#prop construction

I made these for my Rin Tohaska cosplay, but of course this can translate to any character which holds jewels between their fingers. I made them in order to add another layer to my cosplay. However, to save the hassle of placing them between my fingers every time I posed for a photo, I constructed this.

Here is the primary reference I used:

I didn’t get photos while making them, but I have a couple little videos from my Instagram stories

What I used:

Craft foam

X-acto knife

Thin craft wire (and something to cut it)

Red nail varnish

Glue gun

I started by bending the wire around under my fingers and estimated how long I would want them to be, to secure they were tight to my fingers. I made each length around 3.5-4cm - ensuring the wire reaches far enough to keep it secure, but is not be visible above your finger.

I drafted a pattern for the jewels, and cut this shape out of foam. I made three of these. I then dotted some hot glue on approximately the centre of the foam shapes and placed one end of a wire piece. I repeated this so the wire connected all three by the inner facing side of the foam. I added more glue if needed, as when I pressed the wire in it left it didn’t cover the outer side of the wire, and so one of the wires slipped out.

Here is a weird doodle I did of the construction (I added the red lines to more clearly show where the wire is)

This little gif will help give a better visual of the construction:

I apologize for the quality, but this screenshot from the video might help a little more to show how I glued them.

I then covered them in some mod podge to avoid the varnish absorbing, but I don’t believe this was completely necessary. I decided to use nail varnish to colour them, as it gave them a shiny jewel-like finish and to give them some rigidity.

Here are a couple of (somewhat blurry) photos of them in use! Thank you for reading!

This is related to the deinonychus work, but ended up not being used for it. I wanted a way to move the jaw, you see, and the best way to do that seemed to be a Bowden tube anchored to the skull and to a vambrace or wristband. Pulling on the cable would move the jaw.

I did some math to try to determine whether the jaw would move more if the cable were directly attached to the lower jaw and pulled it towards the upper, or pulled at right angles to a cable connecting the two jaws. It turns out that connecting the cable at right angles would move it more slowly at the start and more quickly at the close, with the end result that the jaw would be impossible to close as it would require a lot of force to pull all the way shut.

The wrist band needed to be firm and not slide up and down the arm; it would be where the bowden tube was anchored. I went with two layers of cotton duck glued together, a layer of felt, and a layer of swimsuit liner (discounted scraps at Joann’s). Pin them together, sew them together, and you get this:

It’s a little squishy but mostly stretch-resistant.

To anchor the pad to the arm, I went with webbing straps, snap buckles, and a cheap belt from Goodwill that seemed like it would be firm:

That’s a Speedy Stitcher. Good for sewing through 1/8″-thick leather, if you’re careful not to stab yourself.

You’ll note in the upper photo of the pad that two sides aren’t yet sewed; that’s because I still needed to sew the leather on, and wanted it to not pierce through the pad:

That done, I tested the fit, using a hair tie as a stand-in for the tube, stretched from the back of the gauntlet around the two middle fingers of the hand. The hair tie wasn’t the most comfortable thing across the webbing; I used a scrap of stretchy fabric instead in later tests.

The Bowden tube material I used was 1-millimeter fishing line within a teflon tube marketed towards 3d printer aficionados. It’s lightweight and flexible and low-friction, and as I discovered, also dastardly hard to glue. There’re approved ways to bond things to teflon, which involve fluoridation and some nasty chemicals. I tested Gorilla Glue, Super Glue, two-part epoxy, white glue and rubber cement, and ended up going with hot glue and sandwiching the tube between two pieces of leather.

Austrain Curtain Drape

Chinese New Year Theme Props

Lighting