Forming Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers - Part 1

Today, we talk about how I'm making my bow. I'm not finished with it yet, but I thought I'd share the early steps now because yesterday was Earth Day, and this is really a green project.

Originally, I was going to make the Ancient Amani Longbow. Leah doesn't actually have that weapon or its lookalike, the Restrung Voodoo Bow, but it looks nice and "trollish," and I thought it would match my outfit nicely. The more I thought about it, however, the more I was  convinced that I should make my bow Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. Leah has this weapon in the game, and it holds great sentimental value for me because it is the only pre-Burning Crusade epic she has. I took the time and completed the quest chain to get all the materials needed to create the bow. That was back when all of my real-life friends also played WoW, and I would have never raided Molten Core or Onyxia without them. And I'm so glad I did, because the quest chain isn't available anymore, so I got it while the getting was good. Plus, it really is a gorgeous looking bow. Seriously, follow the link above and then click the "view in 3D" button. You can't really find a weapon like that anymore in the game. Armor and weapons in game now are missing something. Some of the new stuff does look completely bad-ass, but there's something to be said about the elegance of the early epics.

Anyway, with a picture of my bow handy, I took a piece of cardboard and cut out the outlines:

I used a paper towel roll for the handle. Then I began to crumple up old newspapers and attach them with with masking tape to give the bow its basic shape. For added stability, I glued a wooden inside the paper towel roll and attached the other pieces of the bow to it.

This is the basic shape of the bow once all that was finished:

After that was done, I strung the bow to get the curve the way I wanted it. Then I made a glue/water mixture, dunked in newspaper strips, and began layering them on. Once they dry, they'll give the bow a nice rigid structure.

 And that's where I am now, waiting on things to get good and dry. So far, the only materials used have been those I already had lying around the house. So there you are, my green and soon-to-be awesome bow. Stay tuned for Forming Rhok'delar - Part 2!

Update - Forming Rhok'delar - Part 2 now finished!

Quiver

The quest to make my Halloween costume continues. I finished my hands and feet (which I'll talk about a little later), I found fabric for a tabard, and I'm on the hunt for the right color face makeup. At any rate, a little while ago, I showed you how I made my arrows. This week, I'll show you how I made my quiver. Hunters no longer use quivers or even arrows anymore in World of Warcraft; they just kind of fire magical ammo, I guess. However, I opted to make a quiver for a couple of reasons. One, sometimes I get nostalgic for the earlier days of WoW. Two, I felt it would add a little to my costume to make it more complete. The third and most important reason, I needed somewhere to put my keys and phone and whatnot while we're out and about trick-or-treating. So, without further adieu, I bring you "how to make a quiver."




I began with sheets of brown craft foam. Craft foam is inexpensive and pretty easy to work with, but it's limited in size and looks like, well, craft foam. Fortunately, Pinterest came to the rescue, and I found this craft foam armor tutorial which in turn led me to this video tutorial on making craft foam look like leather. The size issue I overcame with my clever quiver design, which required the pieces of foam to over lap and be laced together. I started by hammering out the lacing holes in the foam with my M'bellish hammer and hole punch. Then I proceeded with making the craft foam look like leather as per the instructions in the link above. In hindsight, I should have done the leather treatment then punched the holes, because heating the craft foam can cause it to shrink, and I ended up having to re-punch some of the holes because they no longer lined up. In the end it all worked out. When I was ready to put together my quiver, I used a natural-colored lace and a plastic craft needle. While masking tape held everything together, I laced a whip stitch around the top, and then crisscrossed down the sides like you would do with shoe laces.

Now I needed my quiver to have a sturdy bottom since I'm planning on using it to carry stuff, so I recycled an old oatmeal container that, conveniently enough, fit inside the quiver famously. I simply placed the oatmeal container on a piece of craft foam and traced around it. Then, I drew and cut out another circle about an inch larger around the outside of the original circle I made. After that, I cut from the edge of the foam to the inner circle at several spots to help me form the foam around the bottom of the oatmeal container. Just so no white would accidentally show through, I painted the bottom edges of the container brown. While the paint dried, I gave the foam the leather treatment. Then, I hot-glued the foam to the bottom of the container. Finally, I inserted the container into the bottom of the quiver and secured it with glue (although it fit tight enough that I doubt it would come out). I'm pretty pleased with how it looks, and I'm confident that it will hold my stuff just fine come trick-or-treating time.

The final thing I needed was a strap to make the quiver wearable. I measured how long I needed it to be, then I cut out the right amount of craft foam and gave it the leather treatment. This required two pieces, so I had to devise a clever way to disguise the seam. I thought that it would look cool and be appropriate to display fangs as hunting trophies on my strap, so that's what I did. The fangs are handmade from Sculpey and painted with acrylic paint. I hot-glued then hand stitched them onto the strap, so they look great and aren't going anywhere. I added two D-links to the quiver for attaching the strap, one on the bottom and one on the top. Using the hot glue and hand stitching method, I attached the top of the strap to the top D-link on the quiver. I then added a leash clip to the bottom end of the strap so I could put the quiver on and take it off without lifting it over my head and shoulders.(You can see in the picture to the left how I stitched both the trophy strip and the strap to the D-link.) And that's that. 

So what do you think? Here's a photo of the quiver holding the arrows. I feel it will complement my costume nicely. Well, guys, until next week, see you later!

Cookie Dough Yogurt

So I'm trying to convince myself to that I need to eat healthy again. I got pretty good at it a little while ago, but I let that slip by the wayside, and I gotta tell you, it's tough breaking bad habits. Anyway, I was browsing Pinterest (big surprise, right?) when I ran across this link for healthy, natural, cookie dough-flavored yogurt. I'm thinking "Nuh-uh, there's no way it tastes anything like cookie dough." However, my local Harris Teeter was running a meal deal that included Greek yogurt, so I thought that I might as well give it a try. It's very good! It actually tastes a good deal like peanut butter cookie dough. And it was so simple to make! You guys really have to try this stuff.