The Cosplay Construction Blog: Inu-Yasha

I won't bother to post a reference picture since every anime fan and his brother should know what the character looks like by NOW. Instead, here's a picture of the finished project:

And this is what I used to make it:

1 - 7" brass ring
6 - 3" brass rings
1 sheet 2mm craft foam (it makes no difference what the color is)
.020 gauge styrene plastic sheeting (a 2' x 2' square should suffice)
12" thick wire
5 - 3/4" (or slightly smaller) round beads
Michael's brand gluesticks
Testor's gold enamel paint and brush
Staff

Step one was to locate the staff the staffhead would rest on. (The person I made this for wanted a staff that was 1" thick. For best results, though I would recommend using a staff that has a 3/4" diameter. It looks more correctly proportioned, I think.) For the staff, you can either use a wooden dowel, a length of PVC pipe, or a plastic broom/mop handle (you can find cheap ones for sale at most dollar stores.) Here's the staff I used for this project:

You want to make the staffhead so it can be removed (this is good if you want to send it in the mail or store it in a tight space.) To do this you make a coupling for the staff. Cut a rectangular section of the 2mm craft foam that's 4" high or so. Wrap the foam around the staff and cut it so it encircles it completely. Hotglue the edges of the foam sheet together (taking care to NOT glue the foam to the staff itself while doing this.)

Next step is to take a sheet of styrene plastic and glue it around the foam (making it so it slightly overlaps).

There. You've made the coupling. (That wasn't hard, was it?) The tube of foam and styrene should be able to slide up and down the staff easily (but not TOO easily. You want a little snugness there.)

The next step is to create a setting for the bladed ring. Do this by making the coupling overlap the end of the staff by about an inch, then take a marker and draw a line around the coupling at that point. Then cut two slits about a 1/4" wide in the coupling like so:

...thereby creating a slot to stick the 7" brass ring in. The next step is to embed the brass ring into the slot and glue it in place with hotglue.

It's probably not going to be very secure, so the next step is to wrap a strip of styrene around the top of the coupling--covering the slots--and then glue it in place.

In the next step you have to be very careful. Take a wirecutters and snip the 7" brass ring (doesn't matter where you do so as you're just going to glue it back up again.)

That done, now take the 6 3" brass rings and slip them through so they're hanging from the larger brass ring. You'll have to move the smaller rings out of your way as you're constructing the rest of the staffhead, but you'll find it's much less trouble attaching them now and working around them than it would be to cut each 3" ring open and attach them after the staffhead is finished. (It will look more attractive too, as you won't have a lot of ugly glue-joints on your smaller rings.)

This being done, now you re-glue the 7" brass ring closed.

There. You've finished attaching the rings.

Now comes the lardest part of the staff - making the center. This has to be made so that it fits onto the coupling while looking relatively seamless. The first thing to do is make the base. Take a 2mm sheet of craft foam and..well... do this with a marker...

--when you've worked out the general shape of the base, cut 2 identical pieces from the foam and glue them together down the sides like so:

--creating something like this:

Place it on top of the coupling, matching the edges as closely as possible. Mentally figure out how tall you want the piece to be. (Remember, there has to be room for the rest of the base, 5 beads and the two crescent-shaped pieces in the middle.)

Glue the foam piece in place over the coupling. The next step id the hardest bit. Cut a square of styrene plastic, place it against the base and mark off where the plastic meets with the 7" wire ring. Put notches in the plastic to allow the piece of plastic to fit snugly against the base on one side. like so:

The bottom edge of this new piece will be the "seam" on the coupling that's just below the base (so make sure it's at an even level all the way around.) Hotglue the plastic to the side of the base and trim away any excess plastic. This should give you a clear picture of what you should have at this point:

See where the horizontal "seam" is below the ring? You now have one side of the base covered with plastic. Do the exact same thing you just did to the other side. You'll have seams running up the sides of the base piece. It's hard to glue plastic along a seam with that extreme a curve so it's possible you will have a slight gap in the side. If so, cover it up with a thin strip of plastic. Trim all seams and overlaps with a craft knife so that they're relegated to the sides of the staffhead, and not visible from the front.

There. You've made the base piece.

It's time now to make the ring blade. The first thing you do is cut out a banana-shaped piece of plastic roughly as large as 1/2 of the 7" ring. Put the plastic over the ring and bend the plastic into a ridge (making it so the peak of the ridge is directly over the ring itself. Like so:)

Use a marker to define the blade (it's thickness should probably be no more than 3/4") and to draw the areas along the blade where you want the sharp, diamond-shaped flanges to be (it's up to you if you want there to be 4 or only 2 flanges- I've been reference pictures that featured both versions, so it's pretty much a matter of preference.)

Once you've defined the shape of the blade, cut it out and place it over a fresh piece of plastic. Cut another shape to match it and bend the ridge down the middle in the opposite direction. (In instead of out, or vice versa.) You'll need to make 4 blades in total - 2 to be glued onto one side of the ring and 2 to be glued onto the other.)

Before you can glue the blades on though, you'll need to thicken the ring a little. Do this by cutting a thin strip of 2mm craft foam and hotgluing it over the length of the entire 7" brass ring on both sides.

Now glue one of the blade shapes to the ring (you may need to do some custom-shaping with the bottom end of the blade shape so it'll fit snugly to the base piece with no gaps.)

Hotglue the blade's opposing piece to the other side of the ring. Very carefully hotglue the outer edges of the blade pieces together at the sides. (Be neat. Make sure there's no plastic overlap or gobs of glue sticking onto the blade edge. Trim off any excess glue or plastic with a craft knife.) Do the same now for the inner edges of the blade pieces.

And repeat these steps for the other side.

Make sure the blade pieces all meet up at the very top of the ring neatly.

Inspect your work to make sure that the lines of the blade are clean and neat. Sand off any excess surface glue with hobby/model sandpaper (not REAL hardware-store sandpaper. You'll only scratch the surface if you use that.)

Voila! The ringblade is made...

With the ringblade finished, it's time to add another layer to the base. Do this by taking a piece of 2mm craft foam and cutting it like so:

Cut a front and a back piece and glue them together. Glue styrene sheeting over both pieces and glue up the side seams. Then, set the finished 2nd layer into the base piece as shown:

You got that? Good. Now's the time to attach the wire to the staffhead (the wire we'll string all the center ornaments on. First, you cut a section of the middle gauge wire and make a small hook in one end. Place the hook under the exposed wire at the bottom of the ring (in the staff base.)

Center it and dribble some hotglue over it to hold it in place. Then hold the wire up to measure the amount you will need. (Cut the wire so that the end reaches about 1" above the top of the ringblade.)

Poke a hole in a small sheet of plastic and string the wire through it. Hotglue the top edges of the 2nd layer of the base piece and press the plastic down onto it (It probably makes more sense when you look at it than it does listening to me describe it:)

If you think you'll have enough space within the ring to string all the beads and ornaments, fine. If not, cut a hole into the layer of plastic which you just glued down and stuff a couple of thick, diamond-shaped pieces of craft foam into the base piece. (This will give you a little more room to work with.)

We're almost finished with the construction of the staffhead. With the base all finished and with the middle wire in place, it's time to string the beads and crescent ornaments into place.

Start by sketching out a 1" (or so) crescent shape onto a piece of styrene. Cut it out and hotglue it to a piece of thick (6mm) craft foam. Cut it free and then glue it to another piece of styrene. Cut it free again and what you should then have is a crescent shaped piece of foam coated on both sides with styrene. Now cut a long strip of styrene and glue it around the sides. Trim off any excess plastic and what you should wind up with is a crescent ornament that's completely covered with styrene:

Make two of these ornaments, then poke holes through them and string them on the middle wire like so:

String 3 more beads onto the wire. You may have to mix and match the sizes of the beads to get everything to fit. (ie: using a slightly smaller bead at the top or making the 2 beads on the bottom slightly smaller than the 3 beads on the top, etc.) Try not to use beads that are widely varying in size as you don't want people to notice there's a difference.

Okay, before moving onto the next step, make sure you divide the 3" hanging rings so you have 3 on one side of the staff's middle and 3 on the other side. (This is because once the wire it attached to the top of the ringblade, it will no longer be possible to move the rings freely around it. )

If all the rings are where they should be, then wrap the wire around the top of the ringblade and hotglue it into place.

The last thing you make is the tip of the staff. Take a 2mm piece of craft foam, place it on top of the ringblade and draw something like this:

Cut out two identical pieces and hotglue them to a sheet of styrene. Cut them free of the plastic.

Next, cut out a small, bullet-shaped piece of plastic about 1" long. Cut another identical piece of plastic and glue them together edge to edge, like so:

Stuff some craft foam between the layers to give the piece some 3D-ness and hotglue it to the top of the ringblade:

Take the plastic-covered pieces you made earlier and hotglue them to the front and back of the bullet-shaped piece, like so:

Glue the sideseams together and trim away any excess plastic. There you go. All you have to do is paint it with testor's gold enamel paint and you're finished:

You can create the effect of a polished blade by applying the paint on the ringblade with short, horizontal strokes.

Here's a side view of the staffhead: