Time for a new quick tutorial for you guys!

This time we will take a look at Lara’s Ice Axe! It was such a fun project for me to make. I love all the small details that went into making it and thought I would show you step by step how I did it! It’s actually not too hard!

Full Tutorial and tips on other parts of my Lara Croft is up for my Patreons! Link HERE! 

You will need:
Paper – For making a pattern. (or you might find a blueprint online)
5mm EVA foam
2mm Craft Foam
Black Worbla
Heating gun
Good pair of scissors
Dremel
Safety goggles
Nuts and bolts
Plasti-dip
Wall plaster
Spray paint
Acrylic paint

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Phase 1
Make your pattern out of paper – a thick paper type will hold its shape better. When you are satisfied, you cut out the pattern you made.

Phase 2

Cut away the blades of the Ice Axe of your pattern. Put the blades on top of 2mm EVA foam, draw around, and cut out.
Put the rest of your pattern on top of 5mm EVA foam, draw around your pattern, and cut out.

Phase 3
Dremel out details. I basically cut out as much as I could from the pattern I made so I knew where the details would be on the EVA without having to free hand it. You can just see the progress picture I posted below if you are confused!

Phase 4
Cover the whole thing in Black Worbla (the blades are still separate from the handle). This might be a somewhat tedious process as you have to make sure there are no air bubbles trapped under worbla.
To make the pattern: put your EVA pieces on the worbla, and draw 1-2 cm out from your EVA piece. We need the extra centimenters so we can wrap the worbla around the thickness of the EVA.  We can just cut away the excess worbla or dremel it away!
At the handle at the bottom I basically used my leftover worbla to add more texture and make it pop out more! You just gotta work with your hands and dremel on this one.

Phase 5

Make sure you dremel away sharp edges or any bumps that you would want away. After you have done that, cover imperfections with wall plaster! Make sure it dries 110% before you sand it with 120 sanding paper.

Phase 6

Time for Plasti-dip! The Plasti-dip is our base coat. Put the can in a bowl of warm water so that the plasti-dip gets better mixed. This way we avoid air bubbles in the priming process. I used around 3 layers to get it smooth. Remember to keep an eye on it cause the plasti-dip might start to run/drip and form drops if you’ve sprayed too thick a layer on a non-horizontal surface.

Phase 7

Time to join the blades to the handle! From the pictures below, you can see (easiest with the largest blade) that the blade is lodged inside the handle. Measure the thickness of your blade, and line up on the front of the handle. Cut straight in to make a recess for the blade. This is easiest to get perfect if you can put the handle in a vice, and if you have fine-toothed precision saw or electrical saw, like a Fein saw. The process is a little finicky, but remember that it’s much better to cut too little than too much. Clean up the cut with sandpaper.
For the bolts: I picked out some bolts based the size of their heads, so it would match the look in the posters. Place the blade inside your finished cut, and drill straight down with a drill bit matching the thickness of your bolts. Two bolts for the front blade, and one for the rear. Put the bolts in the holes, and tighten with the nuts, but not too much, or you’ll see the worbla start to give. If your bolts are too long, cut off the excess with a hacksaw or the appropriate cutting tool on the dremel. The front blade is held in place by the bolts alone, but I also used hot glue for the rear blade, since it only has one bolt.

Phase 8

I used acrylic paint for the red handle. I mixed it out with some water to avoid brush marks, so it took me around 3 layers to get it fully covered. For the Pick Axe blades I decided to use spray paint to make it more shiny.
Then I went over to do some detail painting, shading and highlighting, and also creating some battle damage.

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