Warrior of Light - Paladin Sword Tutorial

Hey there guys! Today I will be showing you how I made my sword for my Paladin cosplay!

Materials:

• Insulation Foam
• Worbla
• Heat wand/gun
• Wood glue
• LED rice lights 
• Diffusion foam (3mm) 
• PVC Pipe
• 2mm/5mm Craft foam
• White cloth
• Metalic silver spray paint
• Rub n Buff (Gold and Silver)
• Black Acrylic paint
• Gemstones
• Dremel
• sandpaper
• Sharpie
• Painters tape
• Hot glue gun/glue sticks

The first thing I did was sketch out the swords base, you can make it as big as you need, for mine I made it slightly smaller than it is supposed to be cause I knew I would be traveling with it and wanted it to be able to fit into my suitcase, size it up based on your height. I also draw on the details to the sword to give me an idea of how things will look, make sure to include your bevel lines as well and leave a 1/2 inch bit of space on the sides when you're cutting it out with your heat wand to make sure you don't make the sword too skinny/small.

I cut a PVC pipe out for the handle and used TONS of hot glue on the edges and slid them into the holes I create in the insulation foam, the more glue the better for this part as its going to need to be as sturdy as possible.

I ended up revising the shapes and redoing the end piece after looking at more reference images, to get a smooth finish on the edges you're gonna want to sand it down with a high grit sand paper (100-150) and keep at it till its a smooth as you want it to be.

With my head wand I went in and drew indented lines where I would be placing my LED lights, these were a bit deep cause they needed to house both the LED wire and the foam that would go atop it to diffuse the lights.

I filled the insides of the crevices with wood glue and took my LED wire and pushed it into place with help of the back end of a small paint brush and a popsicle stick.

Once the wire was in place I cut out very small thin strips of diffusion foam and placed that atop the LED wire while the glue was still wet. For the wires the connect to the battery pack I had them wrap around the handle and the battery pack base was glued down to the base of the bottom of the sword.

I took some 2mm foam and wrapped the handle with that, that way it would hide the wires better. I also made small bias border of foam and wrapped the bottom of the battery pack with it to hide it better and make a nice transition between the battery pack and the handle.

The sword has this winged shape to it above the handle, I pretty much just eyeballed this and drew it out, then used layers of foam to give it more depth. This was then covered in worbla for stability! Be sure to draw in your detail lines BEFORE adding the worbla though and make the over exaggerated since you will lose small details when adding the worbla atop.

I covered the battery pack with foam clay, let that dry and sanded it down to keep it smooth. I used some extra 3D printed stars I had for my own personal detail on the swords handle as well. The winged hilt base was glue down with super glue and they were connected to one another by simply just heating up the undersides of the worbla and pushing them together as one, worbla sticks to itself REALLY well. The half-moon shapes coming out the sides were made out of 2mm foam and have a small worbla edge so it can keep its structure easily.

I added a bit of detail to the half-moon shapes, continuing the wig/feather designs from the hilt onto it. I also glued down some gemstones I had that fit the sword rather nicely! I also cut out some more detail pieces out of 2mm foam for the length of the sword and the small detail at the very end of it!

To prime the sword for painting I painted it with 3 layers of wood glue, this will also keep the sword from breaking/snapping easily. Between each coat of wood glue, once it dries, sand it down with a high grit sandpaper to remove and clumps that may have occurred when painting. I also covered the gems with blue painters tape so that they did not get any glue on them.

Next part was rather tedious, covering the LED sections with blue tape, that way no paint got on it when it came time to spray paint the prop.

Give a nice even coat of spray paint to the prop!

Lastly came the detail painting, which I have shown how I paint in my previous tutorials on my Warrior of Light! I also added a bit of fabric to the swords handle as well and weathered them with black acrylic paint! As always if you have any questions please let me know!