Props Shooting fireballs from the hip: 1/4 scale mage staff

So my buddy fell into the BJD hole after me once after I sent her a doll, and she currently has on order a SatoriaJ Dominic elf boy. He shall be mage! A ripped mage from a bunch of elf vikings who are not afraid to whallop you in melee combat.

Which means he's gonna need a staff.

While I know she has vague ideas about making a staff using a branch, I wanted to surprise her with a staff with a draconic theme. Enter the box cutter.

parts by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

I cut down a dowel rod and sawed the head and foot off an old toy dragon. After some dremeling and threading on jewelry rings, I stuck on the parts with bits of paperclip and hot glue, and had something staff-shaped. Then I attacked it again with the dremel to give it some battle damage texture. But the staff still felt like it needed something. And then I was reminded of a phrase I'd heard: 'hot glue is the poor man's 3D printer.'

I got out the mini hot glue gun and proceeded to attack the staff with it, going for sort of a melted metal work effect.

glued by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

Once that was cooled, it was time to coat it with gesso, so it looked less like a haphazard experiment and more like an actual staff someone designed.

gesso by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

After about two days to make sure the gesso was really good and dry and shrunk down, a coat of glossy black:

1stcoat by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

And then tonight's work, drybrushing on varying mixes of silver airbrush paint and grey miniature acrylic:

drybrush by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

drybrush2 by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

Next up: leather wraps, possible detailing, adding beads.

 

Thank you for all the comments! I'm glad to see people getting a kick out of it. I've worked on it some more, and the whole thing is nearly complete, needing just a coating of sealant (and for me to put it on a nice blank backdrop to get really good pics). I added leather grips on the main bit and then strung some bits and bobs (bone beads, plastic beads, drilled crystals) on beading string and tied them on, then put an extra wrap of leather and tacky glue to keep them in place.

full by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

The bead acting as an jewel in the dragon's mouth also got two layers of tacky glue to hold it in place, because it had a few near-escapes. But it seems to be good and stable now.

head by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

The last bit to add on the staff was the orb to serve as a base, because the dragon foot is kind of lopsided and not good for resting on the ground. So I rolled up a blob of Model Magic, squished it into place to get the indents so it would sit flush, and then let it dry. After that I tacky glued it in place and hit it with two layers of the Citadel purple contrast paint, which got a nice sort of variation in the shades of purple across it. Then it I put on two coats of the Dragonfly glaze, because 1. sparkly and 2. I know if you go thick enough it'll dry with a white cloudy cast, and I wanted to get more variation on the orb. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

orb by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

 

The staff went in the mail today! And I tried to get some finalized photos of the staff, only to discover the white foamboard I had on hand wasn't enough for such a tall prop. And then my cat attacked the foamboard.

Today has been something of a trial.

But despite the fact that my backgrounds are kinda terrible, I still tried to get some good shots of the staff well lit against a white/pale background and being held by Skelf, who's 1/4 scale and has some tall antlers, to give a better idea of just how big this thing is, compare to a doll.

side1 by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

side2 by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

sizecomparison by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

 

I blame lots of watching Movie Magic as a kid and doing miniature wargaming for teaching me that sometimes, the easiest thing to do is find something prexisting and kitbash it. I'm now constantly eyeballing models at craft stores, looking for stuff that gives me an idea.