Craft day!

Now that all the sewing is done, I am making a different kind of mess!  A crafty mess.  I've been working on the broach for Sailor V/ Sailor Venus, the shoulder wing armor for Sailor V and V's Crescent Compact.


The broach is currently gluing.  I tried just attaching the worbla to the back of it, but that just popped apart. Which makes sense, but I was not entirely awake yet when I started that, so didn't think about it at the time.  The back which has the pin attachment (not pictured) is still worbla, but is being glued to the Gemstone (paperweight) with weld-bond glue.  It seems to be working, but needs pressure to fully work right (hense the clamps).

I cut out and shaped the sleeve wing/armor things today. They are also made from worbla, cause I had some lying around still. Molding worbla onto the body is (go figure) 10times harder when it is just you doing it, so sadly I have more air bubbles then I would have liked. I am hoping I can hide those with the gesso layers though.

 The Crescent compact is coming along well! I'm pretty proud of it so far.  the top is 2 layers of Craft foam glued together, with the crescent that goes around the red gem molded in, and the bottom is 3 layers of foam. I wanted it to have a bit of depth to it and not just be 2 flat single layers of craft foam on both sides, covered in Worbla.

The compact will click closed with magnets when done, be spray painted gold and have gems on top.  The hardest part with this prop was trying to figure out how to hinge it so I could open and close it.  Logically, one would think the hinge would be on the rounded edge, but logic has forsaken this compact and the hinges as you can see are on the points of the crescent.

So, after a lot of thinking and asking for advice, suggestions included drilling a hole and attaching them with a wire loop, which would work, but would probably not stand up on its own, adding in springs, more magnets or a hinge.  I went with a hinge.  I looped some very small worbla noodles tightly over some cut off q-tips, this gave me a nice tight, rounded fit like the plastic hinges on many toys.  I allowed it to cool down till it was cold/hard again before gently turning the q-tip to get it out again. This left me with perfect little loop hinges that work great! I just need to cut down the last bit of my q-tip and add some sort of stopper (probably a bead of worbla or plastic) so the hinge dosn't come out.

The effect is pretty good so far, though I may switch out the Q-tips I have for something else, as mine appear to be compressed paper and that does not bode well in case of rain or accidental wetting.

 Now begins the boring (and messy) stage of layer upon layer of gesso, then sanding, then a couple more layers of gesso, then more sanding etc etc till I have a smooth surface to paint.