Cosmic Banana Shooter

Hello!

This will be my kind-of-tutorial on how i made my Cosmic Banana Shooter for my Soraka Cosplay =)
First of all, i must thank Kamui for her tips and tutorials. I learned a lot from her!

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Material List:

- A4 paper. (i always use sheets that are already used on one side, at least. That is nature friendly :) )
- white glue
- pvc pipe
- super foam!! <3
- painter's tape
- paper mache
- morning cereal cardboard
- sandpaper
- toilet paper
- flour

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1 - The drawing

The first part is making the drawing in the real size I want it. I always find it to be necessary, as I can see if it fits my body size before I start spending other (more expensive) materials.
For this I use newspaper or already used paper.

*image missing*

2 - The base structure

For the base structure I used cereal cardboards. On the handle, I used a PVC tube. These tubes are cheap, light and strong. Perfect for a structure =)
I used wire to link the cardboards to the PVC tube. The wire goes through and around the tube. It was okay. Next time I will probably just try to hot glue it or something.

3 - The fun part: the super-foam part

I chose one side and covered it with super-foam. I red somewhere that it would take 5 to 7 hours for the foam do dry. I decided to wait a night =) Next day I turned my weapon around, covered it with foam on the other side, and waited another night.

4 - The carving

This is the part that hurts. The carving. It is pretty fun, actually. It takes quite some time, but in the end you will look at it and be proud =D

5 - The other layers

As suggested by Kamui, i did one layer of painter's tape, then a white glue + newspaper layer and finally a paper mache layer.
I think it works, and I will continue to use it. The paper mache i used was quite crappy. It already came ready in a package, and after some time of use, it would get dry... I didn't find any powder paper to mix with water later. I will try to find that for my next project.

I found that with this paper mache, I didn't really need to use the sandpaper that much. Having a little mug with water around also helps to smooth the surface, although it wasn't really needed.

6 - The details

I soon discovered that i couldn't make any details with this paper mache.. It wouldn't stick on itself! So, apparently, you can only use that paper mache on other things than itself -_- Also, this brand isn't particularly sticky, so everything was always falling appart.


I decided to search around in the internet for another alternative. I found a good one =)
Toilet paper + bleach + flour + white glue.

It worked perfectly =) Although it has a strange smell on the next day... but you can still use it without any problem.
The only problem i found was that the final surface isn't that smooth. Maybe i didn't try that hard to smooth it with water, or maybe the sandpaper time wasn't enough. I don't know. The final aspect is a little rough.
I will see if i can make it look better on my next project.

7 - Before the painting

I used sand paper to smooth the final surface. And finally, i painted two or three white paint layers. It helped alot in making the surface look better.

8 - The final painting

So finally i just chose the paint colors i would like to have on my weapon, and used them xD
I made about 4~6 layers of each color. Yeah, i like my painting to look nice.. And it always looks bad to me, so i keep painting it again xD

The handle was made by glueing some blue fabric to the handle to make a stronger support. After that, i sewed a loooong strip of blue fabric and wrapped it around the handle, while glueing it, in order to make that effect =)


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Overall I enjoyed this method. I plan on changing some things on my next project. If you have any suggestions, please let me know =)

Also, if you are a Soraka fan <3 , let me know!! ^_^

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Thanks for reading!

Patrícia