Black Swordsman - on a bit of a budget

Okay, I've decided to start work on something that I have been meaning to do for a while now and that's a complete Black Swordsman outfit from the ground up using easily obtainable materials. Of course some people will probably come along in here and criticise by telling me I should be using different materials etc, but that kind of defeats the object. I have no intentions of this outfit coming across as a horrible representation but I'm not about to spend a LOT of money getting it 100% faithful with materials.

So far I've made the following using some basic items by scaling up from my recently obtained Black Swordsman figure that I shared in the merchandise section of the forum. The figure has proven a useful reference tool so far and I intend to keep making as much to scale from that as possible. Anyway, enough talk, here are the pictures.



My starting point for the base of the Dragon Slayer's handle. I started this while I was bored Saturday afternoon and didn't stop


Very early work on the arch where the hilt joins the sword (note: the keyring is just for show, I intend to use something different for the final product)


Much like everything else, this is early work on the throwing knives


and this is the 6ft3 bar laying across my living room to help me get an idea on how to develop the DS further.

I'll keep you guys posted with my progress, this has a deadline for May. Tomorrow I will be starting work on the dagger and potentially the body armour

cool idea, looking forward to your updates!!

Freakin' Sick! Looking forward to seeing this evolve.

Looking great so far, keep us updated!!

Damn, interesting! Really looking forward to seeing how this goes.

It's nice to see the comments are positive so far, I was expecting some of the critical members to pop by to tell me where I may have taken a step wrong. There's still time I guess. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated as I progress, hopefully it can become a reference for those who want to start a similar project.

Looks like a fun project. I'm curious to see what results you can get with this approach. Do you plan for the outfit to be "wearable" at all or will it just be for display?

The outfit is intended to be wearable Aaz, I also expect it to be at least a little bit robust despite the materials i'm using. I have some ideas in place to make sure it holds up, which you shall see in the later stages.

JezzaX said:

The outfit is intended to be wearable Aaz, I also expect it to be at least a little bit robust despite the materials i'm using. I have some ideas in place to make sure it holds up, which you shall see in the later stages.

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Sounds cool; I'm looking forward to it!

Hello JezzaX.

I think your project is pretty cool, I am curious about the result ^^.
By the way, I just thinks that your DS is too small : . I even believe that the "real" DS should be a little longer than what I did on your picture.

Keep it up man ^^.

Showguynie,
I think that if you were to see the length of this sword in reality, you would consider the length justified, especially when taking some form of practicality into consideration when I will be transporting it via the train. Once I have the sword to full build I will take a picture of it next to me (I'm 6ft2, the sword will be AT LEAST 6ft3) and you will understand why.

I kinda agree with showguy, Either your handle is too long, or blade is too short. Its a scale inconsistency. But you're right, problems with transportation would surely be a issue. As for anyone dragging around a Dragon Slayer. I think as a whole the sword might be 6 ft. But I'm thinking the Dragon Slayer's BLADE alone that is about 6 ft, excluding the handle.

You're off to a good start nonetheless.

I have two main reasons why the blade is that little bit shorter, the first being material length. Due to the obtainable materials I'm using, some of them are restricted by height, which although a silly excuse comes down to it's the best I can get. The other reason is to get an overall better grip on the sword by spreading my hands out that little bit wider, otherwise it would be 2 inches shorter on the handle.

The handle length is good. The blade might be a bit small, but I'm not sure it isn't mostly perspective if the bar itself is 6ft3.

I was hoping to give you guys an update last night, but I didn't get started until late and I started to feel a little tired and had to correct a few mistakes with the DS I had made after adapting the blade to the pole. It's now awaiting a little bit more time and attention when I can spend a day on it and not an evening.

In the mean time I have started work on the dagger. Here's a picture of the early stages

The guard might be a tad too wide on the cardboard model, otherwise it's all good.

Looking over it, it's a little bit longer than anticipated (I rounded the measurement up to the nearest 1/4 of a cm to get a figure that was easier to scale up) but it's a minor detail overall, without a side by side comparison shot not many people would pick up on it. All I have to do now is add some strength to it via a rather cheap and cheeky way with some cocktail sticks and hot glue

I thought I'd give you guys a small update, I still have some way to go and only want to share a couple of images at the moment as there is still a lot of work in progress that I'm not prepared to show off just yet. Either way, here's my throwing knife holster and metal arm progress.

Extremely cool! I love the texture on that arm. The pieces look like they fit together really well and mimic the original very closely.

Looks pretty good, especially the arm cannon.

Thanks guys, it has to be said, the arm cannon is my most favourite so far, as soon as I had finished shaping it I had to paint it to see how it would look. I've made it so the outer piece is what holds the center piece together when it sits around the arm, I'm going to try and strengthen the outer piece ever so slightly and hinge the hand on to it and build the hand itself around a glove.

EDIT: Having a bit of a slow day at work here so thought I'd share an image of how the cannon arm looks whilst being worn. My aim was to give the illusion that my arm is actually missing, I think I may have achieved it but I guess that's down to other people to decide.

JezzaX said:

My aim was to give the illusion that my arm is actually missing, I think I may have achieved it but I guess that's down to other people to decide.

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That will mostly depend on how you do the hand part. It's what is most likely to give it away.

A brief look at how the top of the leg armour is coming along. I think some adjustments in size may need to be made in order to sit more comfortably on my leg, but otherwise it pieces together pretty well.

Dayummm, looking sweet! The metal textures make me happy.
Keep it up!

Thanks Teez, I shall hopefully have a couple more updates over the coming week or two. I'm a bit caught up between two projects at the moment, I'm currently having to run in my freshly built 20V in my AE86