Halloween: Xena's Chakram Tutorial

This is a DIY Xena's Chakram Halloween post, I'm pretty excited about it.  This was one of the reasons why I wanted to start a blog in the first place.

Hello, Lucy Flawless.

 I was Xena for Halloween 2 years ago (yay!Xena!) & I was able to find her costume pretty easily. I tried it on at Party City & then bought it for $30 cheaper on Amazon. This is the one I bought, but it was cheaper 2 years ago, figures. I think it's a really great costume & it's pretty good quality too, especially considering it's a basic pre-packaged one.

Pretty badass, aye?

 & that's my costume in all it's full accessorized glory. The cape & the arm bands were included with the dress.The sword is just a cheapo one I found at Party City & look, it's still in stock! It's a good deal considering the how big it is & the fact that it comes with a sheath. I wore black leather over the knee boots with this, but forgot to take a picture of them.

Now let's get to the gritty here. Once I had the costume, I needed Xena weapons in order to properly represent her. Yeah, I'm that kind of Halloween person. I like to research my characters & have fun with it for a reasonable price. While I'm in awe of cosplay people & their incredible skills, I just don't have the funds to create the costumes they do. Maybe one day, but not today. In order to be Xena you have to have a chakram, right? That circular throwing thingy is her trademark weapon. But two years ago I couldn't find a Xena chakram for sale online, therefore I had to make my own. So I did what I always do when I need to get crafty, I searched online for a tutorial. Much to my dismay, I couldn't find any picture/video tutorials on how to make a chakram. I was on my own. Wild west frontier on my own.

This was my goal.

First I went searching for pictures of Xena's actual chakrams, so I could have a design plan. Then I went searching for plain metal chakrams & I was able to find one on Amazon, but it cost too much. Considering I didn't need an actual working weapon & I wanted to make this as cheaply as I possibly could, I decided to use what I already had in abundance at home: aluminum foil & cardboard. The only thing I bought for my homemade chakram was gold paint.


Materials:

• Cardboard boxes
• Aluminum foil
• Gold paint, I used this one in Glorious Gold
• Drawing compass
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Pen
• Scissors
• Box cutter
• Elmer's Glue
• Black permanent marker

& here's what I was able to come up with.

My next step was to create a template. Initially I thought it would be a grand idea to trace pots & pans in order to get perfect circles, until I tried it & couldn't trace pots & pans for the life of me. So, I rustled through my office supplies & found my old drawing compass from elementary school. Hey look teachers, I actually used math in real life! Ha. I made an outer circle & then an inner circle. Easy enough. Then I needed to figure out the chakram design. It's basically a series of 18 equal sized rectangles, 9 gold & 9 silver. They need to be equal or else it will be very obvious. In order to find the exact needed length of the outer lines of the rectangles I figured out the circumference of the outer circle & divide it by 18. Then I found the circumference of the inner circle & divided it by 18 in order to find out the exact needed length for the bottom rectangle length. More real life math! Disclaimer: math was always my worst subject, so I'm sure there is probably an easier or more precise way to figure out how to do this, but this was the only way I could think of. Please don't laugh at me, mathematicians.

Once I had the measurements I needed, I went at it with my trusty ruler & compass & made all the rectangles. I measured out the outer & inner (or top & bottom) rectangle lines with a ruler & then drew them with my handy compass. Then I drew the side rectangle lines straight with a ruler. Finally I used a pen cap & traced a small circle in every other rectangle to complete the design. Template complete.

It's like the cardboard Olympics.

I cut out my template & gathered a couple cardboard boxes I had laying around. Three layers of cardboard were the perfect amount of thickness needed so I used the template to trace out three cardboard chakrams & cut them out carefully. I used a box cutter & scissors. Then I glued the three cardboard chakrams together with standard Elmer's glue, piled on a few heavy text books on top of them to press them together & left it out overnight to dry.

The back was pretty wrinkly, but what can you do. No one sees the back anyway.

The next step was to wrap the cardboard in aluminum foil. I had to wrestle with it a bit to get it to work (the inner circle was a challenge), but I eventually figured it out & Elmer glued the aluminum foil to the cardboard chakram. Again, I piled on a few heavy text books & let it dry overnight.

Hello, first coat of paint.

Now time for the design fun, or the design, "do or die, is this going to work or will it be a complete disaster?" fear part of the project. I didn't take a picture of this step, but I cut out the gold rectangles part of my paper template laid it on the aluminum chakram. I then fearfully drew out the design with a black pen, using my compass & ruler again, to make sure I had perfect lines.

Time to paint. Again, I used this paint from Joann's in Glorious Gold to carefully paint the gold design. I painted 3 layers & let it sit out to dry for a few hours in between each layer.

Whoomp, there it is.

Finally, I outlined the gold design with a black permanent marker. & yes, I did use a compass and a ruler with the black permanent marker. Perfect, perfect. Have to be perfect. I free handed the little circles though, I got lazy at that point. & done. Whew. I was really pleased & proud with how it turned out. It was actually really fun to make it too.

I must admit that I really love this thing & I wish I could carry it with me always.

 I attached the chakram to my costume using one of those Velcro thingys (technical term) that come with laptop cords in order to keep them neatly bundled. I just looped it through a couple of my belt holes & then looped it around to my chakram in order to hold it into place.

Not only is it functional, but it's fun! You try whipping out a sword attached to your back & not feel like a boss.

 I also used two other Velcro laptop cord thingys to secure my sword to my back & be like Xena. That way the sword could easily slide into place & be held by the Velcro loops & I wouldn't be forced to carry a sword around in my hands all night. The back of the sword sheath has holes, so I looped one of the Velcro thingys through them & then over the left shoulder strap of my costume, securing the Velcro. Then I sewed the back of the second Velcro strap into the back of my belt near the right side of my waist, making it so the sword would be attached diagonally across my back, just like Xena! I told you I'm one of those Halloween people.

 & that was it! Thanks for sticking with me through this long picture post.