Photographer: A.Z. Production Cosplay Photography     Cosplay: Made by me

You want to make an Arcade Riven cosplay or simply a replica of her sword?
After reading this tutorial you will know how! This sword can easily be modified with LEDs as well.

What you will need:

• Lots of Eva foam sheets (I used 3 x 10mm floor mats )
• PVC square Cable conduit  (ca. 4cm height x 4cm width x 80cm length )
• PVC pipe / Wood handle (Ø 3 cm, length 120cm)
• neon green spray paint
• silver spray paint
• clear plasti dip (or use neon green plasti dip instead of neon paint)
• Greenhouse foil
• primer of your choice (wood glue...)
• clear bookbinder film (self-adhesive)
• 6 x googly eyes (Ø 4 cm)
• 2 x whole styrofoam stars
• chain (ca. 40 cm length)

Tools:

• rotary tool / dremel
• exacto knife
• sanding paper
• screws and screwdriver

Optional:

• Gloves
• respiratory mask
• a ventilated area
• double sided tape
• strong magnets

(please be careful with paint fumes and micro-particles from sanding)

Step 1

Scale your Blueprint (you can find mine here) to your desired size, mine was 1,40 m. Print it and check sizing in a mirror.

How to scale:
Find a picture of the character with prop, it works better if the character is standing up straight. Keep in mind that angles may influence the outcome! (http://nifegun.com/) upload your picture to this site. Draw a line from head to toe of your character. it shows up in the table on the left. Insert your own size (you can choose whether to use inches or cm). Click ‘add line’ and draw a second line from top to bottom of the prop. The table shows you the size your prop should be.

Example:

You can still scale your prop up if you like to :)
Since I will be constructing her ultimate sword I decided to add a few cm to the calculated size.

Step 2

Determine how thick you want your blade to be. Keep in mind that it is curved, the thickest point would be the center of the blade. Mine is 4 cm. You will need to measure your blueprint and cut the cable conduit to the desired size.
Here is how mine is situated:

Step 3

Insert the wooden handle (or pvc pipe if you want it to be lighter but less durable) into the cable conduit. This will be used as the ‘skeleton’ of the sword to hold all the eva-foam pieces together.

Step 4

Cut your greenhouse foil to the size of your blade. You need 2 of the blade pieces. One for the front and one for the back. Color your blade pieces neon green.



How I did the coloring:
Clean the Blade piece on the inside (the side that will be facing the cable conduit) with rubbing alcohol. Let dry, you don’t want any excess alcohol on the coloring. Spray with 2 coats of clear plasti dip and one sheer coat of neon green acrylic paint. Do not layer the acrylic paint if you still want to insert LEDs, if you don’t want to add as many coats as you see fit.



Alternative coloring process:

• Use neon green plasti dip and spray with 2 coats (may not work if you want to insert LEDs since it is more opaque than the acrylic paint).

• Coloring the Foil with iDye poly might work too, but is too intricate with the size of the Blade and the need for hot water and a big enough tub.

• You can try without the plasti dip coating as well, but I don’t know how well the acrylic stays on the foil.

Step 5

Cut all the Eva-Foam pieces.
You need (if you use 10mm Eva foam mats):

•  1 x the light Orange Shape
•  2 x the dark orange shape
•  2 x the red Shape
•  2 x the burgundy Shape
•  2 x the turquoise Shape

Step 6

Align the Blade with your cable conduit/pipe construction according to the blueprint. Use a screwdriver to attach each blade to the cable conduit and the conduit to the pipe with long screws.



Optional: if you want to install LEDs into your blade this is the best time to position them along the conduit.

Step 7

Now you can use your bookbinder film to attach the front blade to the back one. Simply stretch the film along one edge, align the blade edges and fold over the film. Since it is self-adhesive you should have no problems to attach the blades to each other. I admit you need a little practise and a steady hand but you can still pop little air bubbles with a needle later.

Step 8

Layer all three of the left guard pieces and glue them together. Do the same with the right guard pieces. Place them on one of the triangle pieces and glue them in place. Make sure the gap between left and right guard is the size of your cable conduit so you can slip the guard over it later. Close the guard by adding the second triangle on the other side you can use strong magnets or glue. Align the last triangle (the one with the triangular opening) with the closing triangle and glue them. Add the googly eyes as decorative domes in the corners.

Your guard should now look like this:




for LEDs: Leave some of the hidden parts of the guard hollow, here you can hide circuits or batteries and buttons/switches.

Step 9

Use your rotary tool (dremel) to shape the eva foam pieces to your liking. Angle your rotary tool to achieve smoother transitions. Do the same with the turquoise chape and attach it to the blade using either glue or a double sided tape.

Optional steps: wrap the wooden handle/pipe with craft foam.

Step 10

Pommel: cut the shape  out of foam and glue the layers together.
Make sure to leave an opening so you can slip it over the wooden handle. Attach the chain and one of the styrofoam stars.

Star: Cut the remaining styrofoam star in half and glue it where it belongs on the turquoise shape.
Around Christmas most craft stores sell styrofoam or acrylic 3d stars for a few bucks just take one of these in the desired size.

Now prime and paint and you are finished!

You can find lots of tutorials on priming and painting foam online so I won’t cover it in this tutorial :)

Have fun crafting!

More progress Fotos!