Just in case you guys are new or don’t watch us on Facebook, Mario and I have put up a few new video tutorials on our Youtube channel. We will be posting a few more: how to make a scabbard, and how to finish the sword. I have also posted a few videos on face and body painting! You can see these below, or go to our Youtube page to check out all of our videos!
fiberglass
Queen of Blades tutorial Step Eight: The Wings
Alice has been diligently updating every week so I’m sure you can see how complex this build truly has been. It was a learning experience at every turn, and during a trip to our local Tap plastic I found they carry a machine wound fiberglass tube in several sizes. We decided to by one and see just how strong it was.
After some testing, we were willing to give an idea that I had running around in my head a try. I had spent some time in my youth backpacking an I knew that if there was any way to make the wings full sized then the weight would have to be carried on Alice’s hips.
We had already looked at a using a corset to help “enhance” Alice’s figure and it would also lend its self nicely to a mount for the wings. Continue reading
Queen of Blades tutorial Step Six: Molding the body suit
So I’ve already covered how to make a fiberglass mold, these are just tips about how we went about doing the body mold.
If you are making a body suit, or making a mold of something just as large, then have at LEAST one other person who knows what they’re doing with fiberglass working with you, but try to get more people to help. The more people who are making the mold, the quicker it will be done. Mario and I worked two 17 hour days, only stopping for quick meals, to get the body suit finished.
Make sure to have proper ventilation, and wear gloves and masks. If your suit has a lot of detail, it’s crucial to do a layer of gel coat. We used clear gel coat to help us see any air bubbles. I covered all of this in the previously mentioned post on molds. We had some issues with the gel coat sliding, thin layers are better than thick, trust in the material. It’s better to do two or three layers of thin gel coat, than one thick layer. Make sure to read the directions on the can for multiple coats, because it’s specific on timing.
Oh, another important note, when you clean out the clay from the body form, make sure to put it in a bucket, and measure it so that you know the amount of foam latex you’ll need for the suit. Also, work quickly but also take your time with laying the fiberglass, so that there aren’t any air bubbles, or messiness.
As always, let us know about any questions or concerns. Happy crafting!
Queen of Blades tutorial Step Three: Resin arms with removable fingers
Now that you’ve made a mold of the stone hands (and if you’re having issues getting the stone out of the fiberglass mold, because we did, then we ended up having to chisel it out, and shatter and break the stone out of the hand) you can finally cast some arms with fingers that come out. If you’ve forgotten, the reason we need these for gloves is so that when we take the glove off of the arm after we’ve cast it in foam latex, the glove won’t tear with you taking it off, since the fingers will come off and you can then take the fingers out. If you used a stone hand to bake these in, then you have a very real possibility (I almost want to say 100%, but there may be someone out there who got lucky) that the fingers will snap when you take the glove off, or even sooner, when you make the fiberglass mold of the glove sculpture. Continue reading
Resin and Pepakura : A simple guide to the safe use of fiberglass resin
There are lots of tutorials on “How to fiberglass” and ” How to create Pepakura” but there these seem to skip the steps between building the Pepakura pattern and laying the fiberglass. 
Marine Helm from Halo: Combat Evolved (File from Halo costuming Wiki).
This Tutorial will help walk you through the handling, set up and mixing of fiberglass resins along with a bit on how to coat your project to get full penetration of the resin in to the paper. Continue reading
How to: Make a helm from fiberglass (Char version)
A good friend of Alice’s asked if we would take on a commission for a rather unique and truly identifiable helmet.
Char Aznable from the Gundam Universe.
Finish product before shipping!! I am aware that there are a few flaws in the helm that have far more to do with my inexperience, then any thing with my process. The following tutorial will show both how I made this helmet and a few tips to avoid a few mistakes I made along the way. Continue reading
Arms, Armor and Awesome 