Introduction: Making the Wabbajack

By
About: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCidj54dZKBUkE2gquxxZmLw

SKYRIM! My favorite game. SHEOGORATH! probably my favorite daedric prince.

For thoses of you who don't play Skyrim, or have no clue what a daedric prince is. They are pretty much magical immortal beings who just like to cause trouble. After abducting you into your own mind, or Pelagius the thirds, or Sheogorath's (I have no clue what really happens), the daedric prince of madness contracts you to help clear up old Pelageous head, and gives you the wabbajack to do so. For all you clueless folks out there, you basically are given a cool stick to shoot magic at people with.

I love this quest, and I love the Wabbajack, so I decided I wanted one to keep for myself in the mortal world.

There are probably better ways to make this, with better materials, but currently I am broke, so I'm working with a ramen noodle budget.

Step 1: Source Material

Get something to base your staff off of.

I don't own any of these pictures; I found them here: http://www.deviantart.com/tag/wabbajack and here: http://thecharcoalalchemist.tumblr.com/post/76220890696/templarsalad-important-psa-wabbajack-has-a

Step 2: Supplies

  • Paper towel tube
  • Plaster gauze
  • Mod Podge or something similar
  • Wood glue
  • Hot glue
  • Paper clay (I used Delight http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Paperclay-Delight-M... )
  • Craft foam
  • Aluminum foil
  • PVC pipe
  • Primer spray paint
  • Acrylic paint
  • Tools to mold clay
  • Silver Rub and Buff
  • Anything else I forgot to add, that I later mention in this tutorial.

Step 3: Flimsy Cardboard Is No Good.

To make the head of the staff, I was going to use PVC pipe because it would have been sturdier and less time consuming, but we did not have the right pipe size, so I had to down grade to a less sturdy, very cheap, paper towel tube.

Firstly cut the tube to the appropriate length, and chop the holes out for the mouths. Because paper towel tubes are about as sturdy as, well, a paper towel tube, I covered it in plaster gauze and hung it from my ceiling fan, so that gravity held the thin mouth side thingies, not collapse .

I then coated the plaster in a layer of Mod Podge and wood glue.

Step 4: Sculpting

The Wabbajack has all of these cool tiki torch head things on the top of it, which I sculpted out of paper clay. Now I am a huge amateur with clay (the only other thing I used it in was the tiny faces on the Wuuthrad, a battle axe also from Skyrim), so the tools I used were just: q-tips, an exacto knife, a pencil and some scissors.

The mouth was a little difficult because the paper clay I was using did not roll out into tubes particularly well, so I molded it into a sausage like shape and just cut it until it was thinner, then mushed the thinner pieces into a longer string. That sounded really complicated, but it actually is not hard. Next I rolled out some clay, and cut it into teeth. I found out that paper clay sticks really well to wood glue, so I just had to lightly put it on the tube.

It''s kinda hard to explain how I made the face part, but it was pretty much just individually making the features, and then putting them where they needed to go. Once I had everything roughly where it was suppose to go, I dipped a q-tip in water, and slathered all the features together, so it looked less like a Mr Potato Head, and more like a tiki face.

Each side of the Wabbajack has a different face, so I made sure to make them look, well, different. Also don't forget to make their mustaches, it gives them a cool look.

When I was finished sculpting, I waited for it to dry then covered it in a bunch of Mod Podge.

Step 5: The Handle

I did not want to make the bulb that is directly below the faces completely out of clay, so I made the base out of aluminium foil. I did not spend much time on it, which I kind of regret now because it is not that symmetrical.

After the rough shape was made, I coated the tin foil in wood glue so the clay would stick to it. I then glued the face thing onto my PVC pipe. I had to wrap some craft foam around the pipe because my paper towel tube was a bit larger than the pipe. Next I wrapped more craft foam around the pipe to get more of the design.

I then covered the aluminum foil blob in some rolled out clay, and left it to dry before I covered everything in Mod Podge.

Step 6: The Pommel

Is pommel the right word? Well, the end of the staff thingie. In the game the end kinda flares out a little, but I don't have time for that, so instead I took a tablespoon measure-er, coated in it a cooking spray (VERY IMPORTANT), and filled it with hot glue. I then attached the glue hemisphere to the end of the PVC pipe with more hot glue.

Step 7: Priming and Painting

Firstly, I primed the whole thing with a sand able primer, I then coated the entire thing in a mix of dark brown, black and a smudge of silver Rub and Buff. After everything was dried, I took a DRY coarse brush and lightly brushed silver Rub and Buff onto all of the higher points of the faces.

The Wabbajack in the game actually has slight hints of a brownish bronze on it, so I painted same watered down brown acrylic paint into the sunken parts of the faces. I then coated the entire face part in a very watered down black paint and whipped it off of the higher places after a minute or too (weathering).

The swirly part below the heads is more silver on the outside and blacker in the middle part, and in the crevasses between the twist.

Step 8: Testing Your Final Product

"...And as for you, my little mortal minion.. Feel free to keep the Wabbajack as a symbol of my... Oh just take the damn thing,"


Lovely, IT'S DONE!!!!! Now I'll just cause a bunch of havoc :)