Livebyhonor
New Member
This is a project I have been working on as money and desire permitted and I came to realize I had been working on it slowly for 2+ years. Well enough of that, its time to finish this thing. Years ago I was searching ebay for the "legacy of Kain" and "soul reaver" games I didnt have since they are getting harder to get in the stores. Long story short I saw a sale going for a mock up of the sword and it simply was not up to par with the game sword and I decided I had to kill that image, and what better way than with my own replica of it.
In case you have no idea what the reaver is this is it.
First off I had to decide if it would work as it was in that pic or not. Beside the handle being a little short for a 2 hander, yes. so I began making the skull and wings section. The first version was made of clay, then latex went on it in coats for like a week. After that i molded it from pure fiberglass resin. it worked but really lacked the details I wanted so I started from scratch and went with bondo.
With Bondo it did take some time but I think it turned out better. You may have noticed I took some of my own Artistic licencing and put blades where the wings were. But I'm not done yet I do have plans to put the wings on in a different way but I need a nearly complete sword to do it.
With the blade made out of MDF its easy to cut out but its difficult to shape edge wise. Since the sword tapers slowly all the way i have to slowly adjust the blades first sharpening edge tighter and tighter or the last 6 inches f the sword would be paper thin (edge A is 1 inch wide while edge B is like 1/2 wide). So essentially the thing becomes more and more blunt as it gets to the tip. But I realized with this blade shape its not so much a sword now since you cant slice with that shape. Its more of an axe where you chop or hack so the sharpness thing sort of went to the " that works" section of my reasoning.
And due to that fact sanding it on a belt sander would have been difficult enough but the serpentine blade makes it 90% impossible to do. If I were to use the belt sander the interior curve wouldn't get sanded since the width of the belt and the outside curve of the next and previous curve would not have worked. So after days of a hefty rat tail file and a drawn line to follow I got it close to what I wanted. only thing is the defining edge from the flat portion to the 1st edge sanding got smoothed off a little so I need to work out a way of getting that defining line back.
I just got my first mold made so later I'll make the first actual plastic hollow skull so I can move on to the next steps. (the reason I'm making another skull is I want to also make the original sword design to so I need 2 skulls) Since im still sort of winging it on the handle for length I dont have a exact length of the sword but as it is now its 54" or so long.
I'll keep you informed on my progress as it goes. I have more pics on my flickr that ill link at the bottom If you want to look at more.
Visit My flickr Website
In case you have no idea what the reaver is this is it.
First off I had to decide if it would work as it was in that pic or not. Beside the handle being a little short for a 2 hander, yes. so I began making the skull and wings section. The first version was made of clay, then latex went on it in coats for like a week. After that i molded it from pure fiberglass resin. it worked but really lacked the details I wanted so I started from scratch and went with bondo.
With Bondo it did take some time but I think it turned out better. You may have noticed I took some of my own Artistic licencing and put blades where the wings were. But I'm not done yet I do have plans to put the wings on in a different way but I need a nearly complete sword to do it.
With the blade made out of MDF its easy to cut out but its difficult to shape edge wise. Since the sword tapers slowly all the way i have to slowly adjust the blades first sharpening edge tighter and tighter or the last 6 inches f the sword would be paper thin (edge A is 1 inch wide while edge B is like 1/2 wide). So essentially the thing becomes more and more blunt as it gets to the tip. But I realized with this blade shape its not so much a sword now since you cant slice with that shape. Its more of an axe where you chop or hack so the sharpness thing sort of went to the " that works" section of my reasoning.
And due to that fact sanding it on a belt sander would have been difficult enough but the serpentine blade makes it 90% impossible to do. If I were to use the belt sander the interior curve wouldn't get sanded since the width of the belt and the outside curve of the next and previous curve would not have worked. So after days of a hefty rat tail file and a drawn line to follow I got it close to what I wanted. only thing is the defining edge from the flat portion to the 1st edge sanding got smoothed off a little so I need to work out a way of getting that defining line back.
I just got my first mold made so later I'll make the first actual plastic hollow skull so I can move on to the next steps. (the reason I'm making another skull is I want to also make the original sword design to so I need 2 skulls) Since im still sort of winging it on the handle for length I dont have a exact length of the sword but as it is now its 54" or so long.
I'll keep you informed on my progress as it goes. I have more pics on my flickr that ill link at the bottom If you want to look at more.
Visit My flickr Website