Mistborn Inspired Glass Daggers for Fantasy Cosplay
Mistborn inspired Glass Daggers
I finished Vin’s (unofficial) cosplay earlier this Spring, but I had not tackled two important accessories: properly awesome cosplay fantasy weapons to go along with the Mistcloak costume!
In the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, it’s a bad idea to carry around extra metal on your person, so traditional swords and daggers are no good. Proper Mistborn have glass daggers which are inert to the magic in this fantasy story world.
I pictured Vin Ventures Glass daggers as dark and iridescent; similar to volcanic obsidian glass. But I wanted the edges of the prop dagger to be transparent to bring more of a mirror that I pictured. When described in the Mistborn books, the knives are often referred to simply as “glass daggers.”
Here I’ll share my process of making these polymer clay and resin cosplay props.
Disclaimer – This fabrication process was time consuming, but I learned a lot. I think I will attempt to make these pretend glass knives again, aiming to simplify the process.
How in the world was I going to achieve the look for these Mistborn cosplay props that I wanted? My answer was polymer clay.
My first two attempts at shaping the pretend knives were great failures. I made beautiful rainbow-grey feather things though. Unfortunately, I cannot show them to you because I didn’t even bother baking the clay versions one and two. I consider those polymer clay draft pieces, but that clay did end up getting baked into version three. Let’s start there!
Now, onward – I glad to share Mistborn Glass Dagger iteration number three with you, hoping you can learn from my cosplay mistakes!
The Polymer Clay Core:
I first used polymer clay techniques to make stone like effect for the innermost core of the cosplay daggers. I sandwiched a thin piece of metal between the layers to serve as a backbone for attaching the handles later.
Paints and Iridescent accents
After baking the polymer clay, I was able to add shading to my clay daggers with paint. I added iridescent mica powders, along with iridescent glitter paint. One of my favorite things I then added was iridescent filaments along with more glitter paint! I’m going for a volcanic glass look here.
Pour Resin
From there I had to make plaster molds so I could cast the pour resin around the polymer clay cores. This process was kind of like putting a shoe on a foot, and then making a mold of the shoe. I did this by masking the painted clay dagger cores, and applying a thick layer of fresh clay to make a template for the molds. I baked those templates and made plaster molds from those. My molds were bigger than the baked clay cores, leaving gaps so they could be surrounded by the resin in the plaster negative.
Then I cast each side of the daggers in pour resin and I used alcohol inks to get the swirling misty effect I wanted to try. Allowing those to cure was nerve wracking!!! I wanted to see my glass daggers right away!!!
Sanding, Polish, and Top Coat
After the resin was cured for a few days, I began the process of sanding, wet sanding, and polishing. I used sanding blocks, a Dremel tool, and lots of elbow grease. After I made sure I got the carved looking edges I wanted, I made sure there were no sharp edges the cosplay prop daggers. Then, I decided to clear coat the glass knives to get the high gloss shine I wanted in the finished product. Starting to look like Mistborn weapons!
Glittery Hilt Cabochons
Hilts
Okay! Blades finally done, I moved onto the hilts. These are made from PVC pipes that I heated up and molded to the base of the blades. To get the grip to say on the tang, I cast the blade into the PVC pipe with more resin, taping off any gaps to prevent the resin from running out.
With that done, I glued and wrapped the hilts with leather strips. I used two resin cabochons I had made and glued those to the end of the PVC pipe hilts.
Whew, this Mistborn cosplay knives were really involved. I have more ideas on how to simplify this process for these fantasy obsidian weapons. I’ll probably revisiting cosplay glass daggers in the future! This time hopefully aiming to shorten the fabrication process considerably.