That was easy..

I made the belt for my Kain cosplay the other day, compared to the shoe, which I did after it was a walk in the park!

We wrapped my mid-section with saran wrap and tape and marked the center and where my sides were, and then cut it off.  I then took it and made a nice paper pattern for each piece, because I found I really did not like the straight from tape patterns. I think my fashion designer background requires I have nice copies of my patterns so I can tweek them till they are right.

  I mad the pattern into three parts. The winged part, the circle and then the design on the circle.  The wings and circle I did out of worbla, and the detail work I did in wonderflex.

Tracing my wings onto the worbla.

The belt "kit" as I have been calling the pikes of parts.  You can just see on the white craft foam in the picture below that I glued some thin lines of craft foam onto the lower wing. I wanted there to be a raised detail to make the belt have more interest then being a purely flat thing.

After everything was cut out it was time for heat.  Now in the pictures I have of Kain the circle is a rounded buckle that curves out, which is hard to do uniformly by hand....

Sooooo, enter the kitchen strainer!  I had though of using a mixing bow, but their edges are not completely round, I was stumped for a bit, but then remembered the kitchen strainer would be completely round!

Now here I have it just on top of the strainer, but when I actually heated it, I put a layer of  freezer paper between it and the strainer to make sure it would not stick. I use this strainer on a regular basis after all.

The finished product!  This is the back, which you wont see. The paper caused a couple little lines to appear, but that is okay.

Fast forward to sticking everything together:  The near final piece, just needing some raised details on the gray part and more shaping.

I have actually finished this, but I appear to have not uploaded the photos yet! I will do that tomorrow!

The legs continue.

Yesterday, I made some shape molds out of paper clay on the front on my leg armor. Once it is fully dry I'll cover them with Wonderflex and all that is left would be to do the 4 side spikes (2 on each leg) and the legs are done and ready for paint!

After I had gotten these to a shape I could handle, I set them aside and started working on my foot armor. I made nicer paper patters from my plastic/tape ones, with better refined  points.  Then I grabbed one of the shoes I'll be wearing and taped the paper patterns over the shoe to see how it would all fit.  I had to extend the sides of the back part a bit to get it to go under the front piece, but other then that it worked out well.

Once I have these cut out and molded in the worbla/craft foam, I'll mold them to the shoe and turn out the points so they stick up/out better.

I am going to cut into the back plastic a bit and slide a piece of velcro through them to hold them together along the top, and then an elastic along the sides to keep them from flopping all over the place. I want to be able to flex and move my foot when I pose and walk after all.  The back piece will be separate from the front ones and will probably velcro to the last front piece so I can get it on and off my foot with little trouble.  The last thing will be to run a strap or 2 under the sole of my shoe to hold it all down.

Two shoes, ready and waiting.

Well as Lottie would say:
 " Back into the fray!"

This costume will not make itself after all! I know, I've tried, but alas no luck.  Not even some Shoemaker type Elves that come in the night to lend me a hand.

The return of the monster face! Or time to finally do those chest details!

 The return of the monster face!  Or time to finally do those chest details!

You may recall the pattern I made for the crest shape on Kain's armor.  Well now that I am back in business with wonderflex, I can finally do something with it! Woo

 

 First thing is first, I made a paper pattern of the basic shape of the crest, minus the bottom band and the little points.

 
I then transferred that pattern to the Wonderflex and attached it to my armor!  Be sure to heat up both the wonderflex and the worbla where you will be adding the wonderflex, or it comes apart when dry, I found that out with the front detail on my shin armor.  Thankfully, re-attaching it is as easy as heating it up again.


Now I got busy working and forgot to take a couple pictures here and there...

So you can see that not only did I attach the front crest, I also (shortened) and then covered the raised spikes for the front of the armor and attached them.  Kain's armor also has 2 rivet like things next to these spikes, so while the worbla was still hot, I grabbed some tiny halo-snap tops from my sewing box and poked them in. Now I knew from a tutorial that they wouldn't stay in once the worbla cooled down, so I put glue on the backs of them and then stuck them back into the conveniently marked holes from the prongs on the back

The next part was to cut out the bottom band on the crest and the little toothy things.  The toothy things are raised in the picture I have of Kain's armor, so it was time for some fiddly work.  I cut out the shape of the toothy-things in three different sizes and made some tiny pyramids.  Then, holding them down with the blade of my exacto knife (the wind from the heat gun just blows tiny pieces around if you don't hold them down) I heated them out and smoothed down the edges till they were gone, leaving a raised triangle. I then took a pencil and using it as a tiny rolling pin, rolled towards the center of the pyramid making it go to a point.

Next I attached the bottom band and then reheated my tiny pyramids and attached them as well. They got a wee bit misshapen, but I just straightened the edges with the blade of my exacto knife while the plastic was still hot.

 Last but not least, I rolled out another worbla worm and did the decorative piping around the outer edge of the crest.

Now that the lower chest was done, I took my little horn shape for the chest armor and covered it in Wonderflex and attached it to the armor.

 Now, all that is left is the collar on this piece and a belt on the side seam. Woo!

Bonus!

I got a bunch of work done on the back of my shin armor too!

I covered the spikes for the back of my shin armor and attached them, then it was time to start making the 3 other spikes that go onto the back of this piece.  One on the inner side, just looks more like a bent out piece of flat metal rather then an actual spike, so I made a pattern for it and cut it out of the worbla.

Sorry blurry picture. I decided having this random piece just hanging out there looked silly, so I put to more halo-snap tops on it to make it look like it was riveted to the armor.

   I also decided I didn;t like the look of the single layer of wonderflex, thinking it looked to thin, so I traced the tip of my pattern peice and cut it out and then attached it to the back of the little spike to make it look a little better.  I liked it enough that I decided to do the same to the big spike that comes up the heel of the armor.

 Cut out the top, heat up, stick to other wonderflex piece and trim off any excess you might have.

So far so good.

 I also started to carve the more 3D styled spikes that go on the outer edge, but I only had enough glued pieces of pink foam to do 2 and I needed 4, so once again, I must wait for glue to dry. Here are the 2 I did manage to carve though.

Enough for today!

~I just dyed in your arms tonight~

Actually, I dyed in your arms last night, but that wouldn't have gotten the song stuck in your head as well now would it?  Anyway, I started a bit of work on the Edge costume, (I needed a break from the armor) which has now switched to Edge from FF4 the after years.

I managed to find some yellow fabric at work that actually had Amano style poke a dots on it in the right size but it was lemon yellow and I needed a more gold yellow for this costume.  

Not to look this gift horse in the mouth, I mean it was the perfect fabric, just too yellow, I grabbed a meter and a half of the fabric and then some Old Gold Dylon dye.  Then I dug out my dye pot and got going!

Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.  

There really isn't much to talk about here.  Dylon is a store brand dye that can be found at most craft or fabric stores.  The instructions are in a little pamphlet that is attached to the back of the packet. It is easy to use and takes about 20 minutes.  All you need at home to do it is some salt, a pot designated for dying and that will not be used for food.  I got my dye at work, the salt from the cupboard and a pot from Walmart.

By the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

It ended up being a nice sort of Orange gold, which is more orange then the picture up top, but I think it will look really nice with the rust coloured linen we got for the cape.

I also took time yesterday to finish the pattern for the butt cape on Kain.  I traced it over on to velum paper and then, since I was out of India ink, I coloured it in with a black sharpie, and then a black permanent marker.  The plan is to silk screen this design, and to do that you need a completely opaque pattern for transferring onto a slik screen in the dark room, any light that gets through will ruin the transfer of the design in the dark room.

This may or may not need to be scanned in and re-printed onto the velum via a printer. It may still be too translucent.

Today, since I once again have wonderflex, I will be doing the final details on some of my armor pieces!  Stay around for pictures later!

Today was about spikes.

No, not that Spike....

Or that Spike!

Definitely not that Spike! D: 

I mean these spikes! The ones I glued pink insulation foam pieces together for yesterday! Jeepers! Yes, these ones.  I caved them out of the foam today with an exacto knife and sandpaper.  It made a mess, but turned out well.  Be sure to have a vacuum close by or be covered in pink dust, and you should probably wear a mask so you aren't breathing the pink dust in. I did not and regret it.  My throat feels fuzzy.  

I drew the basic shape onto the foam and then cut them out.  I then cut off the squared edges on a slant with an exacto knife and then it was a matter of sanding till I got a shape I liked. 

I will make the two spikes on the lower part shorter in the end I think, they are too big right now.  And obviously the ends need to be tapered more, but my plan is to use these as just a mold for the wonderflex and not actually have them on the armor.  I'll have to see if they are needed or not.

And I will be making this one shorter too.  Better too big then too small I say!  You can always trim down something big.

Tomorrow: The mask/helmet base!

Waiting for glue to dry is boring.

Ah waiting for glue to dry.  You are boring.

I glued some pieces of pink insulation foam together and I am just waiting for the glue to dry now.  My plan is to carve out the spikes for the chest and leg armor from them and then cover them in either worbla or wonderflex (once I have more that is).  It is light weight enough that it shouldn't add weight to the armor.  The one on the left is 3 layers high and will be fore the spike on the back of the shin guard.  The others are 2 layers high.

I also made the pattern for the crest on the lower part of Kain's armor, which right now I find,  looks like the face of some nasty tooth monster.

rarrrrrrrrr!

I can almost see the end? Aka the Devil is in the details.

One arm is completely done and just needs strapping to hold it on and then paint.  I would have gotten farther, but a paper cut from the plastic back on the Velcro caused a small delay and then it turns out the boys heat gun runs hotter then mine and I managed to give myself 2 burns, and  2 blisters on my fingers trying to roll out my raised edges. Boy, I looked very silly the next day at work covered in band-aids.

I am pleased over all, but will have to make sure I do not poke myself or anyone else with my spikes.

So since I was blocked from finishing my other cuff until my hands heal, I will show the progress I've made on my legs!  This would be me waiting for the worbla to cool down after I shaped the front of my shin guard to my leg.

It is very exciting I know.

I also did the back, but due to the curve in my calf I had to slit the worbla down the back right below my knee and it molded together in a horrible lumpy mess.  However! I am a tricky fish, and just decided that that mess will be covered by details made out of Wonderflex instead.  So I started mapping out the various designs on the back of my leg.  You can see that I did it in pen first, and then only did parts of it in sharpie later, that is because I wanted the designs to be cemetrical and only traced over the shape I liked better.  Later I drew them on to tracing paper and made actual patterns.

But before I could make sure the detail designs worked, I had to figure out where the front of the shin guard would overlap the back. So I traced the edges in pen again. Also some of the points at the top and bottom became too pointy and would have cut into my foot as I walked, so they got cut off after I added the Velcro.

That is a good lookin' leg.

This is the pattern I made with tracing paper for the front detail over my original tape and saran wrap pattern for the front of the shin guard.  The triangle at the top will later be a raised point to match up with the knee guard.

My tracing paper patterns of the back details, minus the spikes which will come later (I ran out of wonderflex and the other sheet is at the boys place).

  I ended up using wonderflex for the details because I had some to spare, but also because it is thicker then the worbla and I wanted the designs to have a raised effect.  Here is a side view of the front detail on my left shin guard.

And the other side:

The back detail, eventually that diamond in the middle will have a raised spike and there will be 3 other spikes on the sides of the back guard. 2 on the outer side and 1 on the inner.

Left and right:

Side by side so you can see the spike of that pointed piece pokes out.

That is all for now, as I have run out of wonderflex.  Next I  will make the pattern from the crest on his chest armor, the spikes, collar and buckles for the chest armor.

Oh and the helmet base!  Which I have to make sure fits my head and then cover in Worbla for Saturday night!  We have hopes to have all the pieces cut out by the end of the night!