@Mr Toad, while this would be a good idea, it does defeat the object of the exercise, since I am doing this project for a qualification. Also, employing someone to make the suit for you would definitely be a waste of money.
@Dom, I share your desire to find out new things, and I appreciate your support, thanks.
@Gremlin117, good point. I value the importance of creating something original and interesting, and thanks for the Pepakura suggestion.
@Mr Toad again, I understand that you're trying to help, but as I said, my suits will be useless of they have not been made by me. I have already started the fibreglass moulds, so I will have a bit of experience when I start.
@Trigger, the actual armour will be moulded, then laid up with one or more layers of fibreglass to preserve the detail, then one or more layers of Kevlar or Kevlar/carbon-fibre material. I'm not just going to replace the fibreglass in the Pepakura process with a more advanced material, as to me it defeats the object by putting heavy and superfluous body filler on top. Also, I want to mass produce them.
@Awesomeness, I'm choosing Kevlar because it is stronger, lighter, and more impact resistant that fibreglass, and so that I can say that it is made from an good material. Also, your surface area idea is fantastic, it's just too bad that I've already assembled all the parts.
@KevlarSpartan, thanks for the advice. I'm glad you said that, since I was originally planning on using polyester resin, or upgrading to epoxy resin. I inquired about this to the company I'm buying from, and they said that high quality, low weight epoxy resin was the way to go. They also offered me 25m[sup]2[/sup] of Kevlar material at £15m[sup]-1[/sup]. That's the cheapest I've found at the moment, if anybody knows of anywhere I can get it cheaper, that would be
really helpful.
@SGT V, paintball is definitely not one of the reasons why I want a tougher suit. I haven't been considering it and I definitely won't be taking a sample to the paintball centre to be tested.
Generally, thankyou to everyone for your interest, help and advice so far. Again, some help with the fabric would be greatly appreciated.