Ah, another step into darkness. Continuing with my Ginko costume from Mushishi, the biggest and most challenging element of getting the Ginko costume together is the wooden box or kibako. I had a couple of preliminary ideas of using alternative materials instead of wood. This was based on the idea of weight, heat and look. In the end, wood was decided since it gave the box a realistic feel to it.

This is the kibako constructed but with out the stain. The box ending up being about 15lbs. which is quite light in nerd and otaku terms. Since we’ve carried way more heavier things in our backpacks!

The straps are just belts bought from Target. They loop around and just buckle up inside the box.

Ready to be stained!

The box in the anime is a dark nutty brown color. I thought that I should stay away from that since it might make the box look like it was hacked together from a left over dining table from grandma’s house. Went with the ebony stain which I’m still unsure of whether it was a good idea since the box looks black/brown.

できた! Here it is, the finished product! It’s a bit black but it gives it that old Japanese wood-look to it. So hopefully it will look better when it’s in full light? What do you guys think?