Aikawa Love
Aikawa's Weapon like most Soul Reapers weapons, when sealed is the form of a Katana. I used one of my Katana blanks for this project.
I chose to do Aikawa's SEALED varient as opposed to his SHIKAI which is an oversized Samurai KANABO. |
The Tsuba was Heart shapes and the rought shape was cut using a hack saw, I refined the basic shape with the surform as well as files and a knife to get into the tight space at the top of the heart.
Being that I had the Main Body done, the main fabrication was in the Tsuba as it is the defining feature of any Katana. I painted the Scabbard with 2 coats of a blue acrylic areosol where as the handle recieved 3 coats of white areosol. Before painting the handle white, I gave it and the Tsuba a coat of Black Paint to close the pores of the wood. The Tsuba was painted in Silver and i masked off 2 sections of the handle relative to the FUCHI and KASHIRA. I had to dye the cotton flat cord, as it only came in White and Black varients. I will need to remove and re-dye the cord as It had not achived the correct colour tone. I was careful when I did the Katana wrap as I did not know if the dye would weaken the bonds in the Cord. This prop has yet to be used at an event. I began wraping the Cord around the handle from the Top, instead of giving the a minimun distance to reptresent the FUCHI, as such the cord ends up quite short to the pommel. Perhaps I should splice two pieces of cord together before wrapping, thus gaining enough material to complete the wrap and cut off the excess. I have yet to apply the aluminium tape to the blade as the police in this area are a bit paranoid as I have be approached at costume events (including Halloween and Spanish Carnival), in an attempt to arrest me for possesion of a lethal weapon. Thankfully I explained the situation and showed that the blade was wood.
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