Cold Steel

This is a boomstick, there are many like it and more will come. Great progress is achieved on the cosplay props front. Not only did I hammer out ball and chain cuffs for the foot. I also managed to upload a new video and updated my waifu collection on Patreon. Happy fun times all around. The cuff was created from an iron plate I cut into appropriate pieces and went to town with a mallet. The ultimate solution for any problem. A hammer is a fantastic stalemate breaker when some deluded fool only think there exist two choices. Unexpected results will occur, but results non the less. Some precaution is recommended. 

One thing is for sure though, working with iron and a hammer is quite fun and satisfying. It comes highly recommended. After all learning a craft is a nifty life skill. Especially when dealing with IKEA furniture and other things that has to stay attached to a surface. The next step is clear to me. I just have to complete my forge and get myself an anvil. A nifty tool of iron, that would have made my cuff a lot more refined. It’s a seriously tricky process to hammer a sheet of metal into a desirable shape with only logs to help and no heat. According to my father there is an old saying. Blacksmiths working without heat goes to Heaven, while those that have a forge goes to hell. Essentially I put the metal sheet on top of a log and start bending it with pliers and hitting it hard with a hammer. Surprisingly effective all things considered. About the only thing not made by me is the bolts, the plastic chain and the bauble. Making rudimentary hinges is not that hard it seems. Nor creating loops to pass the chain through.

Meanwhile I also did some more on the Reaper shotgun. It’s a fascinating thing, with a lot of details. Which I figured I could make with clay and melting the pattern with a soldering iron. It releases dank fumes and I’m probably better of with a sharp knife. The trigger guard is mostly made by assemnbling cardboard parts cut to the right size.

Twitch.tv/zaceron #reaper #cospaly #ballnchain #cuffs #shotgun #bdsm

Zaceron

Video editing 404 07.14.2017

Today was spent on editing a synopsis video of my lovely and slightly off putting Easter eggs. That video went from eight hours of stream, into a less than ten minutes long clip show, with voice over explain some of the process and choices. Much like my blog updates. I have not edited much if any video before and it shows. Especially in my get ripped with Dark Souls video. Where I though everything was to scale. Guess what, it was not. Apparently selecting the whole track and selecting scale to frame, failed me. Leaving half the video in the wrong scale. I have fixed it now though. But you tube is not capable of replacing a video. Only to re-upload it, onto a new url. Which is a bit annoying, but understandable and his been that since the beginning. After all we can’t have people replacing one video with another one. Yet cutting parts and basic editing is totally acceptable. I swear that I did check the content before I clicked publish. It did not occur to me to check a second time. However a more correct version is up. It is a first time for everything. Friday will be a problem indeed, since I will have little or no time to stream. I have to deal with a sim card delivery and a feedback meeting about the Nordic academy of sorcery larp. Where I will present my lovely and totally not bdsm useable cuffs. In all likelihood I will also get a system upgrade this weekend and stream some gameplay. I have also made a deal with a musician and this is the logo we agreed on. Look forward to his music. Enok Groven is apparently quite well known.

What’s your kink love? 04.04.2017

What’s your kink love?

My fantastic plan was to work on the El Blanco reaper shotgun. However I did not expect the chain linked cuss to take so much time. I’m still not done and I need to collect some more material. But for some insufferable reasons the nuts and bolts comes in packages of ten. I clearly need to buy in bulk. Never the less I did make some cuffs from parts found at Jula.

In recent years the rather terrible written and executed Fifty shades became quite popular. Despite being mediocre at best. In that regard one could consider this part on of making a bondage dungeon or to spice up the bedroom play time. Though the real reason for making them, was a discussion about what to do with future installments of the Nordic Source Academy larp. We have had way too many demon and monster attacks. Which led to a distinct lack of friendly monsters. Not to mention the accusations at the end of the game, when someone has committed an alleged crime. In other words, it looks a lot more awesome to bring the guilty one into the min hall, wearing chains. Preferably with a big padlock. I had to settle for plastic ones as they are easier to work with and that I had several metes at hand.

The contraption is easy to construct, but it can take a bit of time. It’s composed of items bought from a hardware store here in Bergen. It is very much the same as Wallmart, only Swedish and with a heavy focus on hardware.

The cuffs themselves are made from plastic pipes cut haphazardly in half. Punctured with several holes. Where a hing has been screwed on with nuts and bolts. The piece holding the chain in place I made from a metal plate I cut to size and punctured. Just to get a bolt size hole. Then I polished the metal and painted it gold and sanded down the pipe and went for a black primer.

I have yet to actually create the lock mechanism, but I have some ideas. Keep in mind though. The cuffs themselves are very easy to escape and break. It’s purely intended as visual fluff and fun.

#larp #harrypotter #prisioner #cuffs #king #fiftyshades #handcuffs

Zaceron

Eggs for Easter? 30.03.2017

I should update this blog a lot more and write longer texts, but I’m easily distracted because games are awesome. Despite my obvious pains in the right arm. Which is nothing new to say the least. I can only my blame my lack of proper arm training earlier in life and aimless gaming. However now that that is said and done, on to the topic of costume props.

I have a lovely friend and aprentist whom is also a girl. She decided to craft Caliburn from the Nasuverse. The sword of Saber, a really complicated project with a lot of odds and ends. But in the end it will look fantastic. For the most part it will be constructed with plywood, foam and worbla. Despite my expertise in making objects and welding tools, cutting straight lines with a jug saw is tricky. The idea is to emulate the way blacksmiths assemble their blades, only with less forging and more cutting.

My second project is trying to get access to a more permanent blacksmith forge and a solid iron anvil. Luckily my old man left a half finished structure behind. Hopefully the big compressor can be used to fuel the fire with air. Raising the temperature high enough. Working in metal is awesome and quite fun indeed. 

Aside from that, my third project which I’m done with for now, is the magical beast eggs. By now there is no secret that I am a larper and as such, I like to build my own special effects. In this case I got an order of several eggs, intended for on of the sorcery classes. One egg is intended to be open, like something has escaped. So naturally I had to build myself a quite squishy and organic looking egg pod. Roughly based on the fantastic Alien franchise. All of these eggs are made from balloons. My intention was to buy Easter eggs and pimp the hell out of them. However none was on sale. Therefor I made a papermache mixture instead. Nabbed some newspaper from my neighbours overflowing mailbox. Which got shredded into a box of water and wallpaper glue. This wet mix will for the most part stay on the surface of the balloon when it dries up. Though I went a bit overboard with the water. Prolonging the drying process. That did however not deter me from smother it in latex sealant and beach sand, mixed with paint. The side pods are made from foam coated in liquid latex, which gives it a very rubbery texture. 

The same process holds true for the other ones as well. However the redish one is covered in seashells as well and some moss.

Green, brown and covered is one of them as well. That is simply pants glued onto the surface to give it a forest fairly feel. Whilst the blue one is simply coated in sand.

Eventually I will make a full sized Alien egg in clay

Stay tuned and be awesome!

Zaceron

#Aleins #easteregg #eggpod #magicalbeast #zaceron

Blacksmith!

The last few days I’ve been quite busy, expanding my repertoire. First of I’ve been playing a lot of Conan exiles, with a brutal twist. Every time I die, I do five push ups on my cheap webcam. It’s a good burn and a terrific exorcise. That being said, I have the most brutal spawn point in the game. It’s in front of a cave of infinite spawning spiders. On the right hand side, there is a camp of humans. Under my floorboards spawns mangy mutt hyenas, that now can attack through walls. They spawn in waves of five. I also started to build a mighty castle of sorts, which will be the foundation for a fantastic town and a social justice rhino zoo. Did I mention that rock noses and rhinos also spawn next to my camp? For a while I had one stuck in a pillar, I called him Francis. The vicious wildlife really tear into me and can truly make my life a living hell. On the flip side it works fantastic when streaming. The next day was spent on learning the basics of blacksmithing, at a lovely crafted forge, situated in a fantastic neighborhood. After a lot of experimentation, I ended up making a hook to have in my belt. Made from a long thing iron bar. After all it was my first piece ever. Had my fantastic friend take a lot of pictures as well.

 http://www.photo.yngvehegreberg.com/Archive/Misc-Events/Peders-Smie

Shell Shocked! 09.03.2017

It’s time time pick up some stream, my ever so dainty costume of death, decay and an infinite stream of shotguns. Is coming along quite nicely. Among other things the greaves is starting to look, work and feel like they have a purpose and solidity to them. Instead of being of being spongy plastic. I’ve also picked up some gloves at the local every thing and their mother store. They are simple black and has some green on them. Most of that I just peeled off, in order to make it less intrusive. After clearing the space I took a piece of masking tape on top, which I drew out the pattern, which became the basis for my foam cut outs. Which I naturally trimmed, pruned and glued on to the fabric. Naturally I also prepared some screws as well. In many ways I’m employing much of the same techniques as armor smiths does. The belt straps and the ordinance has been redesigned as well. In stead of using a chromed dome of two stacked foam, I used some Christmas baubles instead. With the help of a glue gun I could actually prevent my balls from falling into the hole. Which did occur at several occasions. Though that leaves me with a puzzling conundrum. What can I do with the 2 mm thick edge surrounding the mantle. If nothing else it looks splendid from afar.

https://www.twitch.tv/zaceron

Reaper rant 01.03.217

Reaper rant 01.03.217

I’m a bit biased and rightly so, the same holds true for anyone judging a competition. The other day I was participating, in order to entertain, win and spread the word. Be yourself try cosplay, however that idea was shot down rather rudely by the most cringe worthy statement I’ve heard. “If anime was a real characters, she is that person”. Apparently she looked enough like an anime doll to win. Which is fair enough if not for the overly focus on body type and being a look alike. To me, hair color, body shape and skin tone should have no bearing on a fair judgment.

“Judge not a person by the color of his skin, but the content of his character” Martin Luther King.

That being said I’m quite certain I had the best performance on stage, copying the animations and the mannerism of Reaper. Despite my very hammy and successful effort, the girl with the giant scythe won. Yes using a giant implement like that is impressive and I know for a fact it is heavy. Since I’m the one whom made most of the thing. While the Lovely participant did the paint job.

However I have a sneaking suspicion that the judges liked her the most due to being an anime character, they had some familiarity with. Unlike my perfectly sensible Reaper performance.

Other than this little rant of mine. I had a great time and have been having two good consecutive days of streaming, where I have been spending a lot of time screwing straps and working out more sensible ways to attach armor pieces. On top of that I made three grenades, I converted from cinnamon bottles. Which I added a handle to, at a later point I will consider painting it as well. The bandolier on the left side is quite tricky indeed. Since I now have to add another belt to the side, which the graphics artist decided to add several studs to, amongst other details. To keep the ordinance in place, I employed several layers of plastic, covered in duct tape and held in place with glue and screws.

A rather rude and nasty troll did drop by. But as usual I made a mockery of him and reported the fool.

https://www.twitch.tv/zaceron

Zaceron