Project Remnant Sword – 殘劍 Can Jian

Last winter break, I joined the kids in making the Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos from God of War. It was incredibly fun and we enjoyed the end result. I kept a few photos on my phone to show people.

I have enjoyed crafts all my life, but there’s something special about doing it with the kids. Beyond the family bonding yada yada, it’s just nice to see them genuinely excited about amateur creations. We as adults are cursed with exposures to Instagram and Pinterest, and the inclination to always benchmark ourselves against artistic perfectionist. The absolute certainty of failure to measure up to the literal best of the Internet makes us dissatisfied with any moderate achievement, but children can find joy in a mishmash LEGO build without comparing themselves to LEGO Masters competitors. We can all benefit from that mentality sometimes.

After God of War, the kids got really into Harry Potter and started making wands. By saving disposable chopsticks from restaurants and combining them with air clay and paint, they made batches of that stuff and gifted them to their friends. It was awesome. I itched to join in. Though I wasn’t enough of a Harry Potter fan and didn’t like the rather limited specs on these wands according to the lore. I contemplated making something else, but wasn’t sure what.

Then an extra boost of motivation arrived when we visited Aamra’s family and got a tour of Hamza’s room. With cardboard and other materials, he made a bunch of life-sized weapons, armor, and gears from the MCU, Halo, and anime. They were so cool! As an upcoming college student, Hamza had advanced skills leading to sophisticated creations. I felt inspired and started searching for ideas to make my own.

The Idea

I wanted to make a sword with comical proportions. Ideally, it’d be modeled after a recognizable but not overly popular piece of pop culture.

Can Jian 殘劍, or Remnant Sword, is the name of both a character and his weapon in the 2002 movie Hero. Although Jet Li’s character is the primary protagonist, his role is mainly of a storyteller. On the other hand, Can Jian as played by Tony Leung is the pivotal character that really drove the plot.

The sword in the story is missing its top 1/3 of blade, hence the name presumably. Despite the handicap, the owner is the most feared swordsman under the sun. While no backstory is provided, the broken weapon is a literary device that signals the character being on the mature side and transcending boundaries of a swordsman into something greater.

Beyond the story and the character, Can Jian is among my favorite fictional weapons because it’s based on sword styles of the late Iron Age. Compared to their more ornate successors, swords from this period looked more plain with simpler geometric shapes. For my project, too, this means easier to replicate.

The Materials

Unlike the Comic-Con kids, I don’t have a bank account dedicated to cosplay props. Thus it was important for my project to be made mostly from garbage. The base material was obvious – when we bought our desk a few years ago, it came with these L-shaped cardboard pieces as protective corner packaging. Not only was it cleaner to handle than Styrofoam, it was also an awesome construction material that I had repurposed in several applications since. With durability close to plywood and flexibility similar to cardboard, it was a wonderful material for this sword.

I turned to the store for some supplies: a couple PVC pipes, a can of spray paint, and a pack of foil card stock totaling about $20. Everything else was sourced within our humble home, like shipping boxes, acrylic paint, and a circular piece of foam that we got from Daiso years ago.

The Detour

I slacked off from forging my sword and made a couple Focuses from the Horizon franchise, just in case I get bored of role playing Kratos and want to be Aloy. Moving on…

The Design

Working out the specs of individual pieces to make my sword was fun, and the most I’d had to think about geometry in many years. Cutting the wood-like cardboard into shape was a backbreaking task, though. This took a while.

The Paint

Painting is among my top weaknesses in arts and crafts, and it sure feels like I’m the only person on earth with difficulties using a spray paint can. But I managed. Free-handing the patterns was kind of fun and I took some real liberties with the final decorative pieces on the sword handle.

I meant to use a dark metallic gray color, closer to the source material. The spray paint that I bought turned out way too silver. It was a disappointment, but I stuck with it. It was hard enough to purchase spray paint in California; I wasn’t interested in knowing how the return/exchange process worked.

On the round piece is the character “Hou” in an era-appropriate font.

The Final Assembly

The blade surface was the most stressful part of this whole project, because I suck at glue, too. But it turned out acceptable, despite not being as smooth as I had anticipated. Finally piecing everything together after 3 weeks of work felt amazing, though.

The Final Product – Can Jian 殘劍 (Remnant Sword)

Done!

Note 1: I thought about covering up the top with a piece of foil card stock, because a cut edge of a steel blade would be silver in color. But the exposed cardboard look grew on me and seemed like a better way to convey the sword being broken as opposed to being oddly short.

Note 2: My Can Jian is 2-3x in size compared to the version depicted in the movie. This was intentional because I thought a big sword would be fun.