Kingdom Keyblade Prop

We are Loose Cannons Props and Cosplay and we're here to make you think deeply about prop-making and stuff~!

The Kingdom Keyblade is the iconic prop that many cosplay prop makers take on, for some reason. It's also a great prop to give you a thorough knowledge of wood working, painting, sanding, filling, gluing, drilling, wood plugs and even wood lathing. It sure was for us. If your child is particularly invested into this game franchise and you're a parent wanting to teach them any of these, it's definitely a project worth undertaking. It's relatively simple to do and could easily be knocked out in the course of a weekend. Mind you, our version uses a wood lathe, something you typically wouldn't come across in most casual workshops in the home.

A little background on what exactly a keyblade is: Kingdom Hearts is a an RPG by Square-Enix, probably one of the most successful to date with a massive international following. Regardless of whether you've played the game or not, the keyblade is the iconic weapon utilized in these games, thusly most people are aware of it, if not having played it themselves. The Kingdom Keyblade is the default keyblade you start with and each one varies differently as the game progresses.

Materials:
3/4" MDF
1/2" MDF
4" X 4" Pressure Treated Wood
1 1/4" Wooden Dowel
1/4" Wood Pegs (Key Tip)
3/8" Wood Pegs (Handguard)

15/16" Eye-Screw
1" Eye-Screw
10 inches of Chain Links (Your Preference of Width)
1" Chain-Eye Snap

Primer
Spray Paint (Gloss Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Matte Silver)
Spray Clear Coat
Sandpaper (Various Grits 60-220)
Wood Glue
Wood Filler or Bondo (Your preference, but we used Wood Filler).

Tools Used:
Jigsaw or Scroll Saw
Drill Bits (1/4" and 3/8")
Needle-nose Pliers
Snap Cutter or Wire Cutter
Wood Lathe
Drill Press or Cordless Drill
Numerous Clamps
Adjustable Vice

CONTEST ENTRY: Hurricane Laser At the current time this is being entered into the Hurricane Laser contest. If acquired, we'd love to use it to try and make more props, more complex builds, stencils and more. It is a learning process, something we're definitely looking forward to putting to use for future projects.

CONTEST ENTRY: Back to School The keyblade makes a great decoration for any room, even if you don't plan to take it out to conventions. Winning an iPad would be great for its use as a portable device for showing images, looking at reference art and more.

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Step 1: Keyblade Templating

When we first approached the design of a keyblade, we looked online for pre-existing plans, but none of them had the look we wanted or particular build. Some of them used PVC, some of them used wooden dowels-each individual approach was different, thusly we decided it would be our first project we solo'd. We went looking online for an in-game screenshot and put it into photoshop to break it down to just the basic shape. Here are the original images we used for conceptualizing the prop. We greyscaled to save on printing costs which in turn came out to less than 5 dollars due to some mishaps on the printer's end.

A short amount of time later and a stop at a postal store, we had our enlargements to the size we wanted. We took out a ruler and quickly traced the shape, then did our own measurements, modifications as needed to ensure it was what we wanted in the end.