Introduction: Tauriel (The Hobbit) Elvish Daggers - Quick Wooden Cosplay Props

About: Some people can work on one project at a time. Not me.

For Halloween, I made my daughter a Tauriel costume. Tauriel is the fighting elf in the Hobbit movies who has a set of deadly-looking daggers that she uses along with her bow when fighting off orcs.

So, to score huge points with my daughter, I needed to quickly create a set of daggers that matched the look of those in the movie. Because, you know, it's hard to look tough when you don't have daggers.

After two nights of work and less than $10 in materials, I created the daggers you see pictured here.

I'll show you how in these quick steps.

Step 1: Roughing Out the Blades

I used two pieces of furring strips (approximately 3" x 24" x 1") and traced out the shape of the dagger on one of the pieces. Then, I clamped the two together so that they'd be exactly the same size. Then, I used a reciprocating saw to cut the outside shape.

Step 2: Shaping the Daggers

Next, I used an orbital sander to shape the pieces of wood. Starting with the handle, I started to round off the corners. Then, moving to the blade area, I began to taper the blade towards the bottom. Even before the bottom edge was sharp at all, the squared off bottom edge gave the appearance of sharpness. Since my daughter would be carrying these, the appearance of sharpness is all that I needed, and the added thickness would add to the sturdiness of the blade.

As I continued to sand, I also used a box cutter (utility knife) to cut out some of the detail in the upper section of the blades. This was the most time consuming and tedious part.

Step 3: Painting

Once I was satisfied with the shaping and detailing, I proceeded to paint the daggers using spray paint. First, I used a forest green to quickly paint the handles. Once those were covered, I lightly misted some bronze in areas of the handles as well to give it some detail.

Once the handles were dry, I masked off the handles using painter's tape and I painted the blades with silver spray paint.

Once the blades were dry, I took a bit of black tempera paint on a paper towel and rubbed the paint on the blade and then immediately rubbed it back off, letting it remain in the detailed areas. This brought out the details that were carved into the top section of the blade and gave it a more natural look.

Step 4: The Finished Product

One dagger would have been cool, but the pair of daggers is especially deadly looking. Now Tauriel can help her friend Bilbo on his journey!

For information on the rest of the costume parts, go here: Tauriel & Frodo Costumes

Halloween Props Contest 2015

Participated in the
Halloween Props Contest 2015

Enchanted Objects

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Enchanted Objects

Wood Contest

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Wood Contest