In this part of the tutorial we finish the sword by making the handle and putting it all together.

Part1 of this tutorial is here

When it comes to making the handle we have several options. You can make it out of many materials and I am going to go with an easy foam. This makes it easy to carve and shape. And it is reasonably strong for this kind of application because the grip part sits flush on the glass handle.

Remember the handle drawing that we had made in section 1? Ok, get that and trace it onto your foam, twice. We need two handle halves. This is one inch thick foamular.

Cut out the rough shapes of the handle halves. Leave plenty of extra foam so we can carve it down to shape.

When it comes to carving the handle shapes you have a couple of options and it is a matter of personal preference. You can go ahead and carve them separated from the sword. Or you can glue the two halves right onto the sword and carve them in place. This second option is what I did. Remember to cut channels on the insides of those handle halves so they seat right onto the sword handle and come in flush contact with each other.

To facilitate carving you should draw right on the foam just like this. And do this periodically, redrawing lines, as you carve them away. It makes it so much easier. Reference your drawing and any pictures you have to get the handle shape looking good.

Now the fun part! Let's get to carving the handle. A rasp is perfect for the rough shaping of it. We follow a normal progression with something like this. Use rough tools to get the general and bulk shapes. Then move on to finer tools, eventually...

...eventually finishing it off with sandpaper or emory paper.

Now Let's Paint it!

Painting is a two step process.

First you paint the whole handle black. That is the base color. Then you dry-brush on dappled gold color.

Dry brushing is a nice technique. How you do it is put gold paint on the brush then wipe most of it off on a rag. Then the brush is pretty dry. You use that to dab at the handle. It only puts spotty gold color on. It ends up looking great.

That's it! You are done! Oh My goodness you are a sword making god!

Make the Glass Dagger from Skyrim:

Wonderful project where we cast epoxy resin in a two part rubber mold to make an actual glass like dagger. Make the Glass Dagger from Skyrim

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