Cosplay armour tutorial part I

Bonjourno!

I figured as I was doing some armour for my next cosplay I'd do a tutorial so you don't make the same mistakes that I do and maybe if you are thinking of an armour cosplay you will have some idea of what you're up for. 

Okay, so I am going to cosplay Dark Knight Rikku:

Pic not mine

 Now it looks pretty complicated, and it was! I spent ages just trying to find reference pictures. Then I sketched out the armour and printed out refs. Also it turned out a second opinion was valuable as my friend spotted something I hadn't! 

So I decided to make this out of craft foam. Nice and cheap. But that is the cheapest item. Including the sword when finished the cosplay will be £50-£60. That's not including the wig (an extra £20). It's probably more expensive as I am having to buy resources to make the armour that I can use again afterwards but I don't already have them such as craft knifes, air dough etc. It has a lot of little things on it which add up unfortunately. But still, I spent £45 making/buying my last cosplay so it's not too bad, and apparently that's cheap too anyway for a cosplay. So, onto the tutorial part 1 where I'll show you how to make your pattern, cut out your armour and shape it if needed.

You will need:

• 1-2 rolls of masking tape (depending on your cosplay you will need ALOT)
• Scissors and if you want then a craft knife
• Lots of paper --> scrap paper is great if you have it
• Lots of sellotape! 
• Material you are making your armour out of 
•  A trusty sidekick friend (this is essential)
• Thin clothing
• An oven if shaping your armour and are using craft foam

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1.) Okay so what you need to do is put on your thin clothing, but it needs to cover the area your armour will cover. Tie up long hair etc. This is where you need your trusty friend, I am very gratefull to have had Donnie help me with this! You'll need to get said friend to sellotape paper all over where your armour will be, and remember to stay as still as possible. This is where you start getting warm (you will get very warm, this took us 2 hours in total before I got the cocoon of paper and tape off my body and I was boiling by the end). Once you've acheived that you'll need your friend to get the masking tape, starting somewhere good and solid (I started at my rib cage) to wrap it tightly round and round to cover the paper. This is quite hard and you might want to stick your chest out to avoid restricting your breathing. So we did my torso first, then the chest, shoulders and then finally the top of my back.

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2) Get your friend to draw the pattern you want (basically what you will want to be wearing) and then cut it out carefully. Whilst drawing your pattern you'll probably run into certain issues. These are: how you will get the armour on and off + will my material fit the pattern? I ended up making a line for a join to get the armour on and I also ended up having to separate the side bit from the top picture (as you can see it is pretty large and wouldn't fit my A3 craft foam). I will super glue it back on later (then it'll be sealed in by layers of pva glue, paint and polish so it'll be alright).Then you can either use this finished pattern to draw around or you can transfer it to tissue paper (don't forget to transfer markings i.e. joints, holes etc) as I did to check it all still fit when drawn out onto flat material. 

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3.) Draw around your pattern onto the material you are making it out of. I'm using craft foam, but tissue paper doesn't absorb permanent felt tip pen which could be good if you need certain markings or bad if you don't want pen on your material! 

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4.) Now you'll want to cut it out. I used a craft knife which cuts easily through the craft foam. You might need a different knife/pair of scissors to cut through your material, especially if it's thick. Remember to put a matt or board underneath so you don't scratch up any nice tables or granite work surfaces!

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5.) Now if you need to shape it (if it's made out of craft foam) then you can heat it up. The oven is safest and you only need it on a low heat (I had ours at 50 C which is the lowest setting). It heats up pretty quickly and you can reheat it over and over, I didn't experience any shrinking or burning. But remember when you take it out you'll need to reshape it very quickly, and hold it there for at least 20 seconds until properly cooled. The foam is only warm as well when you take it out so don't worry about burning yourself (although if you have it up high then the foam may also be quite hot too so just be careful!). If you are using Worblas or wonderflex then these also bend when heated too, although a hot air gun is probably best for shaping Worblas.

And that's the end of part 1. As I've show how to make the pattern, cut and shape the armour I'll try upload part 2 sometime soon which'll be sealing and painting!