Princess Mononoke Knife and Ears

So, I'm making a San cosplay (Princess Mononoke) for Halloween and maybe some conventions, so I thought I'd post my progress on things I made! I started the cosplay by making her knife. I decided not to do the spear, since it would be more annoying to carry around, so I went smaller. In the film, her knife looks like this:

(Obviously it's what she is holding in her hand)

So, for starters I wanted to point out that this didn't come out perfectly. The knife that she has is really long and slender, and the blade on mine is a little stubby triangle thing. Oh well, I still think it looks pretty good.

So, this is what mine looks like:

But, you're probably wondering, "How did you make it?" Honestly, it was simple. I started by making the triangle out of cardboard and the handle out of a paper towel tube that I cut about in half.

As you can see, it took me so many tries to finally get the right shape and size triangle to use.

This is the tube that I used as the handle, but it was too long so I trimmed about half of it off.

Once I cut my triangle, I folded it in half to make a bend in the front. Make sure you cut out two of the exact size triangles, since these go back to back to make the spear head.

I took both my triangles and taped them together. I used the blue painting tape from Scotch, but I suggest using regular masking tape. I didn't have any, so this was my second best choice. Make sure you choose a sturdy tape that can be paper mached over once you are ready. 

This is what it looked like when I taped the handle on. To close the bottom, trace the bottom of the two triangles into some cardboard and then cut that piece out. Place your tube on that and trace the circle onto the piece. Cut out that circle. Now, your tube should be able to fit into the bottom of the triangles without falling out. You should have the spare circle you cut out from the bottom piece and you can use that on the bottom of your paper towel tube to close it off (that's why you see tape on the bottom of the tube). Once this is all taped up, you can start putting on the paper mache!

For the paper mache, I used a simple water and flour mix that you boil on the stove, but you can use the water/glue mix if you prefer that.

Coat the knife with 3 to 5 layers of paper mache, or until it's thick enough for your liking; I believe I did 5 layers. 

Now onto the ears! On top of San's wolf pelt, she has two red and black ears that are above her mask:

So, while I was making the knife, I was making the ears at the same time. I made these out of cardboard too, and were pretty tricky to figure out. Warning: These are extremely difficult to explain, so please, don't be angry :).

I started with the cardboard, and made two triangles that looked the same, just one a bit bigger around all sides. I also made sure to round the sides and top, to make it look less like a triangle and more like ears. I took the bigger triangle and folded that in half too, to make the bent part of the back of her ears. I made another one of these, exactly replicating it so I had 2 ears.

I made sure to cover these in tape also to keep the two pieces together.

You want to make sure the smaller piece is in the front of the ears, and the bent part of the cardboard was in the back. Here is a picture:

This is the back, showing the bent part of the ears. This curves it like wolf ears. 

This is another view of the ears. You don't have to worry about closing the bottom of the ears, since you are going to be attaching these to the top of the pelt hood.

Now off to paper mache the ears too!!!

I covered my ears about 5 or 6 layers of newspaper. Since the layers were pretty thin, it only took about 2 days to fully dry.

Here are the dried ears and knife:

I know some people cover the ears and knife with computer paper to make them easier to paint, but I didn't bother, I just coated them with extra paint. 

I started by painting the ears.

The colors I used were:

I used the white on the ears to prime the front so the newspaper print wouldn't show through the red. 

I started by painting the back of the ears with my black acrylic paint.

You can see in the background that I already primed the front of the ears with the white paint. The back was easy to paint, since you don't have to worry about the newspaper showing through the black paint.

At this point you can see that the knife handle was painted black. Again, this was simple since the black doesn't show the print underneath. The harder part though, was painting the actual blade. Her blade is completely white with a red design on the front. Again, the tricky part was making sure you couldn't see the newspaper print through the white of the paint. It took about 3 coats of white paint until you couldn't see any newspaper. After the white dried, I painted on the red design and then I also added a little bit of red trim onto the handle for detail. 

Once the ears were dry, I painted over the white with my red paint. To be extra safe, I did 2 coats of red to get the vibrant color on the ears. This is what they looked like when I finally finished:

These are my finished ears!

Finally, my knife is done!

Coming up next: 

Clothes, mask, and accessories!