I started by shaping the ankle or back part first, and then worked my way down the shoe to the toe. This way I made sure each piece fit over the previous one. I had my shoe on my foot, and shaped over both the shoe and foot. For the ankle and first spike, I had on my leg armor and moved my ankle from side to side and then front to back to make sure it would glide smoothly when I walked and would fit over/around my leg armor.
At this point all the pieces are separate. I managed to get them to not stick as I shaped by putting parchment paper between each layer. In the picture below they are all cool again and are hanging on by fit alone.
Side view! Just like in the picture but kinda boring right now aren't they? They needs something more I think...
How about Wonderflex piping? That would make them look more interesting! Kains shoes don't have this, but I feel it looks more finished now. I just cut strips of wonderflex that were 1/2cm wide and added them on. Then I noticed that he had a crest on the toe of his shoe, so I made one out of wonderflex. After that, the heel looked boring, so I added a crest to that too.
The next step was attaching them all together. I did this with Velcro. The heal is separate and attaches on to the very first plate on the front so I can get my shoe on and off. The next thing I did was add Velcro to each plate and then strips of Velcro attached each plate to the next. I wanted my foot to remain flexible when I walked/posed. Originally, I used a bunch of little strips, but the middle piece always felt really loose when I tried walking in them, so I replaced all those individual strips with 2 longs strips and the entire shoe is much more stable feeling now.
I got the idea from a friends Dragon age spine that he did for his costume, so it would bend and sway when he walked. It works really well!
I did however find that the toe of my shoe always felt loose and like I could loose it when walking around an not realize it, so I heated it up and actually fused it to the second plate there so they are one solid piece. The movement is still really good.
The last thing I did was make a cross from Velcro to hold the toe/front part of the shoe to my shoe better. It attaches at the toe and on the middle plate. (You can see the pieces on the above picture).
Once the shoes were done, I started to work on my knees. I made a basic crest shape for the back, and then worked the point on Kain's Knee armor out with paper and tape. I ended up with 6 pieces for the point, 4 triangle like ones for the front and 2 long curved pieces to raise them up and out from the back shape.
The end looks like this, however it was not pointy enough in the middle for my tastes so I built it up with paper clay and then covered it in Wonderfelx. But for some reason I have no pictures of that. O_o The armor attaches with a worbla band around the back of my knee, and taking a page from Rashad on Face Off, it will attach with a rivet or washer so it can bend and move as I walk.
When I shaped it to my knee, I wore my thigh and shin armor to make sure it would fit over both nicely. I also shaped the flat back crest part first and then attached the raised point you see above after it was shaped. The first time I did this, I made the mistake of trying with the entire knee, point and all together and could not heat it all up properly to get it to shape, so I scrapped it and started over. Lesson learned. On to the next!
BONUS PHOTO!!!
