Im going to show folks how to make armor cheaply.

[shaowebb]

I make armor. I've done a lot of various kinds...everything from modding helmets, to fiberglass, to simply cannibalizing plastics and such. I've learned a lot of odd tricks for stuff like making lenses, some nifty info on thermoplastics, and a lot of other stuff so I thought I'd share something folks here can actually use.

You see fiberglass and plastics...well...they have a STEEP learning curve and are expensive as fuck. My first projects were with that and bondo and occasionally polystyrene foam sealed in various ways like the guy at fiberglassweapons does and its all really really touchy shit. I can do it, but yeah...not a good way to start. So here's an EASY way!

I'm in the middle of making a helmet. Helmets can be a bitch. They involve curves and have to fit juuuuuuuust right and need lenses and stuff. Its easy to look like Captain Trashcan head the wondershit if you dont have a little bit of help and its hard to find it.

For now here is what I did in 3 hours.

To make a helmet that fits you get some

• cardboard (ask walmart for some large chunks from their baler. Its free and there is a ton. You can make Ironman, master chief, or whatever for super cheap doing this.)
• duct tape.
• Hot glue is also helpful

NEXT "Cut off a long ass strip of cardboard and wrap it around your head like a headband. This is so you get a helmet that fits you. DONT GET IT SNUG. Leave it slightly loose so it lays on your ears but doesn't fall off. This way you dont get headaches and if it shrinks after later steps it doesn't fit like shit.

NEXT take another strip and give your headband a mohawk! This is so your helmet is the right height. Just tape or glue those chunks together. Doesn't matter. Here is a pic someone else showed of them doing that at stormthecastle.com I didn't get pics of my own at this point. Sorry.

Anyhow after this just start adding small pieces of cardboard to connect he chunks like a wireframe on a bowl. Just keep gluing or taping on cardboard to the thing and trying it on till you have slowly covered most of the areas that need support and then DUCT TAPE THEM ALL. Tape them on the outside AND the inside.

You see we will be adding clay to this and sculpting this "frame" into something that doesn't look like crap later and the last thing you want is for WET CLAY to touch cardboard. Seal it with duct tape. The clay will stick to it so dont worry.


Here is my frame all taped up.

Next up CLAY!

But wait...clay comes in different types? Yup. And buying lots of it is expensive. Well what you need is paper clay. Ever toss a spitball on a ceiling and it hardened into cement? THATS what you want to sculpt with. I've used other stuff and most sculpted pretty well but when they dry they would crack and most are too fragile to just wear...they aren't meant for that. But we WANT to wear our stuff. Craft stores have paper clay in small bricks for $5...

...BUT I KNOW HOW TO MAKE PAPER CLAY AHAHAHAHAHA!

This is cheap, makes bulk and works.
RECIPE.
http://ultimatepapermache.com/paper-mache-clay

I modified the recipe this woman uses but as you can see from her site you can sculpt some fine details in this stuff. No kidding. FINE details.

• 1 roll of toilet paper (you'll need 1 1/4 cups of the paper pulp when we are done) (cheapass $0.87 single ply worst you can find walmart toilet paper.)
• 3/4 cup of white glue (Elmer’s glue-All NOT school glue)
• 1 cup of joint compound (not plumbing. The stuff you put on drywall. Also at walmart in giant buckets.)
• 2-3 cups all purpose white flour(not self rising...we aint making biscuits)
• 2 tablespoons GLYCERINE (stuff is like $2 in walmart's pharmacy. Helps harden this stuff and is safe to work with your hands)

This stuff is awesome and cheap. Just fill a big bowl with hot water and unroll a roll of toilet paper into the thing! You're going to want it to dissolve into pulp so stir it around. Then grab the paper pulp out and squeeze the water out of it. Got it? Good. Tear those paper balls up into small little chunks the size of quarters and toss them in a bowl with all the other ingredients and prepare to get your hands dirty.

NOTE: the original recipe the woman uses is like a paper clay paste...you cant sculpt with that like clay so keep adding flour till it feels like clay or biscuit dough. If its like tunasalad its too wet and you need more. Just keep adding till its all set. Its also advisable to add the flour a little at a time so you can use a mixer early on to get it all mixed together evenly.
So we got clay!!!
This stuff can be sanded, dremeled, sealed and painted metallic, you can carve fine details...whatever. PLUS its light enough to wear yet durable enough for costumes armor and it bonds to adhesives really well if you need to mount it to undershirts or something!

FINALLY
Get a bowl of warm water, grab some clay , put it on your helmet and wet your hands and start rubbing it onto your frame. The water lets you smooth it into place and helps fuse seperate clay chunks you add together.

Here's my frame now.

• I'll update more later as I sand in details, add lenses and paint.
  
  *TO BE CONTINUED...*

 

[shaowebb]

*Day 2 update*

Its hard, but still a bit flexible meaning only the outer layer is dry and that their is still moisture under the surface. Going to let this dry a few more days so that when I sand it the stuff actually is dry enough to sand and wont just stretch. Speaking of stretching my stand that I laid it on to dry was actually too wide and my helmet tried to stretch out to get fat. No problem. Its still flexible so I just tied a belt over it to sqeeze it back into the size I had as it finishes drying.

 

[Goldi]

I wish I'd found this a few days ago... I'm trying to detail a corset to look more like Frost's and making her armor swirl thingys has been daunting lol

I've been thinking about asking for a cosplay section on the forums. TYM is heavily focused on the offline events that attract some talented artists and models. I'm still a sewing newb, though. I'd love to see more posts like this and have a place to get feedback and ideas.

I don't quite fit in on more traditional craft forums lol

 

[AeroGrunt]

Wow, can't wait to see the finished product!

 

[shaowebb]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It'll be dry enough to sand in the next day or so and then I can start shaping it up. For now here's a pic of me in Crashman Armor about 6 years ago. It was my first attempt at armor and it was a rough learning experience involving fiberglass.

 

[shaowebb]

Okay now that EVO is over and after 6 days I finally have a night off I got to check my helmet. Its DEFINITELY dry. Nice and hard too. It shrank slightly as expected and is now a secure fit.

Here is where it stands.

Im starting out with 80 grit sandpaper which is really rough and I'm wrapping it around a sanding sponge to allow it to evenly sand. A sanding block tends to sand flat spots but sponges allow for curved shapes far more easily and are great for more delicate smaller pieces. For TRULY small pieces I've even wrapped sandpaper around a pencil before and used it like a saw to round out small areas on the eyes for previous projects like this. For now though simple sandpaper and sanding sponges for reshaping this at a low grit till its more refined.

IMPORTANT:

Helmets are NOT going to be easy to get in and out of unless you design your helmet for entry. Most use a hinge like Power Ranger helmets like this dude's picture.

Spoiler

(on a personal note this Pink Ranger helmet's lens is shit. The lens isn't contoured right and you can easily stretch heated lexan or acrylic you popped in an oven at 200 degrees over any sculpted shape of a lense you need and have it contour into a lense you can see out of. Clear casting lenses creates distortion, modding motorcycle helmet lenses is doable but rough and not always workable for any shape...heating acrylic and lexan and then pressing it over a sculpt of your lens works and you can see through it. Thats how they make sneeze guards for salad bars.

You can also dye those lenses any color by applying a fog guard to them which soaks up regular ass dye meant for cloth. Bikers are known to chuck their lenses into red writ dye to get badass red lenses for motocross shows. The more you know folks...)

However the Ray's helmet is a tricky one. He is one of those guy's who has an open mouth area like Batman, and like Batman he has a neck piece too. We aren't exactly vacuum forming a rubber helmet here that will stretch for this project so I am building the neck and lower jaw as a seperate pieces for a few reasons. The jaw though will be attached to the helmet top once done with more clay and sanded to look like one piece.

1. You have to REALLY use force to sand a helmet during the low grit stages. If I had a jaw and chin hanging on while I was trying to reshape them I may break them. I'd rather make them seperately and then attach and clay weld them into place later.
2. By leaving the back of my helmet open all the way up to my eyebrow's height in the back I can easily put the helmet on and off and like the picture below you can see his helmet has a seperate neck area it lays on top of. This is both canon in my case and practical for entry without having to add hinges or other areas that move aside to allow entry and removal. The Fin on top of the helmet will be added later for similar reasons.

Here is a detailed explanation and visual reference of my next step.

For now SANDING! I reshape with 80 grit sandpaper thats super rough (or even lower grit if avalable), patch odd spots with more clay rubbed on with water. The water makes it soft like butter and this is a common sculpting repair practice and is a part of every sculpt...there are always dips and dots to bulk out slightly but you need to do it gently using this wetted down thinner clay (referred to as "slip" professionally).

Once I get through reshaping I want to refine the surface to be smooth so I switch to higher grit papers that are more fine than the lower grits. I generally go 180-ish to 240 then finish with a 400 grit sanding sponge. ALL AVAILABLE AT ANY HARDWARE STORE. Lowes, Home Depot....hell even Walmart carries most of this stuff.

Thats all for now. I'll update after I finish up any other pieces.

 

[Chrishaspads]

i dont do this but this looks bad ass! Cant wait to see the final product!

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

*watching thread*

 

[shaowebb]

BTW I just realized I did something in this thread that REALLY pisses me off in other people's armor threads...I didn't show pictures of the materials I used for my sanding or for my clay. Well screw that mistake I am not going to be like the rest of the folks I studied online to figure this stuff out. Time for specifics.

SANDING MATERIALS

CLAY MAKING MATERIALS

I found all of the following at Walmart and Lowes. The Glycerine is in ALL pharmacies near burn stuff since its skin care stuff. It helps the clay harden and is a great replacement for linseed oil which is stank and can self ignite. I highly recommend it...plus your skin feels nice and smells like biscuits here.

• 1 roll of toilet paper (you'll need 1 1/4 cups of the paper pulp when we are done) (cheapass $0.87 single ply worst you can find walmart toilet paper.)
• 3/4 cup of white glue (Elmer’s glue-All NOT school glue)
• 1 cup of joint compound (not plumbing. The stuff you put on drywall. Also at walmart in giant buckets.)
• 4-6 cups all purpose white flour(not self rising...we aint making biscuits)
• 2 tablespoons GLYCERINE (stuff is like $2 in walmart's pharmacy. Helps harden this stuff and is safe to work with your hands)

The following were ALL found at Walmart. I use the most generic-ass stuff available because there is NOTHING worse than doing a tutorial with a bunch of specialty items folks may not be able to buy in there areas. Some of us live in the backwoods and dont have foreign markets and decent craft stores with crazy materials like thermoplastics or something.

WALMART SUPPLIES.

BTW that toilet paper is John Wayne Toilet Paper. Its rough, its tough and it doesn't take any shit off of anyone. Thats why its only $0.87 for four...I used two and did a gallon bag and still have left overs. This is what the toiletpaper looks like after you throw it into all that water to seperate it into pulp and then squeeze it out into small pulp balls to throw into your mix.

Finally is the only material I had to buy at Lowes...Elmer's Glue All. I bought it there because my Walmart ran out.

BTW the cardboard was free and I owned duct tape. You can ask Walmart if you can grab a large sheet of cardboard over on their GM or grocery side if you tell them you use it for stuff like painting and crafts and they just give it to you free.

Also for fun here is a picture of the craft foam I got. They also had this at Walmart, but I was at a craft store so I bought it there instead. I chose yellow because once I prime it for painting even if it bleeds through with yellow it wont matter as it wont really screw up the color of the gold I put over it.

And thats it for now. Sorry I didn't do all that first for those wanting to mess around with the clay or something. If there are questions hit me with them as I have done so much trial and error I can tell you the "goof" and "bad" of just about any material folks use for armor making. ESPECIALLY adhesives...I cannot tell you how much experience I've racked up with buying using, and testing adhesives to see how durable they are. To date the best are always liquid nail and gorilla glue, but for certain materials only hotglue is fine (not pleather...pops off).

Anyhow QA whenever you feel like it. I live here so I'll be around to answer or offer advice to your own projects.

 

[shaowebb]

BTW here is what the clay looks like when its done and about how tough it is in my version that uses more flour than the lady who I modified the recipe from.

I keep it sealed in a ziploc gallon bag and press the air out of it to prevent mold since flour+liquid+air=mold over time.

I had this much left after doing my entire helmet in one sitting last time and all from what little of my ingredients I used. Prepare to have a TON of clay cheap with this recipe folks. I'd say with the amount of glue and joint compound I have and a few more things of toilet paper I could EASILY create a full body Ironman suit with this many materials.

EDIT: Also on a side note I found this little $3 paper mask today at the craft store I was in.

This isn't something you could guaranteed find, but its pretty darn generic and these things pop up in craft sections a LOT in both kids crafts and adult crafts.

You see my cardboard frame was made by hand with just cardboard....it would have been SOOOOOOO much easier to just glue a cardboard mohawk and bandanna to this thing to have my face mask area settled instead of having to mess around for awhile trying to piece together my nose and eye pieces out of cardboard.

If you are having trouble or if you just want to save time just try to find one of these if you can to make it simpler (unless of course the eye shape of the masks they have are completely WRONG for your purposes. Even then though you'd only have to mod the mask's eyes with some more hot glue and cardboard.)

 

[shaowebb]

I wish I'd found this a few days ago... I'm trying to detail a corset to look more like Frost's and making her armor swirl thingys has been daunting lol

I've been thinking about asking for a cosplay section on the forums. TYM is heavily focused on the offline events that attract some talented artists and models. I'm still a sewing newb, though. I'd love to see more posts like this and have a place to get feedback and ideas.

I don't quite fit in on more traditional craft forums lol

Goldfish


Sorry I missed this post earlier but there is something that I can help you with there.

You are modding a corset for Killer Frost is my guess. Even if its not a mod and you are making your corset from scratch I've dealt with a similar problem you will face with this. That problem is armor and it easily damaging if it is on your abs.

You see as you move around leaning over and such even with corset boning to keep you from bending at the stomach you still apply force along that armored area. I ran into this with a Prince of Persia Two Thrones cosplay, Edgar from FFIV, and with other Megaman stuff. Its been a learning experience what to make this abdominal armor out of without it breaking.

You've got a couple of options that I know work well. Both are cheap, but one involves mail order supplies unless you have a truly boss craft store.

You're making this.

Essentially you can do one of a few techniques to make this. You'll be rimming your cups with a little bit of armor and your entire waist is banded with embossed patterns.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO USE PAPER CLAY FOR THIS AREA.
The way her armored corset is setup you cant just take clay, sculpt your shape and then get in and out of your corset properly. The clay would likely take too much bending force and that'd stress it into breaking. Its best for helmets and plate areas, but its not something I recommend highly for flexible regions of the body that come under stress when sitting, bending, or leaning. Plus it'd turn it into a tube that wouldn't unfold like a corset normally does and that'd mean you'd have to force your way in by either putting your arms over your head and sliding into it like a shirt or by pulling it up your legs like pants and then up your waist. BOTH would require you to make the panty area something akin to what Pro Wrestlers do for their tops and thats make it have an unbuttonable codpiece that you undo to slide it on then fasten to seal it up under you.

Those are doable if you have hard armored segments that have to remain one perfect tube and cant open, but never setup the fastener on the bottom.From experience wrestling I can tell you that shit CHAFES. You're thighs will hate you along your groin line. Snaps aren't as bad, but unlike hooks they pop open easily and one wrong move and you're ass out with miss muffin saying high to the masses. Dont even attempt velcro for that unless you have callouses. If you really need to go the " one piece that doesn't open up in the back" route then make certain to simply make the cod piece tuck all the way back up under it inside your armor to about the stomach and put your fasteners there. That way no chafing along the leg and groin which takes constant abuse due to walking and if an accident happens it is HIGHLY unlikely it could fall all the way out or even slide out at all before you could push on your tummy and refasten your snap since the pressure of your body against the codpiece's cloth would pin it to the inside of your corset.



...any how here's how I think you can make this.


METHOD 1

Cheapest method Least effort. Gets hot.

Craft foam.
Make one plate for your stomach and 2 more plates to cover each of your sides and mount these chunks to cloth with tiling glue (found at lowes for linoleum tile. Mounts really well and I often use it to make boot bases mount to cloth. Make certain all 3 pieces get cloth on them...craft foam to skin is terrible.Put hooks on your cloth to fasten it like any normal corset. Best bet would be to make the sides first with excess cloth on either side, then mount your hooks and fasten the side together. Pull your excess cloth up to the front, lay your stomach plate on and measure where to apply your glue. Once its mounted up you can get to the engraving.

You can do this simply by using a clay sculpting tool, a butter knife, an old kroger card...anything with an edge you can put some force on that's too blunt to cut. Here is an example from a talented elf cosplayer's site where I learned of this.

http://www.jedielfqueen.com/index.htm

To paint craft foam seal it with Gesso. This is so paint doesn't get absorbed and leave your foam looking all matte, faded and if you used metallic colors covered in sparkles. Gesso is used on canvas for the same reason. So it seals it and the paint looks right. Its at walmart and craft stores. Once the design is on you your paints and you can even use stuff like "scribbles" which is fabric latex found in walmart/craft store tshirt craft areas. I will say this though about scribbles...unless you are confident you can draw the pattern in one smooth never stopping motion they can be a bitch. Squeeze to hard or pause too long on a spot and you get a blob making your line look wobbly. Go to fast and it stretches too thin and seperates. BOTH causes wavering lines and its rough to deal with. If you got an X-acto knife though you can always slowly slice away excess areas made by mistake prior to painting. Here is an image of someone's scribble work I saved to my tutorials folder a long time back when I was researching them.

Anyhow craft foam armor. Turns out nice.

*SPECIAL NOTE!* Craft foam is a heat insulator...even plastic isn't this hot as plastic at least absorbs heat to a degree, but craft foam repels it back onto your skin. I went skin to cloth lined craft foam armor before for my Prince of Persia Cosplay years ago...the result while decent looking stank like MAD. The sweat builds up in 20 minutes and after a whole day any random puff of air shooting up from your chest will gag the room. By the end of the day I was literally soaked on my chest in grease. It was disturbing to say the least. Had little heat bumps for a few days too. Load up on cans of aerosol deoderant and make excuses to hit the bathroom and wipe up and spray down every hour and you should avoid the grease day I had. It was much better the second day after doing that but a bit much. Your call here.

Results are good though if you take your time.
Heres mine which didn't have a lot of armor.

But check out what other people made with it by playing with paints or by mounting textured things over the foam to paint later. Stuff is sewable and glues well. Just gotta get it sealed to paint it or mount something over your stuff and all its other layers of foam strips you can paint.

Personally I'm wanting to buy reflective metallic poster board to mount to this stuff...

...oh the possibilities...

Also if you wanna do like a breastplate this video helps a lot for making cups.

METHOD 2

Leather. Similar to everything above, but you literally cut your pattern into the leather, then iron it. Not as sweaty, more durable and professional looking. Harder to sew the bits you need though. It'll take a leather punch, or a thimbel and leather needle and leather workable thread (threads at walmart or anywhere else have tension grades and they will say what is tough enough to use on leather without snapping as you pull on it)

METHOD 3

Polymorph plastic armor.

Takes some sculpting but its one of the most impressive methods. You mount it to cloth and set it up same as the other two, but you literally make a clay sculpt of the pattern you want embossed and then you heat up thermo plastic beads and press it onto the mold. After removing the plastic you dunk in cold water to set it.

The material is not easy to comeby locally but here is a vendor I know of online. Cheap stuff. But you may need a lot for this. Not sure how much but expect something plastic to always run you over $50.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/blrtronics/m.html

Here's a video of the stuff.

Basically sculpt it up, mold it into shape, get naked in a tub, lay it on your stomach and turn the cold water on you in the tub and you got a 1 to 1 perfectly sculpted and engraved plastic armor piece ready to primer and paint.


Its up to you what sounds up your alley and budget. Also as far as the frills go on the side of her corset you could just try to mount on some fur from a fabric store, you could try to sculpt it out of more plastic and mount that to cloth and mount them to your corset's leg area, you could take fur and try styling it to get all those nice tufts and then lightly frost it with highlights to give it the cool shadows with a fabric marker, you could do a lot of things so I leave it up to you.

Hope this helps!

 

[shaowebb]

Speaking of craft foam I'm building my neck piece now. Here is an image of my craft foam cut into strips about as wide as a quarter. I'll be running these from my collar bone to my browline around my neck and around the open area in the back exposed by the large open area I left in my helmet design that allows me to get my helmet on and off easily.

I'll do it by :

• gesso sealing each strip individually to make certain they are fully sealed on all exposed areas
• gluing the pieces by their center along a 2 thin cloths. One of which I will then attach to a headband temporarily so that I can wear this thing like a curtain blind down the back of my head. The other remaining pieces I will attach to another cloth and measure
• while worn I will simply pull each band to the front and see how far they reach and trim them accordingly down to size so that they wrap around the sides of my head or completely cover my throat. The ones on the throat I will simply attach the ends to some hooks (the kind bra's have) and I'll secure them in place like donning a necklace once time to wear them. The one that goes along the side of my head will be mounted simply to a cloth backing and left attached to the headband so that it drapes along my face properly and closely. The cloth backing will make the bands all follow the headband's contour uniformly. Should it not contour tightly enough I'll simply lay a wire along this backing, secure it in place under a cloth that I will glue over it and use this bendable wirerframe to force it to contour to whatever angle's I bend it too.

Got some work to do now. Also I need to bulk out some of my helmets forehead...it has a slight backsloping and isn't rounded properly. Too flat. Not a big deal. These are the kinds of little repairs you do in these projects.

 

[shaowebb]

UPDATE:

Been several days since my last post. I had to add a bit more clay to improve the forehead on my helmet and wait for it to dry so there was a bit of a delay. Given I worked 5 straight and got tied up with an interview its not like I could sand or do much anyways...

Anyhow it dried and I figured that I may as well cut the excess off the jaw and ears already. I know my doodle above showed me leaving the jaw on, but it'd just be too much bother so I'll just cut all the junk below the nose off and build it on as a mandible with a strap that I can wear like a fake beard before sliding the helmet over top of it. Plus that way it will move when I talk!

Here's the result of my trimming.

I love how it looks with no eyes visible. Thats why I'll glue some lenses behind the eye holes later to make it look this badass at all times.

Here is how it looks when worn so far.

^ as you can see I still need to widen the eyes a bit. The front view shows they are not wide enough and it puts the sclera area of my eyes right on the edge of the eye hole almost creating a crosseyed problem. Sure their will be lenses there anyways, but it tells me they aren't open far enough inward toward the nose. I'll need to take a knife along those to fix this. Also slightly higher cut on the left side of this image compared to the right. I'll even that up too.

Brow line is looking great though. It gives it a lot of expression when I lower my head.

As you can tell I still have plenty of refinement to go with my sanding but I was eager to trim the thing so I went ahead and did that before sanding anymore. Also for an idea of what it will look like once I make the jaw and chin piece here is an image. I'll essentially wire up a strip of cardboard, add clay to it and shape it up the way I like and strap it on like a fake beard with some elastic that'll allow it to move as my jaw moves. The round ear piece will lay along the edge of the upper helmet hiding the edge. To make certain the jaw doesn't jostle or try to slip I will likely take its elastic strap and duct tape it into place along the inside of the helmet.

Here's an idea of how it will lay on my face.

Thats all for now. I still got lots to sand and do and I still got another day of work and a good bit of running around to do the next several days over some potential industrial position I may be moving into. I'll keep posting as I keep working.

FUN FACT: to get machined looking edges along the rim of this use a box cutter and slice the helmet instead of sawing at it or dremeling. Sure you have to scratch it over and over, but do it in small cuts instead of long cuts. Dont trim it all at once just a little at a time and the result is a nice hard even and smooth edge under the nose and sides

 

[AZ MotherBrain]

Very nice. I have been making cosplay props for quite awhile myself.

 

[Rosegoddess3]

Awesome thread shaowebb!! You know your stuff

I thought I'd post a tutorial on how I made Killer Frost's armor! I'll limit the post specifically to the chest armor and leave it to future posts to discuss how I did the sewn pieces

I fell in love with Killer Frost's design before the game came out, and spent the two months before EVO slaving over it virtually everyday. If I wasn't training my KF on my Playstation, I was making KF come to life.

The following armor tutorial can be applied to different designs as well, so feel free to modify the conceptual framework as needed. I used craft foam, model magic, and epoxy resin for the armor:

Step 1: Study your character. A lot. I spent considerable time on the Bonus Feature which enables you to view the characters 360 degrees. When Ed Boon asked what I used as a reference to create the costume, I told him that this feature helped me tremendously. I wish all games had this feature! Planning really is the most important part--determining what materials you will use, the order it should be done in, etc. This is a skill that can't really be conveyed entirely over a tutorial, though if there is an already existing tutorial it will help a great deal. Search for a character tutorial first, and if there is none out there, let your imagination run wild. Try to purchase all the materials you need first.

Step 2: Locate reference images online and resize them (in photoshop or a similar program) as needed. For Frost's chest armor, I cropped an image (see pic below) of just that armor and adjusted the image size to my measurements.

Step 3: Create patterns from cardstock. Cut those patterns with an X-acto knife. You want your pattern to be as clean as possible, so plan carefully. For Frost, I cut the paper pieces for the armor design out and traced them onto the cardstock. I would later use those lines to sculpt the model magic. (see pic below)

Step 4: Trace the pattern you created onto the craft foam. http://i.imgur.com/IOuur22.jpg
Use an X-acto blade to cut out the shapes. (See pic below)

Step 5: Sculpt the armor pieces out of model magic using the lines on your cardstock pattern. After you are satisfied with the shape, transfer it onto the appropriate location on the craft foam. This is a pain. Also, make sure it is done in a clean location as the model magic will pick up dust and what not easily.

Step 6: Once you are satisfied with the sculpted model magic over craftfoam, coat it with an equal parts mixture of elmers glue and water using a paintbrush. You can also use a mixture of modge podge and water. I tend do go overkill, so I coated it 7 times (leaving enough time to dry between coats). 3-4 could suffice if you plan on covering with resin, but I always do about 7.

Step 7: After your armor is sealed with glue, cover it with Envirotex lite resin. Use goggles, gloves, and wear protective clothing!! This stuff is NOT something you want to come into contact with. I use a paintbrush to get into all the little spaces. This product is self leveling, but watch out for uniform distribution and you might need to use two coats. Make sure it dries in a place free from dust and bugs, preferably a garage or a room you are not sleeping in. Do the initial application in a well ventilated area.

Step 8: Prime your armor by spraying it with black spray paint (assuming your final product is metallic). This is a great way to pre-weather metallic armor.

Step 9: Spray with metallic spray paint. Spray paints are NOT created equal!! Krylon (whatever its called) does not provide as smooth coverage as others. Montana Gold acrylic spray paint is the best I've come across!! If you spray it lightly (from roughly a foot to 15" away), the black base coat will show through and give it a weathered effect!!

Step 10: If you still feel that your armor needs weathering, use black acrylic paint and apply it to corners and edges. Smear it as needed with a rag, or dry brush it on. It depends on what you are more comfortable with artistically.

Step 11: Attach your armor with industrial velcro, or industrial snaps. I didn't use rivets for this project, but those also work well.

Step 12: Run around in your fancy armor and act like a nerd. Take fun pictures if you can.

Feel free to ask me questions about armor any time!! I used this method for my Dark Zelda and Tifa Lockhart armor as well . There are other materials that work a little better, such as sintra and apoxie sculpt which I have used as well, or worbla, but I'll leave that discussion for another day!

 

[shaowebb]

Great job Rosegoddess! I've seen some folks use model magic before, but I never tried it myself. So long as its cheap, lightweight, paintable, sandable, and doesn't crack its golden in my eyes. Thanks for showing that. I'll give it a try sometime soon and see how it feels for various shapes.

Love that there are multiple tutorials and techniques being shared here by folks. MK fans need stuff like this so I'm loving this.

UPDATE:

Since I'm still sanding, adding slip, and such to the main helmet theres not a lot to talk about there, but I did get the jaw made up as I pointed out in this image.

I got the craft foam cut by just laying a sheet of paper on my face and looking in a mirror and roughing the jaw outline for one side. Then I cut that side out as clean as I could, traced the pattern i'd made from the paper onto my craft foam and then flipped my pattern over to make the opposite jaw side's outline as well. That way instead of just cutting out the single jaw I had traced and then doing another piece for the opposite side I was able to make one long piece for the entire jaw.

Here are the results shown and held together with a bit of duct tape and tested with my helmet (That is still being sanded through various grits).

Got the front view a bit crooked because I pushed my helmet trying to hold the jaw in place for the shot, but you get the idea...

I'll attach a strap to the back of the jaw so I can wear it like a fake beard under my helmet and I'll add the circular shaped to cover the seam between then helmet and jaw pieces and to help body out the jaw slightly so that it gets thicker as it meets the helmet. I'll use Gesso to seal this before I paint it and similar to rosegoddess I'll clear coat the shit out of the painted product to give it a faux metallic shine.

Next up the throat armor needs crafted, and I still need to sand and refine the helmet more before the fin and lenses.

 

[shaowebb]

Quick Update:

Sorry, but I've been busy. Interviews, college, and visits with family have killed the past few weeks for this project, but I'm back in and doing a nice sanding trick that guarantees an even and smooth finish for your paint later on. Its the kind of thing I felt I should share and it also gives a preview of my paint and how its color will look prior to clear coat once I finish the last of my sanding and add my mohawk to this.

And when I say sanding I mean with a sanding sponge. I have mine wrapped in an 80 grit piece of sand paper, but the point is you are using a WIDE and SOFT sander to pass over your helmet...as surface that cannot in any possible manner contour into a dent. If you were using a sanding block you'd sand flat surfaces into your helmet but just hand sanding in this manner with a sanding sponge in a large strokes (circular back and forth...whatever) will guarantee that all dents are sanded out evenly to contour with the areas surrounding them.

Honestly you dont even need metallic paint...any will do including primer. I just used metallic because its really obvious where your rough areas are when you see the surface of a metal paint job and ...well...because I was eager to view my color early

Enjoy this trick. It makes your finished sanding a lot easier to manage and it makes your finished paint job WAAAAAAAAAAY smoother looking.

PS- If you sand so much you fear you will carve flat areas or hills into your object trying to get out certain dents or rough spots just leave them and lightly scrape some of your leftover joint compound onto those areas and wipe it smooth.
The dents and rough spots will fill in and once dry you can sand them evenly with the rest of the surrounding area in seconds. No need to use more clay. It'd be harder to sand than the joint compound would be. After this just wipe a bunch of times with a towel to clear the dust (a black towel is easiest to see if its clean) and once sufficiently dust free paint. You can't wet wipe this sadly...its paper clay and will get damaged in water until the moment you paint and clear coat it to seal it. It'll be durable enough once done and sufficiently water proof too, but for now dont go wet wiping or wet sanding it.

 

[shaowebb]

By the way I'm only showing armor because I'm quite frankly still quite amateur at sewing. However, I'm pretty good at manipulating materials.

I'll be needing golden fabric on my coat. I already had a bolt of black shiny pleather from buying up clearance stock of it years ago at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Sorry folks...no help there. You want fabric you got to find fabric stores, shop around, buy up after halloween for rare stuff like pleathers cheaply or go online.

However here is a CONSTANT issue. What happens if you CANT find a shiny leather or pleather in exactly the color you need? What if it needs to fade into several colors!? O_O

Jacquardproducts.com

Problem solved. They make fabric ink dyes and paints that contain Micah. The pinata dyes go on like ink and work like car paint which means you can dribble some on a sponge, base coat in a red, put on a top coat of gold and then BOOM! You got a gold whose shadows and highlights reflect in reds like a car that used red metal fleck in a base coat then top coated in gold.

The Lumierre stuff goes on thicker like paint and does crazy stuff as well and BOTH come in metallics as well as a huge range of other colors and textures like pearlized stuff too. They are durable, dont react to water (rainproof!) and are even sealable with clear coat stuff if you got some.

Here's an example of someone using stuff like this to get crazy as hell transitions in a coat.

Badass. Here's the company vid on the Pinata inks and lumierre paints lineup.

Stuff is like $13 after shipping for 3 bottles from http://www.dharmatrading.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=pinata
Or you could get that 9 pack for like $25 after shipping if you want a bunch of colors. Stuff is shiny and metallic as fuck.


Also here is the lumierre paint in action.

Here is the best thing...they have a store locater on their site. This way you can find a store near you to visit that sells this stuff. If you dont have a local store (like me) this search thing ALSO lists any online vendor for specific products you search for. Thats how I found my vendors.

http://www.jacquardproducts.com/storelocator/index.php

I spent $13 for my gold pleather...and it wont chip, wont flake, nor will it get all gummy and cling to shit that I lean on.

This is some fabric I did up. Amazing shit.

ENJOY MK FANS! You can now do JAX!!!!!!!

 

[shaowebb]

UPDATE:

Nearly done sanding! I put the test coat of paint onto my last sanding to check for blemishes and check out that smooth quality. Now I'll just drill some holes in the top, run some screws out it to bolt the frame of my helmet's fin to so it doesn't snap and then I'll sand and paint them together after I body out the fin.

Once the fin is on and its as smooth as the rest of this, I'll paint it and then glue in the chrome lenses for my eyes.

 

[shaowebb]

Its been 11 days since my update, but college started and I've had to do a lot of driving around, flipping in and out of courses, and maneuvering so forgive the lack of updates. Tonight when I get home from work at 7 I'm going to try to do a bit more work and I should have a little something new to talk about in here. For now, you generally get the idea of how to do this though.

1. make cardboard frame
2. tape it up to reinforce/seal it
3. make clay
4. clay it over
5. sand (this takes awhile. Made easier by painting then sanding and finding where your roughspots/dibits are)
6. add slip to small areas
7. sand again
8. paint
   
   Currently I have pulled the cardboard and duct taped frame out from the inside of my helmet since the clay was dry. I found a few thin spots to reinforce with more clay which I am letting dry now. Once its dry I'll hit the interior with spray adhesive and a soft fabric liner so its more comfortable than just jagged clay or duct taped carboard. If room permits feel free to add a litttle bit of soft batting (pillow fluff) by gluing it and then gluing fabric over it. Just remember though that clay continually shrinks. By now my extra room is gone and its snug with the cardboard liner. After removing it the helmet feels nice with a slight bit of room to add a thinner, softer liner. Thats perfect and what you want.
   
   Anyhow thats all for now. I wont have any pictures till some clay dries and I can just reinforce the interior. Once the clay dries though I'll be drilling some holes to place screws in the helmet so that I can mount my helmet's metal fin to the outside. The screws will be put inside it and will poke out its top like a mohawk and act as a frame/spine to the fin so it doesn't snap off.
   
   TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[PND_Mustard]

awesome thread, Ketchup and i make alot of armour for cosplay purposes too, so it's nice to see likeminded individuals on here.

will be keeping an eye on this!

 

[Doombawkz]

Leave it to a Bane to know his shit about armor
Just kidding, it looks awesome. You've got millenniums more talent than I do.

 

[shaowebb]

Thanks for the support guys. At this point its pretty much me finishing off the costume after the clay dries and posting final pictures. You've essentially heard exactly how its done for me. I do also do things like plastic armors and such as you saw from that Crashman I did years ago as a first attempt at armor, but honestly what I'd like to try next time is something involving thermoplastics again even if its just me forming lenses for a swank Kamen Rider helmet.

Rest assured if I'm building something wearable, I'll post it here to help out all the MK and Injustice folks at TYM.

That said Im tired as hell now that I'm home...not certain if I'm gonna be sewing pleather after all. Sorry.

 

[cpmd4]

Awesome, I can't wait to see the finished product. This is totally the type of thing I'd like to try out in my spare time.

 

[shaowebb]

UPDATE:

Oy college sucked these past few weeks. Been really hectic trying to prep for some stuff with no books and living an hour from class so I haven't worked on this lately. Anyhow I'm doing trim sanding to smooth corners with a dremel now and I just put the bolts in to act as support spines for the fin on the helmet.

If I were to just bulk up clay on top it'd likely break because it would be clay that hardened on top of already hardened clay. Clay that was smooth and hard to grip on to. Yeah, thats not smart. So what I did was drill holes in, run bolts through my helmet and I am going to build my fin around those. Since mounding up a ton of clay would take forever to dry I'm going to make a pattern and mount wood to the side of the bolts and then add clay around the wood to "seal" it to the helmet. Essentially the clay is being added to just bulk out the wood's shape and make it seamless from the helmet. To make my pattern to cut out of my thin panel of craft wood ($3 craft wood plank available at craft stores, or walmarts) I am cutting out strips of paper and folding them along the contour of my helmet till I have an accurate pattern I can trace out onto my wood. I simply tape each peace together as I go.

^ just like that.

And thats how I'm making my helmet fin and the pattern for it. Only thing holding this up is school right now so bear with me. Its nearly done.