Cosplay Progress: Finishing the Keyblade

July 08, 2014

Cosplay Progress: Finishing the Keyblade

Painted in the hilt and eye

This past weekend I was able to pretty much go into beast painting mode and finish off Riku's keyblade. Once it was all sanded and primed with Gesso and White Acrylics, I penned in sections to divide it up as well as the eye in the center circle. I started with the hilt and handles since I could place the blade on my work bench with those parts hanging off so it wouldn't lay on top of it. The hilt is comprised of red with black inserts on the sides. The right handle has gray for the wings and the inside has a change of shade in blue. The way I interpreted it was to have it dark blue up to a certain point, then the rest with that same color slightly lighter thanks to adding in some white.

The left handle as well as the little cross on the end are a cream color (the official color name on the tube was "Unbleached Titanium"). The wing over near the top consisted of mixing a violet color we purchased along with another color we were debating on that I actually already had for Greninja. The main blade part is a blood red color that I automatically thought was a perfect fit. The rest of the blade was probably the most difficult part as I practically filled my paint tray with various mixtures of the blues, purples and black that I had. Only to realize that the dark blue that I had used before on the handle was a close enough fit. After all was said and done I took it outside and sprayed it a few time with a protective gloss spray.

Getting the keychain on was a pain since the keychain we found at Hobby Lobby took awhile to get open. It's snug in good so it shouldn't be a problem. Here are a bunch of pictures I took of the keyblade as it was coming together, I realize that I won't get every small spot that I probably missed so I'm stopping now before I accidentally screw it up. You guys have no idea how proud I am of this prop and how I really surprised myself in making it.