Welcome back to another round of Pandemic Props with Mikey! This time around we’re going to take a look at another pair of swords from Genshin Impact that went to two different homes, to be wielded independently. Let’s take a look at the making of the beautiful, but giant pain-in-my-ass-twice-over, Aquila Favonia.

The first thing you’re probably noticing is the mesmerizing blue glow of the blade, arguably the most eye-catching aspect of it, which of course is a feature my first commissioner wants to include. This was the biggest obstacle to work through construction-wise, because it greatly impacts what materials I’m going to be using to make it, and how they’ll have to go together. Additionally I have to think about what sort of lighting I’m going to be using to get the whole blade to light up.

The blade material was pretty straightforward, since I found some light blue acrylic on Amazon which would work well. The biggest downside was that it wasn’t as thick as I wanted and the pieces weren’t wide enough to get the full length of the blade in one piece.
As for the lighting, my first thought was to use EL wire because it lights consistently along the whole wire and has a relatively manageable-sized battery pack. Unfortunately when I tried it, the EL wire wasn’t powerful enough to make the acrylic glow enough to notice. So instead I went with a battery-powered LED strip which was plenty powerful enough for the project! And as a bonus, the LED strips can change color so the blade could be pretty much any color you want!

As you can see here, the acrylic blade and the MDF base with the chunk cut out for the battery pack that will hide in between the crazy hilt wings. The LED strip sits nicely along the edge of the MDF section, which I then used contact cement to attach the acrylic section. To hold everything together and keep the blade in place, I used thin craft foam over the section that didn’t light, with worbla over the foam to make it solid.

In order to get the blade to diffuse the light better, I sanded the surface with a very fine-grit sandpaper and sprayed it with a frosted glass spray.

With the way the hilt wings stick out, they also needed a lot of structural support, so I made them out of foam with a worbla shell, along with the bit that sticks out at the bottom with the glowing gem. That particular piece also sandwiches around the end of the LED strip so the lights will shine thourough the gem there without needing a separate light.

With the structural stuff done, priming and painting are next! Fun story, I realized during my second build that I painted one of the sections the wrong color, so you can play “find the difference” between the two finished swords XD