Monster Hunter Weapons In Real Life

Monster Hunter Props Master Brings Video Game Weapons To Real Life

Prop master Kerry Von Lillienfeld explains how cosplay videos helped him create the iconic Monster Hunter weapons.

Courtesy Sony

If you want to hunt some serious monsters, you're going to demand some serious weapons. Serious plenty to dispatch fearsome beasts like mega-spiders, burrowing horned worms, or fire-breathing dragons. Sometimes, but a flaming sword (or two) volition do. Or mayhap a weapon made from dead monster parts. (Don't waste the bones!) All of these things are hands caused in the pixellated world of Capcom's blockbuster Monster Hunter fantasy game franchise. Merely should you need to lay hands on this weaponry in real life, as the crew did for the moving-picture show adaptation of Monster Hunter (or cosplayers practice for fun or contest), and then you might need some tips. Only in time for Monster Hunter anniversary week, props master Kerry Von Lillienfeld talked with Cosplay Cardinal well-nigh getting inspired by the original games and past fan cosplay, most replicating the great sword and bow, and near storing magical props in his garage.

Cosplay Primal: What was the procedure like, having the in-game design as a model?

KL: We were so particular near getting it from the games. We would enquire Capcom to get models from them, and we could actually go into the games and pull images, pull frame grabs from every unmarried angle, and then the concept artist took it into ZBrush and sculpted information technology. Once nosotros knew it was perfect, then nosotros could 3D impress it, get the parts, and my fabricators could start putting that together. And and so you lot have to mold and bandage and do the scenic art for all those things. Nosotros made doubles, then we had probably at to the lowest degree vii great swords and seven bows? I have an amazing photograph of me sitting with all these weapons, and in that location were hundreds of them. No wonder I was then stressed! We looked similar we were virtually to go to war on an conflicting planet against monsters.

Courtesy Sony

CC: Did yous see any cosplay from the video games? Did cosplay ever influence you?

KL: You know, information technology'southward strange, but when we were getting into pre-production, I actually watched a lot of cosplay videos. It was extremely inspiring. Kinpatsu (Tayla Barter) won some of the cosplay competitions with this amazing bronze, spiky Nergigante armor. They were making what I was supposed to be making, and we were thinking, "How practise we make some of this?" We wanted something lightweight. We actually were thinking of copying cosplay things, like using EVA foam with different paint techniques, which just works so beautifully in cosplay armor. Just none of that could piece of work for our farthermost stunt sequences, or the savage environments that nosotros shot in, from the Atlantis Dunes and the Tankwa National Park in South Africa to the Namibian desert. It would just be ripped apart in the first infinitesimal. So that rapidly went out the window, which is quite lamentable, considering cosplayers have got some incredible tricks upwards their sleeves. Our stuff is much tougher, molded rubbers and leathers which can have a beating. It had to endure.

CC: Let's talk about the Slinger, which can exist both act equally a catapult for projectile weapons and a grappling hook.

KL: Nearly every character wears one. Nosotros took a lot of time making those right. That was probably the closest step we actually did to a cosplay piece, because that'due south just sculpted out of EVA foam and made to look like the bone it'south supposed to exist.

Courtesy Sony

CC: What was your flim-flam for making blades look like bones?

KL: Having a good scenic [designer]! Sticking something in the plaster, yous can stipple it, and yous tin get that bone wait. And then you simply do washes in paint, a very sparse liquid-y wash, with a normal polyvinyl acetate –PVA -- paint. Information technology will start running into the little indentations and the little sculpts that yous've done, and so it will offset looking more 3D-ish. Sometimes it will wait like the first launder hasn't washed anything, just you lot practice a 2nd wash, a third wash, and a fourth launder, and it starts bringing to life your Slinger or your sword.

CC: What were your favorite weapons to brand and how did you lot make them?

KL: Definitely Hunter's bow and the behemothic sword. It may be 1 of my favorite props I've ever made in my life. There are very few that have brought me such pride, or accept been of such sheer size and unwieldiness.

To make the sword, we started out sculpting it in digital, in ZBrush, for guidance. And so nosotros 3D impress everything, and go a agglomeration of 3D parts. The model is kind of chopped up and then yous put it together. Unless you do extremely, extremely high resolution and different materials, there are these fine lines, tiny fissures where the components fit together. We just use the normal polylactic acid -- PLA – press substrate. And then we covered it in a plaster material called M1, which you can and then go in with paintbrushes and sculpting tools. Remember, a lot of these weapons are basically bone and metallic mixed together with a piddling leather around hilts and stuff like that. We'd wrap the handle in leather. And then we'd mold and cast them. Because of the weight, Through a lot of trial and error, we discovered that visco foam was the way to go. You pour into the mold and just skin over that visco foam. That made information technology calorie-free enough to really use. Your armature has to be strong, then it doesn't bend, considering of the size, so eventually we settled on aluminum rods and visco foam.

Courtesy Sony

The bow was the hardest to brand. It'south very delicate, and it's got this spike that sticks off the forepart of it, then just putting on a props strap is to take a chance breaking it, you know? It's large. Nosotros wanted it to be practical. It needed to work as a bow, as compared to something yous're just swinging effectually. You need to shoot those arrows. They would fly like five meters, and then CGI would accept over. So that's tough, because the bow needs to bend, and the visco foam material that we were using was lite enough simply it was likewise brittle.

CC: Yous attached the weapons both past strapping and bolting them on the actors?

KL: A lot of the stuff, you can't just strap information technology on. The reason nosotros started bolting stuff on is the amount on each body. Like Milla Jovovich'due south dual blades were challenging to keep them on her back. If you lot look in the videos, they seem magically attached to the character. So in the showtime, nosotros offered up a harness for that, and the manager Paul W.S. Anderson said, "No. In the video game, there is no scabbard belongings the dual blades. They're only stuck to the dorsum." Well, y'all tin can't just stick them to the dorsum. They'll fall off. And so that'due south why it's bolted on. One of the blades that Tony Jaa used, we bolted that onto his back, and that was quite heavy. The armor was all bandage out of rubbers, to go that thick feel, and they were given a specific paint that would terminal through all the estrus and the violence they went through. And what nosotros practice frequently, we attach little pieces. If y'all wait at Tony Jaa'due south character, he wears a huge distinctive belt, and we could hide straps for the bow there. Otherwise, those pieces simply would slide down his leg.

Courtesy Sony

CC: I hear yous accept a room filled to the ceiling full of props? People might think you're hoarding.

KL: I do take a room, but considering of COVID, information technology's now in a container in the garage. I go along a couple of things from movies. On the wall, we have Ron Perlman's axe. We've got the slap-up sword; Tony Jaa drew a magical rune on it for me, and Paul, Milla, and Ron signed it for me. That's very close to my heart, that one prop. Monster Hunter was a prop principal's dream, to make those weapons, to brand that armor. I hope I see lots of Monster Hunter cosplayers when we tin finally go to conventions again!

Monster Hunter is available on 4K, UHD, Blu-ray and DVD March 2. Follow Kerry Von Lillienfeld on Instagram.

Source: https://www.cosplaycentral.com/topics/prop-making/feature/monster-hunter-props-master-brings-video-game-weapons-to-real-life

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