*New* River Koi Iaito (semi walk-through)
Sept 1, 2023 20:32:50 GMT
Post by steveboy on Sept 1, 2023 20:32:50 GMT
Before:
After:
I won't go into a lot of detail on this customization because the process was very similar to how I made my River Koi Tanto, and that post walks through it.
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The skippable background part: Happy as I was with the River Koi Tanto, I was very disappointed when the polyurethane clear coat quickly yellowed, making the fish much less luminous and changing the underwater teal of the rocks to a greener color. It caused me to switch to using automotive 2K clear coat -- much more work and much more toxic, but a much better outcome.
I wanted to try doing the same design on a Dojo Pro shinken I have, but I was nervous about re-creating it. I still think of myself as very new to this and am not terribly confident about my skills, and I wasn't sure I could do it again.
But being able to would not only give me a shinken I really wanted, it would go a long way toward making me believe that I was actually developing the ability to achieve the outcome I envisioned. And if I couldn't -- well, that would tell me something, too, wouldn't it!
================
The skippable background part: Happy as I was with the River Koi Tanto, I was very disappointed when the polyurethane clear coat quickly yellowed, making the fish much less luminous and changing the underwater teal of the rocks to a greener color. It caused me to switch to using automotive 2K clear coat -- much more work and much more toxic, but a much better outcome.
I wanted to try doing the same design on a Dojo Pro shinken I have, but I was nervous about re-creating it. I still think of myself as very new to this and am not terribly confident about my skills, and I wasn't sure I could do it again.
But being able to would not only give me a shinken I really wanted, it would go a long way toward making me believe that I was actually developing the ability to achieve the outcome I envisioned. And if I couldn't -- well, that would tell me something, too, wouldn't it!
================
One of the first swords I ever fixed up & customized was a dojo iaito that I'd repainted with a silhouette of a koi fish stenciled in gold:
It was very simple, but something about it appealed to people who needed to use a dojo sword, and it got a lot of use. So when my batto-jutsu instructor asked if I'd re-shim it, I took it home intending to do just that. Then I made the mistake of thinking about what else I'd like to do to it, and realized I wanted to give my River Koi design a new try -- except bigger, better, bolder, with 30% more koi!
I popped out the shitodome and sanded down the saya. I primered it white, then painted it in a teal I liked.
I used my Cricut printer to cut a stencil of a larger version of my koi. I put the positive koi shape on the saya and then speckled the saya with black, white, gray, and a shade of the teal using an airbrush and a popsicle stick to spatter the paint. This gave it a granite appearance, and funny enough made it look like one of those metal granite-ware coffee cups for campers.
I cut some oval-ish river rock shapes out of printer paper and used those as stencils, spraying their outlines in shaded black. If you place them with a little forethought, this by itself looks like water-smoothed river rocks piled on each other. The rest is just shading & contour with black & a little teal. You can see the positive koi stencil between two of the rubber bands here:
I popped out the shitodome and sanded down the saya. I primered it white, then painted it in a teal I liked.
I used my Cricut printer to cut a stencil of a larger version of my koi. I put the positive koi shape on the saya and then speckled the saya with black, white, gray, and a shade of the teal using an airbrush and a popsicle stick to spatter the paint. This gave it a granite appearance, and funny enough made it look like one of those metal granite-ware coffee cups for campers.
I cut some oval-ish river rock shapes out of printer paper and used those as stencils, spraying their outlines in shaded black. If you place them with a little forethought, this by itself looks like water-smoothed river rocks piled on each other. The rest is just shading & contour with black & a little teal. You can see the positive koi stencil between two of the rubber bands here:
I removed the positive koi stencil and placed the negative koi shape where it had been. I painted this opaque white, then sprayed a mixture of fine metallic white & pearl white. This gave an iridescent fish-skin quality.
I made a stencil for the orange spot shapes...
...and sprayed candy orange so they would really pop:
I penciled in the fin & tail feathering and used a Sharpie for the eyes:
I wanted the koi to look half submerged, so I sprayed a candy teal fade around its edges, leaving the head alone:
I taped off the kurigata and trim lines at either end...
...then sprayed the saya opaque black, fading into the river rock edges:
I also darkened the rocks just a bit, because I didn't want the design to pop out from the saya, I wanted it to look integral to the overall scheme. Then I pulled all the tape, did some minor repairs, and sprayed 3 coats of 2K clear, then buffed & waxed. Done!
The clear coat really brought out the color in the rocks without making them pop too much, and brought a luminescence to the koi that makes using candy paints a lot of fun. The pix don't pick up on the teal color or the luminescence all that well. Wahh.
I'm really glad I decided to do this. Besides the fact that I'm happy with it, I learned that, yes, I really am getting to where I can achieve what I set out to with this stuff. Yay!
Thanks for reading!
