft foam. But it’s not the same method as described on many tutorials online. Theyactually glued layers and layers and layers of craft foam together. Then carved it the way they wanted, sanded it to get finer smooth shaping, then sealed it and painted it. The result was a very light weight 3D weapon. You could use this method for creating really big props. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the details of this technique and have not had much luck finding a tutorial for this process online. I did find a tutorial though on using craft foam for making armor but this isn’t the same process because it doesn’t involve gluing many many layers and carving them. Perhaps I could give it a try on my own. I think my biggest question is what glue to use. What kind of glue would be able to hold multiple layers of craft foam together without falling apart when being carved/sanded?
The next thing is the chain mail. I did start some chain mail a couple months back but it failed because the rings were too thick and too small to work with to create a big enough length. So I’ve ordered some thinner, bigger rings. I know the pattern fairly well now so I think I can make the mail pretty fast and easily. I wont make a whole shirt, just enough for a half shirt for the parts that show.
I will update my blog with relevant news on my costume in the coming weeks. Only three more weekends left until AnimeExpo!