Mushroom Person Prop

[untold quartz]

Hey Guys, I know this isn't....quite the regularly-themed stuff people post on here, but I figure I'd give it a shot since this is a costume-craft-ey bunch.

Last Renfaire I too made a big Mushroom hat, and wanted to add a new prop, because unfortunately the big fork prop i bought broke. Initially I thought about **making a huge needle sword **that could tie to my rope belt (I'm going for kind of like a Borrowers/Arietty-vibe), but now am wondering if another Big Fork or Kitchen Knife would be better, as I imagine my character as more of a farmer or general adventurer.

So if any of you guys have thoughts on **A) which weapon/prop might work better B) tips on ideas on how to craft it, **it'd be much appreciated. Trying to get this done in the next few weeks, haha. I provided some concepts+image of what my original outfit looked like

[finite oar]

spoon, becase as a farmer it doubles as a shovel, fork doubles as a rake, knife is more aggressive

warrior smol vibes

[boreal badger]

Personally, I like the large kitchen knife most, at least based off of your concept art. Although a spoon would really work well for a farmer.

[untold quartz]

oh true! I had considered spoon but not as a shovel haha

i think i initially like fork or knife just cause it could double as farm tool and weapon

[finite oar]

As for materials, I would youtube search large weapon props for cosplay to see cosplayer tried and true methods.
But otherwise, pvc, cosplay foam, rattan etc

[untold quartz]

thats a good point - i've been watching a couple videos but theres surprisingly few where i've been jazzed by the outcome haha, but i will try my best

also just cause i always feel like renfaire props have mroe of a chance to get banged up/need to be more durable but maybe that might be a misconception

[finite oar]

Modify a broom?

[livid hollow]

@untold quartz What do you have at your disposal?

[untold quartz]

Tool-wise:

• handsaw
• various x-actos and boxcutters
• a small dremmel
• a hand sander (for floors I think, it's my roommate's and we've used it for crafts)
• spray paint
• hand drill
• a heat gun

Supplies-wise I'm pretty open to anything, I was thinking of going to look at pvc pipes or wood dowels, I've also tried a little bit with EVA Foam and spray insulation foam. Hope that helps!

[livid hollow]

Thank you

How much can you lift?

Because you could try fixing the broken fork with rebar hidden inside the structure

I'm sorry

It would take possibly an hour or an hour and a half to cut the rebar with the hand saw

@untold quartz

But that depends on how big are we talking about isn't as thick as somebody's wrist or a little thicker? And how long is it is it your arm half of your upper torso weight cuz that's going to affect the way and how the problem is primarily used sorry

[untold quartz]

unfortunately i don't think fixing the original fork is much of an option - when i initially bought it, i assumed it was some sort of painted wood but it turned out to be some sort of.....plastic or ceramic, honestly it was kind of weird and i'm still not 100% sure. point is, it shattered, and was hollow inside, so i don't think it was really meant for this kind of prop anyway, which is partially why i'm thinking of just trying to make something on my own from scratch that i can have more control over

[untold quartz]

i'm not a very tall individual (i'm about 5'1) so my upper torso/arm length is roughly about 18-20 inches in length. i seem to have misplaced my tape measure, but from a rough measurement i'm probably gonna be looking to make this prop somewhere between 2-3 feet in length (not sure if that answers your question)

[neat sail]

How tall is your character? What scale are we talking about?
For the moment let's assume 1:12 scale. You're 5'1 which would make your character about 5". An average table knife/fork measures about 8.5 to 9". Giving your mushroom an 9' knife makes it a full blown spear. A butterknife or teaspoon would scale up to a much more manageable 5'.
A 2" needle would make a brilliant 2' smallsword/rapier. A beer coaster would roughly scale to an early medieval Viking round shield. And a bottlecap would make a great targe or buckler.

[untold quartz]

admittedly, i've been going pretty nebulous with scale - but in general, i'd probably ballpark-imagine my character is around 8-10 inches in height. Also, after some conversations i had with some friends, they pointed out a needle still may be easiest just in terms of carrying and weight, as my mushroom hat is already pretty big (about 2 ft in diameter, and is pretty heavy, though its something i'm going to work on). But, it do like the idea of some sort of bottlecap shield, something that would be about a buckler/targe-size at least scaled to my character

Because i'm looking for durability, i'm wondering if i could either get a wooden dowel and sand it down to the sizes i'd want (to add the taper as well as the thread hole) OR somehow melt/bend a pvc pipe with a heat gun. i only hope these wouldn't be too heavy, for making like a small-sword-sized sewing needle

[neat sail]

So if your character is about 10 inch and you're about 5 foot that would be 1:6. Every real life object would have to be multiplied by 6 to correctly scale.
A 2 inch needle would scale up to 1 foot. Pretty short for a sword, but pretty beefy for a dagger.
A standard 29 millimetre bottle cap would scale up to 17.4 centimetres, just under 7 inch. Bucklers are on average about a foot to a foot and a half.

As you can see I am all about 'realism'. However outlandish a creature might be, if its backstory and accessories etc. are believable I love it.

Took a quick toilet break between posting and I spotted the ideal 'weapon' for your mushroom: A cotton swab. 😅 It scales up to about 20 inch. Should be reasonably easy to make. And the idea of whacking somebody on the head with a big cotton ball on a stick is just freaking hilarious.

And while a bottle cap might be a bit small the lid of a random jar (mustard in this case) would scale perfectly to make great targe.

Now I'm just brainstorming but how about a Zulu style shield. But instead of rawhyde ... a leaf.

[untold quartz]

fdmksl a LEAF shield could be very cool/cute! maybe not the strongest shield but who's to say my character makes smart decisions haha. i think a cotton swab could be very fun, though i think if i went for something like a leaf shield i could potentially go for like a stick thats been fashiioned with other things to keep with a more natural-theme