Wheeeeeee


Vincent Valentine's Claw. It's been almost a year in the making. And now I finally have the photos to show it off muahahahahaha

btw, the file is fricken' huge. If you want to see it full-size, hit "download."

Everything was made out of brass sheet. Sawn out. Hand-hammered. Soldered. Sanded. Buffed. Polished. Riveted. Flaunted. XD

It was made to look like Vincent's claw in FF7AC and DOC. Of course, there were real-life physical limitations that resulted in a different look, but I still like the way it came out. Changes that had to be made included:
-expansion of the wrist-end of the armpiece. Vincent's fits him snugly all the way down to the wrist, but such a snug-fitting one would never fit over a person's hand. Therefore, the wrist end was widened so it could be taken on and off. It was either that or hinges, and I refused the hinges for both mechanical and cosmetic reasons -_-
-a band across the palm and rings around the finger bases. In the game and movie, the entire claw seems to sit on a black background/glove, with no visible attachments. It's possible his is supposed to be riveted to the "glove." Or it's possible Squeenix didn't really think about practicality when designing Vincent (I think his shoes are quite indicative of the latter!). Anyway, rather than try to rivet the pieces to a little black evening glove, I made a band across the palm to hold it on and the base of each finger gauntlet is a ring.
-fixed end joints. When the human finger bends, it also shortens. This was causing the finger gauntlets to fall off every time my buyer flexed his fingers. So, I shortened the finger guantlets (so the rings fit about 1/4" away from the base of each of his fingers) and that allowed him to flex the finger normally for the most part. However, the last joint -- the pointy one -- was still falling off. Rather than shorten the finger gauntlets any more, I soldered the two end joints together. This kinda defeats the point of having four finger joints for battle purposes, but this is for cosplaying anyway, so it doesn't matter. This way I was able to keep an apparent four finger joints, for the sake of canoninity
-straight spiculums. The taper on the spiculums was too steep to make the claws curve without collapsing the spiculums.

Other details...

Compound curves were used on the "upswing" of the finger joints and the two cuffs (at the elbow and wrist) of the arm piece. I'm not going to divulge the secrets of how these are made. All I'll tell you is that I used wood and two types of hammers.
The cone of the arm piece was simply hammered around a large conical forming stake and soldered down the middle, with two large acetylene torches and easy solder.
The hand piece was sawn out and hammered mostly with a ring mandrel.
The fingers were made individually. For one finger gauntlet, four pieces (only three for the thumb though) were sawn out and formed individually, polished, and riveted together on the sides so they could move -- with the exception of the last two joints which were soldered together for the aforementioned mobility purposes.
As for the spiculum forms at the end of each finger gauntlet, I'm not going to tell you how I made that either. However, I will tell you that they were cut out of sheet metal, formed, and soldered, and that they were filed down at the tips to be very very sharp.
All the metal used was brass -- 24 guage for the fingers and 20 guage for the hand and arm pieces. The whole thing is sturdy enough for cosplay purposes but is actually very light-weight.
Weights:
arm piece - 562.3g - 1.24lb - 19.8oz
hand piece - 64.1g - 2.26oz
pinky - 15.8g - 0.557oz
ring - 21.6g - 0.762oz
middle - 26.4g - 0.931oz
index - 21.8g - 0.769oz
thumb - 19.7g - 0.695oz

....And that's all I can think of to say about that right now.

I'll post a link to the video of it as soon as I can get it to work properly.



***Update***

Finally found a video hosting site that works!!!
video of claw being worn --> [link]


***Update1-28-09***

OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*cries*

I can't believe this got a DD!!! Thanks so much to Phyrbyrd and Kitten-of-Woe!!! *cries again* you just made my year!!!!!!!!


***Update 4-14-2009***

picture of claw being worn: [link]