Thursday, September 12, 2013

Make Your Own Minecraft Weapons (Tutorial and Template)

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that the big kid is obsessed with Minecraft.



She has been for years, so I am thrilled that it is getting popular and that she can share it with her friends. Because, for the longest time, people looked at her like she was nuts for talking about a pixelated world with "creepers" and "zombies" and where everything was made up of blocks.

Way back in May, she told me that she wanted to be a Minecraft Skeleton for Halloween, so I've been mentally preparing for that. The thing that kept getting to me was that, Minecraft Skeletons have bows and arrows.


And I had no idea how I was going to make her a bow and arrow.

Until I started really working with the pink insulation foam from most home improvement stores to make the gravestones. And it clicked! It's lightweight, easy to work with with, rigid for a weapon (but not so hard that, if she hits someone with it, it'll cause severe damage).

And also, she has a pickaxe from Jinx, and it's made of a similar material (did I just give away my secret?).

So I set to work on making her a bow and arrow! But.. why stop there? The big kid, Baby Goats and a lot of their friends like Minecraft! Why not make a few more weapons so they could all play with them? And then I thought... Why can't these be party favors for The Big Kid's birthday party?! So I have templates for you so you can DIY a Minecraft sword, pickaxe or bow and arrow. So if your kid asks to be a Zombie Pigman for Halloween this year, you'll say, "SURE! I can even make your gold sword!" (I know that did not make sense to a lot of you, but I hear about this game way. too. much.).

I'll link to the templates at the end of the post, but for now, as if there wasn't enough talking already, let's talk about how I made the weapons!



First things first, download the template and tape the sheets together, making sure to line up the reference lines.


Then tape it down your your insulation foam board and trace it firmly with a ballpoint pen or a pencil. This will leave an impression in the foam. If you do this carefully, you should be able to get two weapons from one template (before the page starts tearing).


I stole one of the big kid's rulers to make sure I was making straight lines, and a cool trick is to place the ruler and make all lines on that plane (since these are "pixelated", most lines will line up with another, so you can get a few lines in one swoop)


You can see the impression is quite visible, but I wanted to make it more visible for when I would be cutting.


So I went over it with a Sharpie and cut it out with my Dremel Trio using the jig saw bit. You could also do this with a jig saw. Maybe even a hack saw or a coping saw, if you're not diggin' power tools!


The cut edges are not very neat, and probably not perfectly straight (if you can get a straight line with a jig saw, I'm super jealous!) but you can help that by sanding them with a sanding block. I think mine was a 100 grit, but I can't imagine that it would matter a whole lot. Just go slow and steady.


After sanding, I started creating a grid based on the lines of the weapons (and had to fill in some by eyeballing them). Just use a pencil and ruler, and make sure to do both sides. You want a slight indentation, but if you go too far, it'll be hard to get paint into it.

Then it's time to prime (use a good, high quality primer! I used Glidden Gripper - it's amazing!) and paint! I used regular acrylic paints from Michael's and/or Walmart.

I bought a cheap bow and arrow set from Dollar Tree (mid-Sept 2013 they're available at every one I've gone to - where the halloween costumes are!) and used the elastic rope from that on the bow (The Big Kid has a better bow but is always wanting more arrows, so it was a purchase with a few purposes). We wanted the bow to be "useable". It is, but it only shoots 3-4'. I was afraid that, if I did a bow exactly like the game one, that the kids would break the "rope" part of it.

Last part?!

HAVE FUN!



*UPDATE* Some readers are having issues downloading the templates. My suggestion is to either right click the images and click "save image as" or whatever the PC option is for that *OR* drag the images to your desktop. You can print from there. If neither option works, please email me at lady goats (at) gmail (dot) com and I can email the PDF to you when I get the chance (please use this as a last resort!). I'll be finding a new site to host the PDFs when I get a chance. HOPE THIS HELPS!!

Click here for the Pickaxe Template PDF.

Click here for the Sword Template PDF.

Click here for the Bow and Arrow Template PDF.

TEST! I've uploaded the PDFs to Google Docs - click the links below to access these PDFs.

Click here for Bow and Arrow
Click here for Pickaxe
Click here for sword

Please try these links and let me know if they work for you.

***

If you love Minecraft, check out my Ender Dragon costume tutorial here.


And click here for the updated wings cute



Click HERE for an Enderdragon PiƱata


Has anyone else had Minecraft costume requests for Halloween? Baby Goats wants to be a Minecraft Zombie.

30 comments:

  1. Thank you so much! I was informed last night that I will be making Minecraft Steve for my little one this Halloween. This is perfect! So glad I found your site.

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    1. Perfect timing, then! I'm thinking I may do templates for the characters, too, since I'll be making so many! Check back soon!

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  2. I would LOVE the characters templates. I need to make a creeper for my son for THIS Halloween -- hello little mite, thats 27 days away :)

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  3. Thank you for this! Currently making 22 swords and pick axes. This tutorial was the easiest, most economical and sturdiest I found.

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  4. They look awesome. I cant wait to make that for my birth.

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  5. I've tried and tried to get the bow and arrow to download but am having no luck! PLEASE HELP! Thanks! Miranda

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    1. Me, too :( Any chance of the PDF templates still being available? I've got a little skeleton who would love this project ;)

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    2. Can you email me? I can email you the PDF... it's working for me :-/ Which browser(s) are you using?

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  6. I dragged the images to my desktop and it seems to have worked perfectly. The download button on the site did nothing, but I ended up not needing it. Thanks so much - of course my kid picks the character and weapon you can't buy in the store!

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    1. Julie, that is so good to hear! I was nervous about having people use that as an alternative option until I get it figured out, but am thrilled that it seems to be working..!

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  7. My boyfriend's son and I are going to be making these next weekend. Can I ask what colors you used for the paint?

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    1. Hi Kalin! So excited to hear that, please share pictures when you're finished!!

      The colors that I used were the Apple Barrel brand which I got at Walmart. For the diamond weapons, I used Caribbean, Turquoise, Nutmeg Brown, Negro, and Pewter Grey. For the other weapons, I only used the brown, black, and grey. The variations were done by tinting the shades of blues/browns/greys with black and white to give them slightly different colors. Hope this helps!

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  8. I'm interested in knowing how these have held up. I have two boys who would love them, but will they be ruined after the first "fight"?

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    1. Hey! Can't believe I missed this comment, sorry! These are definitely not "hard-use" toys. I have girls who are surprisingly gentle, so these have held up for a long time (I stepped on the bow and broke it in half, but I think everything else is still in tact. However, you're right, one hard strike on any of these and they'll break. These may be best for costumes/props (or kids that aren't going to try to knock someone else out with 'em ;-) ). Hope this helps!

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  9. Downloaded the templates from Google Docs just fine. Thanks a lot! (Boys having a Minecraft b-day party coming up...)

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  10. I used the link to the pdf in google docs and I just wanted you to know that it does not print out right no matter what I try. It seems about half of the template is missing.

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    1. Thanks for the note! Can we troubleshoot? 1) Can you try it in a different browser? 2) Can you try printing the pages individually? 3) Did you try the Scribd links?

      There should be four pages for the sword (and an additional page showing how they should align), four pages for the pickaxe (and an additional page showing how they align), and four pages for the bow/arrow (no addt'l pages, whoops!). How many appeared when you clicked on the links?

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  11. I was here last year to make a bow and arrow for a little Minecraft Skeleton. This year, he wants to be another character, and I'm back to make a sword. Thank you so much for these fabulous templates!

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    1. I was just thinking about how cute that little skeleton was! What's the costume this year?

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  12. Awesome blog. I enjoyed reading your articles. This is truly a great read for me. I have bookmarked it and I am looking forward to reading new articles. Keep up the good work. minecraft hosting

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  13. These are so awesome! I thought they were made from cardboard at first so I thought they would probably fall apart instantly once the kids start playing with them, but now I see they're made out of thick foam board which is just perfect. I bet it's way cheaper to make them yourself than it would be to buy them!

    Mai | minecraftforfreex.com

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  14. Thx for sharing very good http://minecraft-free.net

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  15. This is an awesome idea and thank you so much for sharing, but approximately how big does this bow end up being? When I printed the template out and put it together, it doesn't seem very big. Did you blow it up somehow? Thanks in advance, can't wait to turn my little guy into a "Skelebones" for halloween!

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  16. These turned out AMAZING! �� My little twins are recently obsessed with all things Minecraft so we can't wait to get DIY-ing with your tutorial! I'm also guessing that they'll be wanting Minecraft costumes for Halloween this year so I'm going to check out your costume entries too �� Thank you so much for sharing!!

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  17. Perfect! This is the site I turn to for my son's birthday...it seems as though he always wants to be a little skeleton! I have a question though, may I ask how soft these weapons are? I don't like the idea of anyone getting hurt!

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  18. Looks cool. I will try top make this weapons for my boy's birthday) Also I love papercraft and advice you look on this site for more minecraft ideas skins4minecraft.com

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  19. I think you should make a jeff craft

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  20. that craft you did was realy cool

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