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Heya everyone! (First post!)

I'm a long time cosplayer but I absolutely suck at making weapons. I made a Sora cosplay (I'll post pictures eventually!) and need a keyblade and was wondering if anyone knew somewhere where I could get one cheap? Right now I have about $100 and I don't really want to spend a lot more than that. All the keyblades I've seen online were like $160 for just a simple Kingdom Key. @_@ I could understand that much for an Oblivion or Oathkeeper but yeesh. Or even some detailed advice on how to make one would be nice. But I don't think I would be able to get the materials for a nice sturdy one. >_<

Well, I made my keyblades out of wood and pipes, so I really didn't need to buy them. But enough about me, anyways, I would say to go to online stores like ebay, or just google it and see what comes up! Sorry if I wasn't much help. Good luck to ya! sweatdrop

Ditto on the PVC piping and wood pieces.

I just finished making one a few weeks ago for my Sora cosplay. Basically, I started with a wooden dowel rod, and some 1/4 inch thick wood, and cut out the pieces, made a grove in the rod for the pieces to go in and glued them. It was very simple, although I had my dad's help with the tools because if left to my own devices, I probably would have destroyed more than my keyblade LOL! After that, I just painted it. It came out incredibly sturdy because our skit had some fighting in it, and it took some major beatings and no damage!

Work in progress: http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h308/ObsessivePanda/Uploads/HPIM0478.jpg

Completed cosplay: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/ziekara/Ikasucon 2006/HPIM0518.jpg

I don't have a picture of JUST the keyblade...sorry, but you can see it pretty well in that picture.

I'm actually working on making a Kairi keyblade, the one she weilds in KH II... anyways, I would definetely suggest making it, because then you will know its quality. I thing you should try using a wooden dowel and wonderflex... that stuff is amazing.. it's plastic you can mold but then it's hard and... whatever, it's cool, look into it!

I made a King Mickey keyblade, which is the Kingdom Key, but with the colors switched. I used a wooden dowel for the base and cut the key out of balso wood since I don't have any power tools to cut it out of something sturdier. I don't recommend the balso, but if you need a quick fix that might be good. It only ever broke in one spot, over and over. ^^; I made the handle out of styrofoam covered over in paper mache. You could probably make the key part of that too. All you need for paper mache is newspaper strips, and mix together some flour and water until it's sorta a runny paste. Dip the strips in the paste and wipe off the excess, then lay it on the base piece of whatever you're making. It feels disgusting, but it dries hard and is pretty sturdy for just carrying it around. I wouldn't want to fight someone with it, though. Hope that helps!

http://www.cosplaykingdom.com/cosplaykingdom/props.htm

I just cosplayed Roxas to a convention a few weekends ago, and made Oathkeeper and Oblivion so I thought I'd share:

yay keyblades!: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/ziekara/Sugoicon 2006/HPIM0862.jpg

Oathkeeper: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/ziekara/Sugoicon 2006/HPIM0864.jpg

Oblivion: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/ziekara/Sugoicon 2006/HPIM0863.jpg

Both, plus the Sora using the Kingdom key I previously made:

They are both made out of styrofoam that I traced and then cut using a heating styrofoam cutter. It's basically a wire that gets to be like 400 degrees and melts the styrofoam leaving nice smooth edges. After this is where I used different tactics due to only having one day to complete Oblivion, compaired to 2 weeks for Oathkeeper.

Oathkeeper was then covered in about 10 layers of Gesso on each side. That process alone took about a week. When that was done, it was painted , and then covered in an epoxy finish. It is extremly strong while still remaining very light weight.

Oblivion was covered in 1 layer of styrofoam paint which actually did an amazing job of making it pretty smooth in only one coat. I would have done a second coat if I had had the time, but I didn't. After that, I painted it using the acrelic paints, and covered it in about 3 layers of polyurathane. It was not nearly as stong, and did, unfortunitly break (although luckily not until the ride home xd )

If you are going to do it using styrofoam, I would definitly go with the first method, although the gesso could be switched for the styrofoam paint. The epoxy finish is the way to go though. My Oathkeeper was extreamly strong. I doubt it could survive a sword fight, but it was dropped a number of times and survived, so it's definitly strong.