Alex Yarde stumbles upon stormthecastle.com the one stop shop for all your cosplay, mead making & terrarium building needs!
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After Guardians of the Galaxy when my daughter gleefully skipped out of the theatre singing “Cherry Bomb” I had no doubt Gamora was what she wanted to be on Halloween. I assumed I could find Zoe Saldana’s epic sword on Amazon. No such luck. So I did what any Geek Dad would do. I consulted You Tube for Cosplay ideas. I discovered the epicfantasy channel powered by stormthecastle.com.Hosted by the amazingly creative and talented Mr.Will Kalif. It’s a channel for making everything from Trebuchets to Terrariums, Medieval Castles to Mead Making and everything in between! His video on how to make the Skyrim Iron Sword met my requirements being both inexpensive and easy. I adapted his design for my daughter’s sword.
Here is his video below:
I also realized she needed a scabbard for hands free Trick or Treating. stormthecastle.com had me covered. With little more than a cereal box, black foam sheets and a hot glue gun I made a terrific scabbard!
Here’s that video:
Mr. Kalif’s skill at producing tutorials is truly amazing. Easy to follow and the final products look terrific! Will as it turns out has expertise in a staggering variety of subjects and his websites reflect this. He lives in Fall River Massachusetts where he works out of a home office. He has been building and working on websites since 1998. He had held several different types of jobs over the course of a traditional career including military service, machine technician, and software engineer. He has worked on a variety of things including Robotic work cell equipment. In 2006 he ventured out on his own with the websites. He maintains a wide variety of sites, which cover a lot of different topics and also a very popular YouTube channel. His assets draw over 3 million page views a month.His first and flagship website is http://www.stormthecastle.com.
He has published several books including:
The Secret Art of Mead Making Revealed
Fulcrum Shift (epic fantasy)
Lion’s Last Kill (epic fantasy)
How to Make Fantasy and Medieval Dioramas (hobby instructional)
He writes about and makes projects/videos about the subjects that interest him the major ones of which are:
Mead Making
Terrarium Making
Diorama Making
Epic Fantasy
Telescopes and Astronomy
Knights/Medieval Subjects
Bonsai
Origami
Blacksmithing
Classical Guitar
Making Video Games
International travel
Beekeeping
Medieval Castles
If you like making projects and exploring a variety of hobbies, sign up for his newsletter. He’ll send you regular updates on hobbies and projects you can make. It’s totally free and he doesn’t share your E-Mail. Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. If you use his tutorial videos to make something like I did for my Gamora Sword & Scabbard, he’ll add it to his ever-expanding photo gallery of weapons and projects his community creates.
Now I’m off to learn how to make Mead for my Game of Thrones Season Premiere Party. I think I can make some by April!
Art ~Will Kalif , Alex Yarde