Let's get to it!
Part 1: Design and Shopping
To start I took a couple of reference pictures from around the internet, but found that these two were the most use to me:
Kingdom Key itself:
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Sora with the Key:
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From the first image, you can see clearly the parts that would be needed for the key, the main "shaft", the key, the guard, and the other fiddly bits
From the second picture I was able to get the general size of the key. By rough measurement, the key was about 5/9ths of Sora's height, so to make a key to scale with myself, I would need 5/9ths of my height, which comes out at around 1m (not including the chain).
So now I have a rough idea of what I am looking for I got my shopping list:
- 1m Long Dowel/Broom Handle
Foam board (key and guard)
Silver foam safe paint
Yellow foam safe paint
Navy Blue paint
Black/Dark Grey paint
String (for grip on handle)
Soup Can (wide round bit at bottom)
Chain and Mouse Head
And this is what I managed to get:
- 1" diameter, 48" long, wooden dowel - $6.99 (Home Hardware)
Yellow Acrylic Paint - $1.23 (Dollar Store)
Blue Acrylic Paint - $1.23 (Dollar Store)
Dark Grey Acrylic Paint - $1.23 (Dollar Store)
Metalic Silver Foam Safe Spray Paint - $10.99 (Michaels)
23mm x 149mm x 301mm Flora Craft Foam Sheet - $5.99 (Michaels)
30mm x 250mm x 301mm Flora Craft Foam Sheet - $8.99 (Michaels)
Total Cost: $36.65 (Not Bad!)
(P.S. I didn't get a chain/mouse head, you generally don't find these at craft stores, however look online, they are bound to be there somewhere. As for string, I have some lying around, same goes for soup can once I eat the soup
)You could probably save a lot on the silver paint, however I wanted a smooth finish for the key so opted for the more expensive option of spray paint, otherwise, just hit up the dollar store again, they have great bargains on crafty things like that. Also you could save on using wood instead of foam, however I don't have the tools to manage that so I had to go for this option.
Part 2: Beginning the Build
So now that I had all the parts I had to get the design right.
I mainly used image one from above for this and drew out the shapes that I needed on the foam blocks that I had got from Michael's. It took a few tries to get it perfect but once I had one perfect shape I cut it out and used it as a template for the other foam blocks.
Since the blocks are quite thin, I ended up buying another two of the 23mm x 149mm x 301mm and doubled them up to create a thicker guard for the key as it gives a more cartoon like look being slightly oversized.
Once I had all the pieces cut out I just had to glue them together and sand them down to perfection!
Step 1: The template for the guard
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Step 2: Cutting the template out
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Step 3: Glueing the two parts together
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Step 4: Sanded down and finished guard piece
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Step 5: The "Blade" of the key
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Now that all of the foam pieces of the key are finished I turned to look at how I was going to actually attach these to the wooden dowel that I had bought for the main shaft of the key. I also noticed that there were some wider circular parts where the guard attached to the shaft at the top and bottom of the guard.
In the end I decided that I would glue the guard pieces to these circular bits and have the shaft go through them and either attach them with a lot of glue or find a way to screw them in place.
After much searching for the perfect items in my room to use for these, I ended up using an empty tuna can and an almost finished jar of peanut butter which fit perfectly after some cutting down.
I punched a circular hole the same diameter as the dowel through the top of the tuna can and it fit perfectly over the dowel with almost no need to glue it in place.
Step 6: Tuna guard
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I went ahead and did the same thing with the peanut butter jar but forgot to take some pictures. I will post them up when I do part three of the build though!
That's as far as I have got at the moment, the next step is to go ahead and glue everything to the shaft of the Keyblade. Once that is done I am going to cover all the foam parts in paper to get a smoother surface and then its time to paint the key and I am finished!
Stay tuned for the last two parts of the build!
