#spear tutorial

My spear started as four pieces of EVA foam: two for the main part of the spear and two for the center spines. The way these four were glued together created an opening for the shaft to fit into.

After I glued everything together I sanded things down to make the edges smoother and sharper looking. I also reduced the height of the center spines.I also glued the spear head onto the shaft at this point. 

Next I covered the spear head in Worbla. This helped get my edges sharper looking and made the angle where it attaches to the shaft better. 

I also covered the open end of the PVC pipe in some more Worbla to cap that end. 

Finally I primed and painted everything. I left the shaft black and painted the spear head silver with some highlights and shadows. 

I finished everything up with a coat of sealant. 

x1 large purple insulation foam board

Serrated knife

Tub of spackling (I used the pink kind that turns white when dry)

Spackling knife

Sanding sponge (an angled one like this is best)

Gold, metallic silver, and red spray paint

Gloss finishing spray

x1 large PVC pipe (I used 1" width)

x1 PVC plumbing fixture/fitting that looks like this (Depending on how big your PVC pipe is, you go 1/2" bigger so mine was 1.5")

A dremel (or I guess anything you have that can cut PVC)

Craft Foam

Hot glue gun

Spray adhesive

And I got everything from Home Depot and the craft foam/hot glue gun from Joann's or Michaels.

Steps:

1) Carve the basic shape of the spear from the insulation foam with the serrated knife. A serrated knife is good for cutting thick foam boards rather than just a regular knife. Save the leftover big pieces because you'll need them for the bottom half of gold part of the spear (this pic is from before I remade my spear so disregard how it looks):

  2) Carve the groove that separates the red from the silver blade part and half of the what's going to be the gold part using the knife as shown here:

The bottom half will be added later. Angle the edges of the spear when carving since it's meant to look like a blade and curve the bottom of the spear. Try to shape everything as shallow as possible since the gold part needs to be thick enough to hide the PVC plumbing fixture. It doesn't need to be as wide as the plumbing fixture since the sides will be cut in half.

3) Sand everything as smooth as possible. 

4) Spread the spackling with the spackling knife everywhere except the bottom of the what's going to be gold part. It needs to be covered well so you might want to do an extra coat after the first dries. The spackling needs to cover the foam as good as possible because whatever the spackling doesn't cover after sanding- the spray paint will eat it through and you'll have pockets/grooves in the spear.

5) After the spackling is completely dry (this can take a couple hours) sand everything as smooth as possible. If the spackling looks too thin in a few places, cover the spots with more spackling, wait till the spots dry, and sand them again. 

6) Cut the PVC plumbing fixture sides in half or enough to fit in the gold part of the spear but don't cut them completely off since the sides are to help support it. Use the dremel or saw or whatever you got to cut it.

7) Use the leftover pieces of the insulation foam to create two sides that will cover the plumbing fixture. The top needs to be as wide as the bottom of the gold part of the spear to match up and look like its all one piece. Sand, spackle, and sand the outside of the pieces but don't spackle the top that's gonna connect to the spear.

8) Carve the insides out of the middle of these sides so they can hide the fixture and carve out the bottom of the spear.

The top part should fit snug in the bottom of the actual spear and the bottom part should fit snug in the bottom half of the gold part at the top. There should be carved out room in the bottom half for the PVC pipe. So the two bottom half insides should look like this with the outside curved matching the bottom of the spear:

8) Use the hot glue gun to glue the bottom pieces of the gold part (with the plumbing fixture inside) together and to the bottom half of the spear. You kinda have to use a hot glue gun because most other heavy duty glues will melt the foam. 

9) Cut the PVC pipe to the desired height of your spear.

9) Paint the spear with their respective color parts and the PVC pipe gold. After it's dry cover the spear with the gloss finish. 

10) Cut the craft foam into two diamonds. These will be the red part that sits on the gold center. Paint the diamonds red and use the spray adhesive to glue them to the gold parts on both sides.