Mairimashita: Iruma Bow

Iruma's bow from Mairimashita! Iruma-kun: roughly two metres tip-to-tip, built as a commission for a client's cosplay.

Two challenges. At that size, with a narrow profile, a plastic bow can snap the first time it is picked up. And the model is barely shown in the source material, so there were exactly two references to work from: one from the manga, one from the anime.

The answer was an internal skeleton of overlapping PVC pipe sections inside the bow; a single continuous spine was not possible with a curving shape. It breaks down into sections for transport, is printed in colour rather than painted, and carries no string: this is a display and posing prop.

Development

This project had one obvious challenge - the sheer scale of the thing! And unfortunately, I was also provided extremely limited references for the bow - one from the original manga and one from the anime series. Not the fault of the client of course, this model just isn't shown very often (I was unable to find anything else myself, though perhaps my Google-Fu failed me!)

This prop measures around 2-meters tip-to-tip, which for a plastic 3D-printed object with a narrow profile... it was an engineering challenge I had to put some serious thought into so that the bow wouldn't snap in half the first time it was picked up!

In the end, I ended up joining the sections of bow with a sequence of overlapping internal skeleton sections made from PVC piping. One long continuous skeleton would have been preferable, but not possible with a curving shape such as this.

However, from all accounts, the client has been very happy with it so far, so it seems my efforts did the trick!

Gallery

Shop this build

• Iruma's Bow — £175.00, Approx. 2m tip-to-tip, breaks down into sections, 10-14 days