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.
This is where the dress form came in absolutely indispensable. I could not have done these tweaks just holding things up to my own body - it plain would not have worked. With the dress form, I was able to cut pieces out, pin or tape them down, and adjust on the fly where they didn't quite sit right. It's still not super stylish or perfect, but it's a dang sight better than it was.
Next step, cut it out of EVA foam and glue it together. Hit a small snag here in discovering that the nice EVA foam that I bought new from Home Depot had exaggeratedly large patterns on the back, as opposed to the tiny hatchmarks that the junker squares we found in the basement had. Ok, I figured I could sand it flat once I'd made the breastplate, but then there was another problem: all of those pieces are curved, meaning that they're not going to fit nicely together while glue dries for any length of time.
Enter contact cement. If you haven't used it, it's amazing. Short story: you put it on each piece to be connected, let it dry for about 15 minutes, and then press the pieces together for - quite literally - an instant bond. It is, however, rather smelly, so I got a vapor mask and set up a high tech glueing booth outside.
Yes, that's a foam kneeling pad on a Home Depot bucket, and newspaper on a garden rolling thing. As I said, high-tech. Anyhow, the contact cement worked it's slow but wonderful magic, and I ended up with breastplate v1!
Well, ok, maybe it'll be tougher than I'd thought to sand all that pattern off... and it was super stiff (1/2" foam sheets), so hard to tell where it didn't quite fit properly, and even harder to try to make tweaks. I cut the shoulder straps and glued in new bits to make that part longer, but the whole thing was a little too wide, and just didn't quite fit well, and and and and... so I scrapped it in October and started over with 1/4" foam.
Shockingly, it turns out 1/4" foam is substantially easier to mold, heat, shape, tweak, and tell where things aren't quite working. I could cut out little bits of it with my regular sewing shears, glue it back together, and be able to see how it changed the overall shape. It took a bit, but I got it to where it looked pretty decent (more like cosplay armor and less like tactical military gear), and covered the whole thing in a sheet of Worbla, which was much harder than it sounds: you have to keep the entire sheet warm enough to mold, but not so hot that it either burns you or tears apart. Just covering the back half took about a hour, and left me with a headache and massively dehydrated.
The front half was a bit harder, in that there are more curves and more shaping and careful stretching required, but a couple more hours got me a decently shaped and solidly covered breastplate. I left about a 1/4" gap on the shoulder bands uncovered, to serve as my "hinges." I figure they'll be covered by a cape, and I can spray paint them to match the Worbla cover, and that way I don't have to actually mess with added straps or hardware. So far, they seem pretty durable (knock on wood) and not terribly noticeable.
No point in protecting the chest and leaving the neck exposed though, right? A couple tries at a proper shape, more Worbla covering, and further heat gun work got me to just about functional with this piece:
The next step is making it look pretty. I've drawn up some designs for the base of it, and sent them off to one of my gentleman's relatives who has a bit of spare time and a lot of art skills. Once I get those back, I'll cut them out of craft foam sheets, cement them on, add D-rings to the sides to lace it closed, and start the coating/ painting process. Not too bad for a first and second attempt!
Extra bit:
Just so you don't think this is all brilliance and everything working perfectly, here's an example of the ridiculousness that goes on during the process. This was my setup for trimming back the bottom edge, after it had been shaped. The heat gun is running at about 500°, meaning my water has to be in an insulated mug to stay anything resembling cool. Since the front and back are already shaped, I've got the whole thing propped up on the handle of a cooler on one side, and a candle and mason jar full of rock salt on the other, while trying to mark the foam with a sharpie and cut it with the exacto knife without cutting the Worbla, which then has to be heated and folded over the foam without heating the whole thing to the point of losing shape. The sharpening block in the lower right is because EVA foam dulls blades very quickly. There are cooling pads (think flexible ice packs for injuries) in the cooler, so that when I have things shaped correctly, I can run the pad over them and harden them immediately rather than hoping they hold that shape while cooling down slowly in a room with a 500° heat gun running constantly. It was a little crazy, but hey - it worked!
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:
This is where the dress form came in absolutely indispensable. I could not have done these tweaks just holding things up to my own body - it plain would not have worked. With the dress form, I was able to cut pieces out, pin or tape them down, and adjust on the fly where they didn't quite sit right. It's still not super stylish or perfect, but it's a dang sight better than it was.
Next step, cut it out of EVA foam and glue it together. Hit a small snag here in discovering that the nice EVA foam that I bought new from Home Depot had exaggeratedly large patterns on the back, as opposed to the tiny hatchmarks that the junker squares we found in the basement had. Ok, I figured I could sand it flat once I'd made the breastplate, but then there was another problem: all of those pieces are curved, meaning that they're not going to fit nicely together while glue dries for any length of time.
Enter contact cement. If you haven't used it, it's amazing. Short story: you put it on each piece to be connected, let it dry for about 15 minutes, and then press the pieces together for - quite literally - an instant bond. It is, however, rather smelly, so I got a vapor mask and set up a high tech glueing booth outside.
Yes, that's a foam kneeling pad on a Home Depot bucket, and newspaper on a garden rolling thing. As I said, high-tech. Anyhow, the contact cement worked it's slow but wonderful magic, and I ended up with breastplate v1!
Well, ok, maybe it'll be tougher than I'd thought to sand all that pattern off... and it was super stiff (1/2" foam sheets), so hard to tell where it didn't quite fit properly, and even harder to try to make tweaks. I cut the shoulder straps and glued in new bits to make that part longer, but the whole thing was a little too wide, and just didn't quite fit well, and and and and... so I scrapped it in October and started over with 1/4" foam.
Shockingly, it turns out 1/4" foam is substantially easier to mold, heat, shape, tweak, and tell where things aren't quite working. I could cut out little bits of it with my regular sewing shears, glue it back together, and be able to see how it changed the overall shape. It took a bit, but I got it to where it looked pretty decent (more like cosplay armor and less like tactical military gear), and covered the whole thing in a sheet of Worbla, which was much harder than it sounds: you have to keep the entire sheet warm enough to mold, but not so hot that it either burns you or tears apart. Just covering the back half took about a hour, and left me with a headache and massively dehydrated.
The front half was a bit harder, in that there are more curves and more shaping and careful stretching required, but a couple more hours got me a decently shaped and solidly covered breastplate. I left about a 1/4" gap on the shoulder bands uncovered, to serve as my "hinges." I figure they'll be covered by a cape, and I can spray paint them to match the Worbla cover, and that way I don't have to actually mess with added straps or hardware. So far, they seem pretty durable (knock on wood) and not terribly noticeable.
No point in protecting the chest and leaving the neck exposed though, right? A couple tries at a proper shape, more Worbla covering, and further heat gun work got me to just about functional with this piece:
The next step is making it look pretty. I've drawn up some designs for the base of it, and sent them off to one of my gentleman's relatives who has a bit of spare time and a lot of art skills. Once I get those back, I'll cut them out of craft foam sheets, cement them on, add D-rings to the sides to lace it closed, and start the coating/ painting process. Not too bad for a first and second attempt!
Extra bit:
Just so you don't think this is all brilliance and everything working perfectly, here's an example of the ridiculousness that goes on during the process. This was my setup for trimming back the bottom edge, after it had been shaped. The heat gun is running at about 500°, meaning my water has to be in an insulated mug to stay anything resembling cool. Since the front and back are already shaped, I've got the whole thing propped up on the handle of a cooler on one side, and a candle and mason jar full of rock salt on the other, while trying to mark the foam with a sharpie and cut it with the exacto knife without cutting the Worbla, which then has to be heated and folded over the foam without heating the whole thing to the point of losing shape. The sharpening block in the lower right is because EVA foam dulls blades very quickly. There are cooling pads (think flexible ice packs for injuries) in the cooler, so that when I have things shaped correctly, I can run the pad over them and harden them immediately rather than hoping they hold that shape while cooling down slowly in a room with a 500° heat gun running constantly. It was a little crazy, but hey - it worked!
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