My Assassin’s Creed II Hidden Blade Tutorial

I figured I would at least post something while I work on the crank generator for the proton pack. It has a lot of little curved pieces and I don’t want to screw it up when I cut it out and assemble it so I’m taking my time with it. I’ll get back to posting my progress with the proton pack once I get the crank generator finished. I may even be part way through or finished with the gun box mount assembly by my next post so look forward to that as well. ^_^

So moving on to today’s post, I wrote this tutorial a couple years back, but it should still be useful. This was the first build I did for one of my costumes and I was really proud of the final result. And they worked just like in the game! ^_^ Sorry for the blurry images. I had to use my phone back then, because I didn’t have any other camera. You should still get an idea of what it all should look like though. Anyway, on to the build! ^_^

First you’ll need to get some high impact styrene plastic at a .020″ or .030″ thickness. I used the .030″ styrene and I got it from the US Plastic Corp. website for about $9 a sheet (the sheets are pretty big. 40″x72″). If you can get it, you can use a thicker styrene like .125″ (1/8″) instead of the .030″ and the cork board. This is just how I did my build. There are plenty of other places you can get plastic from, sometimes there are even local places like hobby shops that carry it, so just check online to see if there are any in your area for faster shipping or pickup.

Materials needed:
.030″ Thick High Impact Styrene
Fine tip Permanent marker (I used one of those retractable Sharpies)
Pencil
Scissors
Craft knife/Exacto knife/Box cutter (whatever is best for you)
Amazing E-6000 glue (This stuff is as the name says “Amazing!” I now use it for all of my projects including the proton pack build)
Wood burning tool (I used the Creative Versa-Tool)
Cork tiles (the 12 X 12 ones are the ones I used. you won’t need this if you use thicker styrene, but I didn’t so this is what the tutorial covers)
Some craft foam
Electrical tape
Chrome spray paint
2 Toy Collapsible Blades (the joke blades that go into the handle)
Reference pictures (there’s one for you below)
Patterns (See below)

This will go a hell of a lot easier for you than it did for me. I had to make the patterns so it took me a while to get them just right. Just scribble on the back of the patterns with a pencil when you print them out, lay them on the plastic, and trace over them. The plastic should have a light outline that you can draw on to fill in. When you cut out the blade cover sections, extend them a couple of inches or so so that when they’re fully extended you don’t have a hole there. Both the left hand and right hand blade covers will be identical so go ahead and make two of them.

Using the Versa-Tool and the hot knife point, carve the pattern into the plastic being careful not to leave the tip in the plastic too long or to cut the plastic away from the rest of it. This tool has the slimmest point and gives the best results, but will cut completely through the plastic. After you carve the patterns into the plastic, flip it over and tape the back with electrical tape to be sure that none of the pieces break off. The angled tip will go at the very tip of the drawer slide right above the blade. Don’t worry about the exposed part on the left. No one will notice it when the blade is out anyway. Just glue them down with E-6000 and you’re done with that part. If you’re doing a double blade that’s all you need to do for the right blade since it will be concealed under your shirt. The next section is for the left hand blade and its cover.

For the left hand blade, cut out the cork board to the same size as the drawer slide when it is closed. Once again the Amazing E-6000 works wonders for this project, but don’t glue it on the drawer slide until you cut the hole out. Cut out the rectangle section of the housing pattern on the plastic (you’ll be using the rectangle piece in a bit so be careful when you cut it out), lay the plastic pattern over the cork and cut out the hole. Place some electrical tape on the bottom of the cork where the hole is then place the rectangular plastic piece removed from the plastic into the hole. Add a little electrical tape to the inside of the hole overlapping to the top of the cork so that it will be easier to paint and look flush with the plastic. Once the plastic is placed over the cork and everything is painted, you won’t be able to tell that there was any cork there and it will look flush with the plastic. Once done with this part you can glue the cork onto the drawer slide.

Looking at the reference picture, you can see that each piece of the pattern for the main body of the housing needs to be cut out separately, glued to cork or craft foam, carved with the Versa-Tool, then assembled and glued onto the base cork. The section with the hole will be glued directly to the cork that was previously cut out, the small left piece will be glued onto craft foam then to the base cork, the long right piece will be glued onto another cork to add height, and the circular section will be glued onto both cork and craft foam. If you look at the picture of my finished blade (even if it is a little blurry), you’ll see that the circular section goes: cork for the largest piece (covered with electrical tape and plastic so it could be painted), then plastic and craft foam for the piece with the pattern, and finally plastic and craft foam for the smallest piece. The little key piece on the back, which is just craft foam and plastic, will be the last thing to go on so don’t worry about it until you finish everything else.

As far as the pattern that was carved into the blade itself, I had to freehand that section onto the blade with a permanent marker then used the Versa-Tool to carve them in. The reference picture I provided should give you a good idea for the pattern for the blade section. It’s not that hard to do once you draw it out a couple of times. You’ll be painting over the blades and everything else so don’t worry about stray markings.

The last thing you’ll do for the assembly is measure the height of the finished piece so that you can cut out and add the sides to the housing. There are some circular parts and some over lapping angles so just keep those in mind when you cut out these pieces.

Finally, just paint the whole thing with the chrome spray paint.

Now you have a hidden blade that rivals that of Ezio’s! ^_^