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!

And the Helmet begins!

If anything has been keeping me awake at night over this costume, it's Kain's helmet.  I mean have you seen this thing?  

It's a dragon head on top of my head! I've seen it done, and it almost always looks too big and/or goofy.  So, it really put the "oh God, how do I do this thing right?" fear into me. It is probably one of the most iconic things about Kain Highwind, and while the rest of my armor could be awesome, if that helmet looked dumb, my costume would be ruined.

I'd just think about it and I'm pretty sure this would be my face:

HOWEVER

I happen to have 2 friends who are amazing at Cosplay. I am speaking of course about Ana and her fella Bryan.  They made some spectacular Dragon Age costumes for Animarime and Halcon last year, and Ana makes Ball Jointed dolls, so if anyone could help me with the 3d monster that is Kain's helmet, I knew they could.

And they are awesome, so they agreed!

First off was wrapping my head in saran wrap and the covering it in duct tape while I had my wig on.  Why was I wearing the wig?  Well it will add extra volume to my head and if I hadn't warn it and just gone with my regular head with no wig, the helmet might not fit over the wig in the end, and then I would be screwed.

Once my head was wrapped and some jokes were made about how I now looked like Angewomon from Digimon, Ana took measurements of my head and blew up the image of Kains helmet on her computer to scale with it and printed it off.  Then Bryan and I got to go all arts and crafty and cut it out/taped it together.   The end result was Kain's helmet to scale with my head. 

Since the image was blown up, it was a tad fuzzy, but Ana is a queen with sharpies and drew over the lines to bring out the different shapes that we would need to cut out.  The helmet is probably going to be in 2 parts that lock together with magnets or something so I can fit it in my carry on or suit case (since it has to fly to Toronto with me).

Checking the  Dragon head for the angle that will be needed to get my silhouette to match Kain's 

Once that was done, it was time to break out some old cereal boxes to make patterns for the lower part of the mask, map it out on my face and see what if any adjustments would be needed.

This is as far as we got that night, my homework was to make the under helmet (seen in the duct tape) in craft foam, make sure it fit aright and then to cast it in Worbla.  Unfortunately, I got horribly sick for a week, and haven't done that yet, but that is part of my plan for today along with doing some detail work on my chest, thigh and shin armor I molded earlier this week once I was feeling better.

I take no credit for anything here,  all I did was sit there, watch Pacific Rim and try not to sneeze (I was already sick at this point) this is all the brilliant work of Ana and Bryan.. You should check out her blog and see the amazing dolls, doll clothes and doll sized sets she makes!  It is in french but can be translated to English with google quite easily!

ANGEWOMON!!