Wesley Scoggins
Indy Mogul
Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Mace & Splatter
Continuing the prop requests i've been following the last few weeks, i've decided to recreate the classic medieval mace. A heavy smashing weapon, it's big, it's scary, and it can be fit into all sorts of cool battle sequences in your films.
Start out with a styrofoam ball that you can get at most hobby stores, and a wooden dowel. I cut the dowel to about a foot and a half long then...
Then carved out a section in the ball, put some hot glue on the end of the dowel, and pushed it forcifully inside of the sphere, and waited until the hot glue firmed up and it had a nice good grip.
I then put down a layer of primer paint, sealing the foam.
Next, I took some basic kitchen sponges.
And cut the corners off of them, using the first corner I cut off as a guide to make all of the other corners as close to the same size as possible.
Then lightly dabbed it in some acrylic paint, I don't want to squeeze it at all when i'm dabbing it in because I want the sponge to absorb as little paint as possible, just enough to cover the surface. If it soaks in it will take an inordinate amount of time to dry because the bubbly structure of the sponge holds moisture really well (remember, that's what it's made for).
While the sponges dry, I spaypainted the core of the mace silver.
After they dried I hot glued the "spikes" along the center of the sphere. (Word of advice, to give the sponge a less textured look, you could line them with tissue paper or kleenex, similar to how I sealed the sponge sections on the Right Hand of Doom I did previously.
Then I wrapped the lower part of the handle in cotton twine to act as a grip.
I covered the handle, then hot glued a large bottlecap on the end to act as a rudimentary pommel.
Then I wrapped some craft wire around the top for decoration.
I then added another layer of dark silver paint to the entire mace to give it a darker worn look. Now, how to make a "bloody splatter" effect when you strike someone with your mace. (Which remember, although it's safer to use this, you'll still want to be careful when using this in a fight sequence as it still has a wooden core and it could still possibly hurt someone if you swing it very hard.)
First I cut a segment out of the side of the mace that will be facing away from the camera during the scene.
Then push a sponge or other absorbant material into the slit (I put ducttape on the end of mine then stuck it into the hole) next, soak the sponge in fake blood (for the impact strikes, the thinner the better).
Now, when you hit, the fake blood will splatter out of the sponge, leaving a nice splatter pattern. This effect could easily be modified for almost any kind of fake hits, anything from a fake hammer, to a prop baseball bat, providing you with a nice visceral splatter for your fight sequences.
After you're done doing the splatter, you can just tape the section you cut out back in, and it'll hardly be noticable especially if you keep the section facing away from the camera.
There you go! Good luck with your effect!
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