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.
Looks a little stupid with just the foot part covered, though, and I also needed a way to keep the armor close to the boot, so it didn't flex to allow walking and then stay that way when the foot flattened out again. The latter was fairly easy: I wrapped small pieces of Worbla around elastic beading cord and affixed it to the sides of certain pieces. I figured if I painted them black and the rest of the armor silver, they'd probably be fairly unnoticeable. The ankle piece was a bit more difficult; I went through at least 5 iterations of various shapes until I found one that looked reasonably decent, and could be added to the existing pieces without hindering movement like crouching or running (you never know).
As before, I covered that piece in Worbla and added elastic loops to keep it in place. It's a little difficult to operate the zipper on the side of the boot to get the thing on and off with all that going on, but it's not impossible, so I call that a win. Took it all apart, did two coats of glue for a base, two coats of spray paint, hand-painted all the worbla loops and did a weathering coat of grey over the whole thing, and finished with a clear enamel on top.
Since winter wasn't really cooperating, this part took a fair bit of time and innovative heating of the greenhouse with a heat gun in order to keep things warm long enough to dry. Once everything was cured, I put it all back together, hoping that the paint layers hadn't added so much bulk that the armor wouldn't flex anymore. Although they do creak a bit while walking, and I have to be a little careful when kneeling or crouching, they turned out pretty decently, I think. It's nice that my mistakes in laying the Worbla look like battle damage - rather than mess-ups - on the finished product.
Since it was my first attempt at sabatons, they did take a fair amount of time: 32.5 hours, all told. I kept decent notes, though, showing the progress. The first one was designed to the ankle at 11 hours. By 17.66 hours, both were assembled to the ankle and covered in Worbla. At 25.75 hours, the ankle piece had been finished and they were ready for painting, and the rest is paint and assembly. I'd imagine that, next time, the first 17.66 hours will be drastically reduced, as I already have a working pattern - maybe 20 to 25 hours instead of 32.5. Still, that's a fair bit of work, and I'm glad it turned out well.
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.
Looks a little stupid with just the foot part covered, though, and I also needed a way to keep the armor close to the boot, so it didn't flex to allow walking and then stay that way when the foot flattened out again. The latter was fairly easy: I wrapped small pieces of Worbla around elastic beading cord and affixed it to the sides of certain pieces. I figured if I painted them black and the rest of the armor silver, they'd probably be fairly unnoticeable. The ankle piece was a bit more difficult; I went through at least 5 iterations of various shapes until I found one that looked reasonably decent, and could be added to the existing pieces without hindering movement like crouching or running (you never know).
As before, I covered that piece in Worbla and added elastic loops to keep it in place. It's a little difficult to operate the zipper on the side of the boot to get the thing on and off with all that going on, but it's not impossible, so I call that a win. Took it all apart, did two coats of glue for a base, two coats of spray paint, hand-painted all the worbla loops and did a weathering coat of grey over the whole thing, and finished with a clear enamel on top.
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| I had extra glue, so painted my hand. |
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| The pieces on the bottom are weathered; top ones are not. |
Since it was my first attempt at sabatons, they did take a fair amount of time: 32.5 hours, all told. I kept decent notes, though, showing the progress. The first one was designed to the ankle at 11 hours. By 17.66 hours, both were assembled to the ankle and covered in Worbla. At 25.75 hours, the ankle piece had been finished and they were ready for painting, and the rest is paint and assembly. I'd imagine that, next time, the first 17.66 hours will be drastically reduced, as I already have a working pattern - maybe 20 to 25 hours instead of 32.5. Still, that's a fair bit of work, and I'm glad it turned out well.
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