In preparation for my upcoming Archangel Imperius build, I am making the spear he uses throughout Diablo 3.
This is what I was trying to build.
This is what I actually built.
Below is a rough outline of the steps I took to create this spear!
Using my scaled ingame model as a reference, I made some templates and cut the basic shape of the main blades out of 3/4ths inch thick Expanded PVC (Sintra). Found a scrap of the stuff big enough to host the blades for $8, score.
The next step was to take this and get sanding. After marking a line down the center of the plastic where I wanted the edge to be and blocking off the areas where the edge stopped (I used painters tape as a physical barrier ontop of the lines you see.. this is extremely helpful in stopping accidental deviations) I began my dark and prolonged work with the belt sander and orbital.
These blades are a little over 2′ long. This spear will be large.
A little crooked, but not bad for a first pass.
Edge takes shape, this process took about 40 minutes per blade. Thankfully I only had to do this step once. This plastic was harder then I expected.. perhaps it was not sintra after all.
First pass complete! Looking pretty smooth.
Drew up a template for the inner blades and started working on the circular plate the sun shape sits on. I ended up making a vac pull of a small food plate I found and cutting the plastic version to the size I wanted.
Using photoshop, I drew up a pattern for the star shape that sits ontop of either side of the blade. That thing is going to be a pain to make.
Before tackling the star, I traced and cut out 4 of these from 1/4th inch expanded PVC (Sintra), this is the first finished one after sanding it to shape. Since these sit flush against the blade in the cinematic, the blades only needed to have an edge on the top side, I did almost all of this work with a handhend random orbit sander (best tool ever). The blade is about 4″ long.
I like where this is going very much.
I decided my initial idea of building a support frame with styrene and filling in with apoxie sculpt somehow seemed like too much work, so instead I thought I would try something new. I cut the star out of 1/4th inch Sintra and got to work.
Using a combination of a dremel and orbital, I sanded down the edges of the star into fine points. This was not very easy, and I made a lot of mistakes on the inner sections.. I filled these with Apoxie Sculpt and sanded that down by hand, and it turned out as good as I was hoping. This alone took a little over an hour and a half of sanding.
I cut out the center circle, and made some teeth for the inner circle out of the same 1/4th Sintra and sanded them down to shape using mostly a belt sander and curse words. How I held onto those little .5″ long diamonds and sanded them to shape I may never understand.
Since I have yet to cast anything or use silicone molds.. ever.. and I was NOT going to make a second one of those stars, I decided to try something a little different with what I did have available to me.
Using 1mm Styrene sheets at high heat I made a pull of both masters. The thin styrene and high heat made the inside of the pulls grab a huge amount of detail. I cut the shapes out of the sheet and filled them with cheap fiberglass resin from home depot (the $26 a gallon stuff.. terrible)
Maybe one day I’ll be able to afford smooth-on.
Even I was a little surprised at how well it worked. Two perfect sets of resin casts, this is where the fun starts.
After some cleanup and a few coats of wetsanded plastic primer.. they are looking pretty smooth indeed.
I found a cheap ($5) 6′ long vinyl coated pine closet rod at Dixiline that will work perfectly for the spearshafts base. I cut a channel for the shaft in the base of the blades, and after lining it all up.. glued it in place with hot glue like a pleb. I then added two long carriage bolts going from either side into the shaft for added stability.
All of the sanding required to make the circular shaft flush with the blades (1.25″ width shaft sanded down to .75″ width) made that spot fairly weak.. so I fixed that with a pair of thin steel plates on either side of the blade going down the shaft. This thing isnt going ANYWHERE.
I added the rays of light and a border to the main blade sections, and started mapping out how to attach all this together.
After a lot of primer and finish sanding, I finally was able to assemble the head and take a look.
Going to work on the spears shaft now. Will update soon.
Freaking amazing work, I’m stunned – this is pure awesomeness!! Love it, keep it up…and just to make sure, you mentioned your “upcoming Archangel Imperius build”? You planning on crafting the epic Imperius?
You better believe it. I really enjoyed his character design from the game, that thing needs some real life representation. Still planning it out, but I’ll be starting on it soon. Glad you like the spear!
Same here, I love the game and to see some of my favourite weapons and characters coming into the real world is amazing. Keep up the good work
LOVE IT!