Hei's Daggers Part 2

Here are some update pictures of the Darker than Black daggers that I am working on.

• This is the first rough. I was trying to roll the blades out entirely of clay with a long strip of armature wire running down the middle and bending back down. It proved to be extremely difficult for my skill level.

• I then did a little searching and found a website called Volpin Props, this guy was amazing. He actually did a set of Hei's daggers and instead of sculpting them out of clay he built the form up with illustration board and covered it in apoxie sculpt. So, considering this guy obviously knew what he was doing, I used that technique for the blades. It gave me the ability to get the hard edges I wanted.Here you can see I did some refining on the right side blade.

•   Her is a full on shot of the progress with the new blade style. Still only the right side blade has any detail.

 

•  Here is a shot as I stand right now. I put some detail into the left blade and reworked some areas in the handle. Note that the blades are not attached to the handle, I just have it resting on top of them.

I believe I mentioned this already but I am not simply making an exact replica of what Hei uses. I am making a slightly more elaborate handle. I have not been commissioned to make this, I just thought it would be cool to have so I went for it.

When I am done with the sculpt I will make a mold in RTV silicone and then make resin casts of the final product followed by some sanding to really bring out the hard edge look I want and finish it off with some airbrushing.

Stay tuned.

Daggers and Clay

I decided to take a small break from drawing. I was looking through some online knife vendors and noticed that I didn't see anything resembling Hei's daggers from Darker than Black. I guess it isn't that surprising, the split blade design on an actual combat knife was probably one of the worst design choices ever. Since this is just anime fantasy though, nothing is stopping me from creating my own.

I am no where near done, but I commented on someone else's page about it and thought it may be a good idea to post a picture. 

I am working with NSP Chavant and given that it is about a hundred degrees here I can practically use it at room temperature. I hope to make a couple molds out of it, perhaps one in ultracal and one in silicone rtv. I will complete the process by casting it in a plastic resin, which will make the finished prop about as functional as a real split blade dagger.