Just figured I'd post here and say 'hi'. But of course we all know why we're really here. We want to talk armor, and more than that, we wanna look at it.
This is my first armor...ish...build. Not a full suit, obviously. I am a cosplayer, usually of anime/game characters. I'd never done any type of armor build before this, but wanted to do Ed Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist, and he had the automail. I ended up kind of surfing around, found vague instructions on a random site about foam armor, bought a bunch of foam and just figured it out from there. Needless to say, it sort of...well.
It was an interesting two week process.
Idon't have in-prog photos just spent a ridiculous amount of time transferring pics from my phone to computer, so yay.
I ended up doing the fingers out of plain printer paper, and then wrapped them completely in foil tape...which, since they were small pieces, worked well since the foil covered them completely. Not a very strong setup, but I only had 2 weeks to do it in, since it was kind of a last-minute costume. They worked, though, for the three day convention.
Anyhow. Pictures, in...mostly-accurate order of start-to-finish.
Painted and drying in that last pic. In the first one you can see the elastic straps on the wrist that connected the hand to the forearm, which I foolishly made too short. Meh.
I naively used no hardeners AT ALL on the foam, just painted spraypaint directly onto them. Considering that, it held up surprisingly well over the three days that I wore it--probably ended up wearing it about 36 hours total, including a few times after that.
It was pretty simple. I didn't actually even have a heat gun, lol, I remember I held them over the stove for a bit til they felt vaguely warm and manhandled pieces into shape. Everything was gorilla glued together. I strapped it all with elastic that was gorilla glued to each piece, with the hand and forearm being one piece, and the shoulder port, shoulder...cap thing...and bicep being a second. There was a glove underneath that was completely removable for washing to hide my skin in the between-areas.
I had enough dexterity that I was able to sign my name legibly and fill out some papers upon arriving to the convention, and handled a fork and knive fairly well for lunch/dinner at restaurants. (For the record, chopsticks didn't work!)
Finished pics:
This has been finished for about a year now. I'd initially planned to re-make it better and more sturdy out of plastic later, but honestly, then I saw Iron Man, and the Avengers, and that's out the door. Iron Man Mark 4 is in the door, and plastic's in the mail. Lol. Maybe in over my head, but ehh. *shrug* We'll see.
I figured I'd post this since, honestly, I've been stalking the site on and off since 2011. And, you know, I finally joined, and figured it was time to stop being a creeper staring at all of YOUR pictures and post some of my own.
Now, uh. I suppose that I've proven I'm not a bot...hello. Time to go stalk your threads!
This is my first armor...ish...build. Not a full suit, obviously. I am a cosplayer, usually of anime/game characters. I'd never done any type of armor build before this, but wanted to do Ed Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist, and he had the automail. I ended up kind of surfing around, found vague instructions on a random site about foam armor, bought a bunch of foam and just figured it out from there. Needless to say, it sort of...well.
It was an interesting two week process.
I
I ended up doing the fingers out of plain printer paper, and then wrapped them completely in foil tape...which, since they were small pieces, worked well since the foil covered them completely. Not a very strong setup, but I only had 2 weeks to do it in, since it was kind of a last-minute costume. They worked, though, for the three day convention.
Anyhow. Pictures, in...mostly-accurate order of start-to-finish.
Painted and drying in that last pic. In the first one you can see the elastic straps on the wrist that connected the hand to the forearm, which I foolishly made too short. Meh.
I naively used no hardeners AT ALL on the foam, just painted spraypaint directly onto them. Considering that, it held up surprisingly well over the three days that I wore it--probably ended up wearing it about 36 hours total, including a few times after that.
It was pretty simple. I didn't actually even have a heat gun, lol, I remember I held them over the stove for a bit til they felt vaguely warm and manhandled pieces into shape. Everything was gorilla glued together. I strapped it all with elastic that was gorilla glued to each piece, with the hand and forearm being one piece, and the shoulder port, shoulder...cap thing...and bicep being a second. There was a glove underneath that was completely removable for washing to hide my skin in the between-areas.
I had enough dexterity that I was able to sign my name legibly and fill out some papers upon arriving to the convention, and handled a fork and knive fairly well for lunch/dinner at restaurants. (For the record, chopsticks didn't work!)
Finished pics:
This has been finished for about a year now. I'd initially planned to re-make it better and more sturdy out of plastic later, but honestly, then I saw Iron Man, and the Avengers, and that's out the door. Iron Man Mark 4 is in the door, and plastic's in the mail. Lol. Maybe in over my head, but ehh. *shrug* We'll see.
I figured I'd post this since, honestly, I've been stalking the site on and off since 2011. And, you know, I finally joined, and figured it was time to stop being a creeper staring at all of YOUR pictures and post some of my own.
Now, uh. I suppose that I've proven I'm not a bot...hello. Time to go stalk your threads!
