Skyrim - Glass Dagger (build)

After finishing the Nordic War Axe here: http://www.therpf.com/f9/skyrim-nord...-stuff-190290/ (which I think I posted in the wrong sub forum) I decided I wanted to build more Skyrim weapons.
I love the glass series of weapons and armor a lot. And they seemed to be a pretty good challenge for learning new techniques. (which it has been) I also wanted to try a new method to build the whole project, that being laser cutting the base.
So lots of new things for me to try out : )
This is going to be resin cast in the end.

I actually started this build in June, but I haven't been able to post progress here till now. So this is what I've done on it since then in my free time.

I did a quick mock-up of the dagger based on some screen shots. Though since then I changed a couple things in the design. For the side view, it just gets too thin to really work in real life. I'm going to add a few probably about 1/8" extra to the thickness when building it.



I got all the pieces laser cut at a local store. I'm going to be one side of the piece, then casting two and fitting them together for the final piece so that it come out perfectly symmetrical in the end.



Next I glued parts together. And layered on some Apoxie sculpt. I decided to do just the blade first rather than tackle both the hilt and blade at the same time (it was a bit overwhelming to thing about all at once :P).



After I was happy with sculpting, I gave it a prime checking for imperfections. Unfortunately the weather was crazy and it ruined my primer (the paint sprayed out as a dust almost. So there was a lot of cleanup). And after I was happy with it I did the mold for the first half.



Once that was done, I started work on the hilt in the same fashion as the blade.


I did some tests with the resin to see if I could get a decent looking texture to the blade. I ended up liking the 3rd one on the second picture. I'm going to be using this method, but I will still need to do some more tweaks to get it to look how I want. Also I need to change the colour a bit too.



Here is a current look at the build. I did test cast with the hilt using cold cast brass powder and a little bit of weathering and put all my test pieces together. I am really liking how it looks so far. But there is still a lot of work to do before its all done. I still need to make some fixes to the pieces and fit the two sides together for the final mold. And of course get the colour of the blade and gems correct.



Hope you like it. Let me know of any suggestions you have or advice for the next steps : )

Also I wish I knew how to make images larger. So if anyone can tell me, I'd appreciate it!

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