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Description
Prop: Bow
Used By: Susan Pevensie
Movie: The Chronicles of Narnia
First Worn To: PortCon Maine '09
Made For: Cary
Awards: Best Prop

So this is the bow that I made for Cary in exchange for my High King Peter the Douche costume for PortCon '09. It started off as a panel of poplar shelving wood and after many attempts, became this lovely bow. The string is elastic, so, while the wood doesn't bend itself, there is the illusion of the bow being drawn. The gold on the string is all hand wrapped, and the wood grain is actually painted on; it's not stained. Uhm... There's more I could say about this, but those are the highlights.

Due to a lot of interest in how I made this sucker, I have typed up a quick over-view. Read on if you care about that kind of thing!

1) I went online and I spent hours searching for tutorials, people who have made this prop before, and reference pictures.

2) I figured out how long the bow would have to be to be in proportion with the person I was making it for.

3) I purchased the wood from Home Depot... poplar, I believe it was, because it has less knots in it, and is relatively soft and easy to carve.

4) I took a reference picture from online, blew it up to life size and printed it out over multiple pages and taped them together; I cut it out and traced it onto the wood and used a jigsaw to cut it out.

5) Using a router table I rounded out the edges, so it became cylindrical and spent the next few weeks shaping and sanding it down. And when I say "weeks" I mean hours a day for nearly three weeks. I used a dremel tool to carve out the filigree on the tips.

6) After about two weeks and roughly $50 worth of paint products, we figured out a way to paint the wood grain on. Fun tip: the best way is to paint the light base coat and let it dry, then do a heavier, darker brown over it and drag a used paint brush with a choppy edge through it to make the grain.

7) Painted the tips with an ivory spray paint. Cut out the pleather for the grip and used a soldering iron to emboss it. I printed the lion image out on a piece of vellum paper and put that over the pleather. The heat still worked, and the paper kept it from melting all the way through.

8) Finally, I got a length of white elastic, used a maroon marker to color it (you're going to want to stretch it between two poles, or something and color it while it's stretched out, otherwise it'll look funny when you stretch it), and wrapped gold thread around the middle of elastic and the loops. And glued the gold bits around the grip. And glued the grip on. Y'know, little things. Like the vines.

Info You May Find Helpful:
The bow weighs less than a pound. I don't actually own a scale, so I can't give you an exact amount, but it's extremely light for carrying ease at the con.

From tip to tip, measuring on the outside (so you get all the curves and stuff) it's 39 inches. From tip to tip where the string goes, it's ~30.5/31 in.

Any other questions, comments, critiques, I'd love to have them!

Description
Prop: Bow
Used By: Susan Pevensie
Movie: The Chronicles of Narnia
First Worn To: PortCon Maine '09
Made For: Cary
Awards: Best Prop

So this is the bow that I made for Cary in exchange for my High King Peter the Douche costume for PortCon '09. It started off as a panel of poplar shelving wood and after many attempts, became this lovely bow. The string is elastic, so, while the wood doesn't bend itself, there is the illusion of the bow being drawn. The gold on the string is all hand wrapped, and the wood grain is actually painted on; it's not stained. Uhm... There's more I could say about this, but those are the highlights.

Due to a lot of interest in how I made this sucker, I have typed up a quick over-view. Read on if you care about that kind of thing!

1) I went online and I spent hours searching for tutorials, people who have made this prop before, and reference pictures.

2) I figured out how long the bow would have to be to be in proportion with the person I was making it for.

3) I purchased the wood from Home Depot... poplar, I believe it was, because it has less knots in it, and is relatively soft and easy to carve.

4) I took a reference picture from online, blew it up to life size and printed it out over multiple pages and taped them together; I cut it out and traced it onto the wood and used a jigsaw to cut it out.

5) Using a router table I rounded out the edges, so it became cylindrical and spent the next few weeks shaping and sanding it down. And when I say "weeks" I mean hours a day for nearly three weeks. I used a dremel tool to carve out the filigree on the tips.

6) After about two weeks and roughly $50 worth of paint products, we figured out a way to paint the wood grain on. Fun tip: the best way is to paint the light base coat and let it dry, then do a heavier, darker brown over it and drag a used paint brush with a choppy edge through it to make the grain.

7) Painted the tips with an ivory spray paint. Cut out the pleather for the grip and used a soldering iron to emboss it. I printed the lion image out on a piece of vellum paper and put that over the pleather. The heat still worked, and the paper kept it from melting all the way through.

8) Finally, I got a length of white elastic, used a maroon marker to color it (you're going to want to stretch it between two poles, or something and color it while it's stretched out, otherwise it'll look funny when you stretch it), and wrapped gold thread around the middle of elastic and the loops. And glued the gold bits around the grip. And glued the grip on. Y'know, little things. Like the vines.

Info You May Find Helpful:
The bow weighs less than a pound. I don't actually own a scale, so I can't give you an exact amount, but it's extremely light for carrying ease at the con.

From tip to tip, measuring on the outside (so you get all the curves and stuff) it's 39 inches. From tip to tip where the string goes, it's ~30.5/31 in.

Any other questions, comments, critiques, I'd love to have them!