Rising of the Shield Hero: Raphtalia’s Sword
Motivation
Rising of the Shield Hero was a massive fan favorite anime released Fall of 2019. It gained popularity extremely quickly and was a major showcase for Crunchyroll Expo 2019. Raphtalia is a sidekick main character that grows over time and eventually becomes a fully fledged swordsman. Her sword is her signature weapon as she carries this throughout the majority of the anime.
My brother and his girlfriend did a Shield Hero cosplay for CRX2019 and they wanted me to 3D model and print out Raphtalia’s sword handle since it’s really difficult to form it using EVA foam.
https://i.redd.it/s8mm2f54zcs21.jpg
3D Modeling
For the handle, I created a sketch of what the cross section of the handle would look like. Once I have the general shape that I like, I used a the Sweep functionality to rotate the sketch around a set diameter circle. This creates a perfect body to work off of.
Using a blueprint picture off Google, I sketched a cross section of the handle so that I could sweep it around a circle to create the handle body.
For the blade guard portion, this was trickier. I did a similar thing with the handle where I created a sketch of the cross section of what the guard would look like. Most of the time with my 3D modeling it’s a lot of guess work since anime’s tend to bend the rules of reality around to tell a story. I sort of bring this concept to reality and fill in the missing parts of what we don’t see.
Here is the finished model after sweeping both the handle and the guard.
The handle is split into two pieces since it wouldn’t fit on my printer in one large piece. The blade guard is also printed as a separate piece since it’s rather large.
There’s also an 8mm hole running straight through the handle and blade guard for a wooden rod. This rod will act as a support and guide for the rest of the blade that my brother will finish. He's making the blade part out of EVA foam.
After sanding and painting.
And here is the finalized prop! My brother sanded and painted the handle. He also weathered it a bit to make it look more realistic..