About Me

My photo
I make toys for kids who don't want to grow up. I'm on the lookout for new projects. If you're interested in commissioning me to build something ridiculous, shoot me an email.

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Building Skeletor's Havoc Staff

When I was a kid I like He-Man as much as anybody, but wasn't really a huge fan. In more recent years, I've chuckled at all of the Skeletor memes, but didn't give it much more thought. Then Sideshow went and released this statue:

Sideshow Skeletor

Wow.

It's what you'd expect Skeletor to look like if Peter Jackson and Weta Workshop decided to make Masters of the Universe instead of Lord of the Rings. I love the look and I haven't been able to talk myself out of building it lifesize.

So I went ahead and purchased the statue and started noodling over how I would go about building a wearable version of it. Knowing that I may not actually get around to completing the full build, I decided to start with something that would still look cool as a standalone piece; the Havoc staff. I started by scanning the top of the staff using my Revopoint mini 3D scanner. I'm still early in the learning stages of making this device work, but my early attempts show a lot of promise. Here's the scan of the staff head:

Scan Image

After filtering out the noise and smoothing the model a bit, I split it into functional separate parts, then I scaled it up to lifesize.  At that point, it looked like so:

Model Prepped for Printing

I also used the boolean function to hollow it out to fit a rod down the inside that would fit snugly inside the aluminum tube I planned to use as a handle and cut out space for a six-inch glowing spherical night light that I found here: LINK.

Each of the individual pieces was printed on one of my Zortrax M200 3D printers.  After a  bit of sanding, the main body looked like so:
Havoc Staff Skull Print Smoothing

The horns and the little plate that sits behind the sphere were separately printed.  Here's an early test assembly with the glowing sphere in place:
20230511_105219

So far so good:
Havoc Staff Size Reference

Of course, a lot of the finer details didn't really survive the transition through the scan-smooth-enlarge-print process. Mostly I lost this scrollwork on the backside:
Statue Staff Back

I basically have no 3D modelling skill, so I began going through the process of adding these details by hand:
Resculpting Base Begins

The raised portions are built up with "Magic Sculpt" a 2-part epoxy putty I pick up at my local TAP Plastics:
Sculpting Back Details on Base

Once the details were roughly applied by hand, I waited for the Magic Sculpt to harden, then I could go back over them with a Dremel and a knife and some sandpaper and refine the edges.  This made the details much sharper:
Sculpting scrollwork

Of course, a quick coat of primer revealed that there was more work to do:
Staff Top Progress

I used the same process for the bottom tip of the staff:
Staff Parts in Progress

After a few more rounds of filling and sanding, I attached the horns:
Horns Attached

Then the staff was ready for paint.  I started with a couple of coats of Rustoleum "Dark Steel" spraypaint:
Staff Top in Base Paint

Then, as with all things, it needed a heavy blackwash to darken it up and really bring it to life:
Havoc Staff Head Painted

Boop:
Havoc Staff Snoot to Boop

It's tough to get the whole thing to fit into a single photograph, but here's my best attempt:
Full Length Havoc Staff Front

And a better angle in slightly dimmer lighting:
Full Length Havoc Staff Angle

But seriously, here's the head of the staff in dim light to showcase the glowing orb:
Havoc Staff Top Finished in Dim Lighting

And again in slightly brighter lighting to showcase the metallic finish:
Havoc Staff Details in Brighter Lighting

On the other end, here's the spear tip at the bottom of the staff:
Havoc Staff Bottom Tip Details

While there are a few things I'd like to change (a different, more interesting lighted globe and a break in the middle of the pole to make it easier to pack and store, among other things), I'm pretty happy with it.

Here's the finished staff leaning against a wall in the hotel room at San Diego Comic Con:
Skeletor Finishing005

Did I not mention Comic Con?  Oops.

Turns out I was so excited about the building of the Havoc Staff that I went ahead and built the entire costume to go with it:
received_223320210197015

We'll go into great detail on that build in the next article.

Until next time...

1 comment:

  1. I don't know how Skeletor does it. He's totally ripped and I never see him at the gym.
    Nice work. Can't wait to see the final costume.

    ReplyDelete