freshly baked mandycakes

STEP 1: SKETCH THAT MOFO. I tend to free hand all my designs, but if you look hard enough on the interwebz you can probably find a real pattern. 

STEP 2: MAKE SURE THE THING IS THE RIGHT SIZE. This is important!!! You cannot just take measurements from another person, the weapon must be proportional to you! If you are very tall or very short, your weapon is going to look weird if you make it using cannonical dimensions...if you can find them at all. 

STEP 3: STRUCTURAL SUPPORT. I used cardboard and a wooden dowel. Take note of the size of the cardboard; it's about a inch-ish smaller than the pattern on all sides. This is so I have room to build up.

STEP 4: PAPER AND TAPE. This part you can use anything, really. I decided to use balled up paper and masking tape. This is just to make the basic shape. You will want this part to be as light as possible, as the steps later on will add heavier components. 

STEP 5: PAPER MACHE. This step is just to harden the shape you created with the paper and tape. Don't worry about bumps and shit, it's going to be messy and that's ok. 

STEP 6. WOOD FILLER, SANDING, MOD PODGE. Cover that fucker with wood filler. Just all over. Everywhere. Build up the shapes if they didn't form from the paper mache. Then sand it down to be nice and smooth. (repeat as necessary) When you are happy with the shape, cover it with a couple layers of mod podge to protect it.

STEP 7: WORBLAAA. Using the pattern you made earlier, cut out the shapes in foam and cover them in worbla. If you have gaps between the base and the worbla just fill it with more wood filler, or hot glue, or paper....whatever. Then seal it with whatever you want, I used mod podge again. (I wanted a wood-like texture so I took advantage of the brushstrokes you get with mod podge and made sure to only brush horizontally)(if you don't want this texture I would use something better than mod podge) 

STEP 8: PAINT THAT BITCH. I used a spray paint primer to start and then hand painted the rest. All acrylic paint. Then more mod podge as a top coat.

STEP 9: ROCK THAT BOW. It's heavy as shit and very awkward but it looks good in pictures, and that's all that really matters :P