At this point I've made a few different heirlooms from Apex Legends (Wraith and Bloodhound) but Octane's has been the most requested by far! I figured I'd throw together a post on how I made it since I think the process is pretty interesting! From research to finished product, it probably took me about 2 months but that's because my other work takes priority.
3D Modeling
All of the things I 3D print start with a digital file. I modeled this myself in Fusion360 and while I'm efficient enough with the software to get things done, I always feel like I need to hack my way through the difficult parts. The details on the blade, and skulls at the top of the handle, were the worst part and I ended up using the 2D sketching tools in Fusion to get these done but it wasn't pretty... Octane's knife ended up being split into 13 pieces (4 spacers for the screws not shown).
3D Printing
I have a Peopoly Phenom L that I use for all of my (resin) printing. It has a large bed size for stuff like Bloodhound's axe, but it still works great for the small size of Octane's parts. I went through about 8 iterations of prints before I got everything to fit together nicely and turn out with good quality. The difficult part about Octane's heirloom is that it has moving parts so everything needs to be designed to be a tight fit, but loose enough that parts can move freely of each other. I ended up buying real butterfly knife screws and designing the 3D model to fit around those. This helped the knife move around with very little friction and work just like a real one would!
Molding and Casting
All of the stuff I sell gets molded and casted. It's a much more efficient way to make multiple copies of something and it allows me to sand and finish a single item then just make copies of that (as opposed to 3D printing and sanding every single one). For Octane's parts, I created a single 1-part mold (center and side vials), one 2-part mold (blade) and two 3-part molds (handles).
The 3-part handle molds were something I've never done before and those came with some trial and error to figure out the process. Since the handles have a few internal cavities, I couldn't do my usual 2-part mold for this. I followed this video to learn the process and basically did the same thing: block off the internal cavity using clay, make a 2-part mold, then remove the clay in the internal cavity and pour silicone into there for the 3rd part of the mold.
After the two parts of the mold are done the clay inside of the model above gets removed and that becomes the area where part 3 gets poured. This was tricky because it's such a small cavity but I eventually just cut into the side of the larger half of the mold in a place that didn't have a lot of detail.
Prep/Painting
After the molds are done then you can mix some resin, pour it into your molds, and have an exact replica pop out! The silicone mold really catches every single nook and cranny of detail (especially 3D printing layer lines so you need to fill and sand those out of existence). Here's what a resin cast looks like after the resin has hardened:
Depending on which resin you use this can be anywhere from 15 minutes to multiple hours. I prefer to use Smooth-Cast 321 because it gives me enough working time to get the resin mixed, poured into the molds, and placed into a pressure chamber to get rid of any bubbles in the castings. At this point you just have to remove the thin flashing bits (resin spill out) and do some minor sanding to prep for paint!
Once I get a solid black basecoat on, then I do some masking to prep for the gold paint. This is the most tedious part, but I use my laser cutter to cut out a stencil that I apply to the holes on the handle. I pull the pattern right from the digital file so the laser cut stencil should match the resin cast perfectly (it's always slightly off)!
After the masking is applied I can airbrush the gold into the crevasses of the handle and then hand paint the skulls at the top of the handle. This part is the most time intensive part of the entire process. The blade then gets painted silver (I'm using Alclad's Airframe Aluminum) and then Scorpion Green gets painted into the details on the blade:
Then everything gets an automotive clear coat for shine and durability.
Assembly
Once everything is fully painted then it it's time to throw it all together! There are 16 individual pieces in total.
What use is a cool prop without a way to display it?! I designed an acrylic stand to hold the knife in either it's closed or open form:
I know this was kind of a long post but thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment with questions or suggestions! If you'd like me to make you a copy, you can check it out in the shop or pick one up on Etsy if you prefer that platform.