Thor Cosplay: Sabatons

     Sabaton being just a fancy word for foot armor, and Thor definitely needs foot armor. I had a pair of black boots with about a 1" heel that I figured would work well as a base, and downloaded this pattern to get a general idea of how sabatons work. Obviously, I couldn't follow it perfectly, since it's made for a non-heeled shoe, but it made a good first attempt. Several tweaks later, I felt I had something good enough to cut out of foam:

     A functional difficulty for shoe armor is that it has to flex with your foot. A breastplate or bracer doesn't need to move, but if you make fixed joints on a shoe, you're not going to go far. I used random bits of wire to test the pattern pieces out, but that wasn't strong or pretty enough for a final go. After some hunting, I found screw rivets (aka Chicago screws), primarily made for binding books, but conveniently the right size for, say, sabaton joints. With the screw side on the interior, it looks a lot like rivets you'd see on actual armor. I covered all the pieces with Worbla, poked (a lot of) holes in them at what felt like the right points, and had a pretty decent, functional piece of armor.

Baking again

     I don't tend to bake much over the holidays, since everyone else is baking, there is no shortage of sweets, and it's generally a chaotic time of the year anyway. The past couple years, I've found it's much easier to wait until February or so, and do baking then - people are usually in the winter blahs and quite thrilled to get some sweetness and excitement of new things to try. This year was no exception, and I got to try some interesting new recipes.

Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies (Vegan)

Mash together:

   2 ripe bananas

   1/2 cup shredded carrots

   1/2 cup applesauce

   2 tsp vanilla

Add:

   2 cups oats (I prefer old-fashioned, you could probably use instant)

   1/2 cup dried pineapple, torn to smallish bits

   1/2 cup raisins

   1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

   1/2 tsp salt

It will make a very wet, non-cookie-dough-like mass in the bowl. I doubt myself every time I make it, but trust that it will work out. Drop onto a greased pan, bake for 12-15 minutes at 350° until solid but not dry. Let cool, store in the fridge. 

Chocolate Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cream:

   1 cup butter (real butter, no skimping and using lard or margarine)

   5/8 cup or scant 3/4 cup sugar

   5/8 cup or scant 3/4 cup brown sugar

   4 eggs

   1/2 cup cocoa powder (dark is best, milk will do)

Add:

   3 1/2 cups flour (start with 3, then add as needed to get sticky dough)

   1 tsp salt

   2 tsp baking powder

   1/4 tsp espresso powder

Stir in:

   1 cup chocolate chips

   generous 1/2 cup dried cherries

Dough should be sticky, not easily rolled into balls. Drop onto pan, bake 10-12 minutes at 350° until firm but not dry.    

I did not get any photos, and they were all gone by the time I thought to do so. I will definitely be making both again, however, so I will come back and update if I remember next time. 

Impostor syndrome... or maybe not

     I've been reading a book titled Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini lately, about various methods by which people - typically unscrupulous ones - get us to agree to do or buy something we didn't initially want to do or buy. I wouldn't classify myself as a pushover, per se, but I do have a tendency to give people too many chances to make my life difficult and I figured this would hep me to at least be aware of when I fall for fallacious entreaties.

     While I'm only about halfway through the book, it has already been eye-opening and informative. One section talks about what the author calls the fallacy of pluralism: nobody wants to appear flustered or at a loss, so we constantly side-eye what others are doing and take our social cues from what seems to be the status quo. In most cases, this is perfectly fine: you can judge how to interact with a new ticket counter by how others approach it, or that a clown getting in your personal space at a work party is funny rather than something to be offended at, that sort of thing.

Thor cosplay: Breastplate (part 1)

     I'm pretty sure I warned you that there would be a lot of thermoplastics/ cosplay posts coming up, as it's what I've been occupying my time with a fair bit lately. I started work on the breastplate for the Thor outfit back in August, as something to turn to when Mjolnir hit setbacks. The first step, obviously, was to find a pattern. I found a decent base pattern on the website of a cosplayer in Ukraine, bought it for $4, and started (of course) tweaking it. It was one of the few I'd found that wasn't the stereotypical "boob cup" armor, so I figured it'd be a good starting base.

     That doesn't mean it was perfect, however. For starters, it was obviously drawn for someone roughly fitting the word "waif," so there was a fair bit of enlargement required. Secondly, it was clearly built for said waif to have huge tracts of land, to quote Monty Python, apparently filled with helium, as there were no shoulder straps and the top was cut inward at an angle that would break your clavicle if you tripped and fell. So, major tweaks aside, after a couple tries, I had a decent pattern... on paper.

From this:

To this:

Thor cosplay: Mjolnir

    On January 17, 2018, I started work on Mjolnir, what I figured would be the easiest or at least most forgiving part of a female Thor cosplay. In and around various other projects, I built an external framework, filled it with foam, and watched it explode awkwardly out badly-joined seams. On March 26, I gave it up as a bad idea.

 

     Version 2 started off on May 27th, using a solid core this time: two yoga blocks. I carved a channel for the handle, used a butter knife blade to ensure it would all stay together (this was before I knew about contact cement), and filled in the gap with caulk and extra EVA foam strips.