Armor from craft foam for Ivy

Craft foam must be one of the most versatile materials there is when it comes to cosplay. I’ve used it before on Mayuri’s hat structures, in Sasori’s puppet body to imitate wood and for leathery look on Luminara’s waist cloth and armguards. And in one or two costume projects I’ve used it in details. But when I started to brainstorm our costumes for WCS preliminaries, I came to realize that I would build armor for my character entirely from craft foam. Thankfully, Ivy only has pieces of armor on her arms and shoes, but never the less; I was in for a challenge.

Even if I hadn't done any myself, I had read about making craft foam armors. This craft foam armor making tutorial is one of the firsts I bumped into years ago and I think it's possibly one of the most referred one out there. The steps on the tutorial are almost the same with how I made my armor with few differences on materials used.

One thing about Ivy’s armor is really convenient; all the pieces are more or less symmetrical. If you look at the upper arm piece, it looks the same whether you look at it from the front or the back. With the forearms and upper arms I could make one pattern and use it on either arm without problems.

And with patterns I started the project. After I has sketched the armor based on references, I used regular paper to define the sizes and shapes of the armor pieces. Everything else was rather easy to do, but for the breast plate I asked Yoki to aid me.


I traced patterns on 2mm craft foam and supporting parts of the breast plate from 5mm craft foam. Behind each craft foam piece I glued slightly smaller piece of fiber fabric, sturdy cotton stiffener used in upholstery. This gives good support to the piece itself and will prevent bending better than regular fabric would. Inside the breast plate I used cups from old bra. This made the whole construction process lot easier, because I already had right shape and size to build the armor on.

Breast plate details.

Some of the armor pieces required few layers of foam for details and rims. Some of the details on the references don’t seem to be as raised as others, so I used thick paper to achieve the look for those. In the arm pieces where armor flares out as in the upper arm and the wrist of the forearm I used plaster tape and putty to hide the seams which were necessary to create the wished shape.


There are some sharp angles on Ivy leg armors. Craft foam tends to reverted after bending, so some heat is necessary to forge it. I used hot-air blower to warm up the foam before pressing the folds on the ankle and shoe parts. I also used heat to create the knuckles on the hand plates, curves on the forearms and the plump on the upper arm. You don’t need to heat the foam long; few seconds with hot-air blower will make the foam moldable.


After gluing the raised pieces, back support and sanding the putty smooth, I applied few coats of gesso on each piece to seal the foam. Lastly I made a glue-water mixture and applied it with a brush to harden the surface. The glue also works great to create glossy finish for the piece.


As primer I used grey spray primer from Prof. The paint I used was silver chrome finish from Bravo Spray. I also planned to age and weather the pieces with acrylics, but the time was against me. Well, something to do before next wear!


The small brooch details could also be counted as part of Ivy's armor. I cut the base shape from pulp board and sculpted the shape from modeling material similar to Das modeling clay. After I let the thing dry, I gave it few coats of glue-water and painted then the same way I did the rest of the armor.

The fastenings on the armor are pretty much elastic band and Velcro. I glued the tips straight to the base shoes with Erikeeper. If you glue Velcro straight to craft foam or any other smooth surface it will not hold that well. I solved the problem by backing the Velcro up with something, this time to scrap tricot I had lying around. The fabric will give the glue nice surface to grip on.

In short, the hand plates fasten to the gloves with Velcro, the forearms close with Velcro, the upper arms hang on with elastic band, the breast plate fastens to the dress with Velcro from the sides, the rings on the ankles close with Velcro and the ankle plates you hardly saw me wearing at Tracon, because they were uncomfortable as they could be, also fastens with Velcro. The brooches hold on with safety pins glued on the backsides.


I’m rather happy how the armor turned out if the shoes are not counted in. Before I’m going to take Ivy to any convention, I’m going to redo the whole leg set and pay more attention to patterning the tips of the shoes. I also need to pad the heels themselves. They are too big for me, which made my walking look like duckling steps.

Few bumps on the road; trial and error with hand plates.

Ivy and Yoshimitsu at Tracon VI

Here are some photos of our characters that I found from our cameras after Tracon. The photos are either from Saturday or Sunday. Most noticeable difference is my legs; on Sunday I tossed away the shoes I wore at the competition, because they were utterly uncomfortable. Few of my toes are still numb from wearing them. I also wore regular lace tights on Sunday.

What has happened?

My first try for the transmission number three was in winter 2010, which was a long, long time ago. Now, after the dust from the non-stop costume making process had settled, I kicked myself and here is the result.

Now Hiron will have nightmares from Luminara's cloak.

-yoki, out

WCS preliminaries hangover and happiness

"Too hasty!"

What a weekend! Two months of hard work really paid off when we were able to take home second place in World cosplay Summit Finnish preliminaries. Congratulations and all the best to the winning couple, Rimppu and Majo! It was great to compete with you and all the other competitors. The backstage was a nice change to get to a chatting distance from people who I’ve only seen on the internet and admired their drive for cosplay. And huge thanks to the judges! The feedback almost got me in tears (you wouldn’t know about Yoki, would you?) and the critics both from the costumes and the performance was truly valuable.

Not only the past few months but the last year has been a crazy costume journey. I started the year by finishing the Snowtroopers with Yoki, and then we were bound by fabric printing for Luminara and Barriss. I finished the costumes a day before Desucon just to start a new project with Femme Megatron and Starscream for Kawacon. The date for WCS Finnish preliminaries were announced after Desucon, so naturally when were done with the lady bots it was time to start the competition costumes, which were Isabella “Ivy” Valentine and Yoshimitsu from Soul Calibur III. Somewhere between I also took few commissions. Needless to say, the atmosphere right now is pretty exhausted.


I try to spend the rest of the year without any costume project… if I can. I’ve sworn few times that I will not work with costumes for some time, but found myself two weeks after the promise crafting something new. Maybe this time I won’t get the urge, because we’ve got some updating to do here on our blog. There is pile of posts waiting to be written from making of the costumes to the whole competition experience. The drive back home from Tracon VI I tried to figure out what would be the most convenient way to sort the different phases and pieces of the costumes. Would it be better to divide the project according to items or techniques?

Now I’m going to go and eat loads of chocolate. We declined treats before Tracon to keep in shape, so now I have some catching up to do! Later today I might gather together the photos our supporter aka mom took from us. Until then, chocolate!

Costume cross-section: Luminara Unduli

Luminara's costume consist of ten different pieces. From top to bottom; headpiece, cape, brooch, shirt, arm guards, pair of belts with large buckles, waist cloth, skirt and shoes. She is also carrying lightsaber somewhere under her cape.





There is actually a pair of post, where I go through the construction of the headpiece. In short, it's made from mosquito net, modeling paste, small piece of foam and few different fabrics. The trim on the head piece is still not finished, I still need to add two decorative ribbons to it.



The cape ate five and half meters of brown wool, which I printed by hand. I used black pigment and the base emulsion for fabric printing from EMO-tuotanto. It was bit risky to use the colors on wool, because they are meant for on cotton and cotton mixes. The printing process took several weeks, because I had to do a negative print, meaning that I had to cut the pieces separately.





The idea for the pattern came from Yoki. After browsing through Rebel Legion forums I found credible verification for the plan. The whole body of the cape is actually one big piece of fabric. The sleeves form when the fabric is pulled from the hem up to the shoulder. There is narrow yoke on the front with snap and hook fastenings.



The back of the cape is heavily draped. The drapes are sewed to piece of fabric tape on the waist. The hood is only for a show. How would you wear a hood with the huge headpiece anyway? I modeled the hood on my fitting dummy before sewing it on the cape.





The base of the brooch is pulp board. The rest of the body is modeling paste and hand-twisted wire. The brooch is painted with acrylics. The body is black and green mixed together and the wires are copper and gold. I used a tooth pick to paint the wires. The fastening is a safety pin, which is glued to the brooch a with a piece of fabric.





The shirt fabric was originally beige cotton tricot. I machine dyed it with cotton lace I used on the skirt. The pattern of the shirt is pretty basic. The front panel is striped with crooked pin tucks on the wrong side of the fabric. The ribbons are braided from strings of pleather. The high turtle neck has a zipper on the back, so that the garment would be easier to get on and off.





The arm guards and the front cloth are made with same materials and techniques. The figures are craft foam painted with acrylics and glued on brown leather. The details are made with different tools, like hair pins and a seam ripper. The arm guards fasten with Velcro, which is actually movie accurate solution. The cloth fasten with Velcro to the belt higher on the waist.





The belts are made from brown pleather. They both have black awning fabric as lining to make them sturdy. The belts fasten from the back with to poppers. The buckles are made from pulp board and paper. They are painted with acrylics in gold and copper and weathered with watercolors. I like to use watercolors instead of acrylics, because they stick too fast and don't spread well even when rubbed.





The skirt has two layers. Ribbed, black cotton forms the first one with cotton lace that I had dyed earlier. Black cotton acts as lining underneath to give support to the first layer, which would be too limp alone and not hold the required A-line form. I had my old petticoat with two hoops the first time I wore the costume.





The boots are brown leather with warm tone, even if the color looks grey on the photo. There is three copper colored buckles on the side and moderate wedges. And they were found unexpectedly from a second hand shop for seven or eight euros. Good bargain.





The lighsaber is made from a pulp board tube stolen from aluminum foil container, soft foam, glue, putty, screws, plaster buttons and black tape. The body was painted with silver and chrome sprays and the golden details with acrylics. I like the result a lot and the fact that is was virtually a free prop. All the materials used was found from our cosplay workshop.



Writing this made me realize that there is still some work to do with this costume like dyeing the cape darker and making the decorations on the headpiece, but I think I'll manage to finish everything before the next wear, which will be at Tampere Kuplii next spring.

Panic? No panic... yet

Big promises were made in the beginning of this month. Hiron stated that we would make blog entries while working with the costumes for Tracon VI.



Surprise, surprise - no blog entries, but huge amount of following: searching reference pictures, pattern making, material shopping, sewing, ripping seams, drawing stencils, printing and dyeing fabric.

My "balls"

Not so soft stuff: sawing insulation material, doing negative and positive molds, sanding, putting, casting plaster, sculpting, craft foam crafting, vacuum forming.



Weirder stuff: sitting in a recording hut, voice acting, recording, fighting with audacity, embroidering.

The "hut"

Random stuff: painting, spray painting, gluing, using huge amount of tape and paper, sleeping, cursing, brain farting, nagging, death glaring, goofing, holding patents for drying components.



Casualty material: sticking oneself and others with pins, burning thyself with hot glue, cutting yourself with an utility knife, luckily just a little, breathing different types of dusts and fumes, following rainbows and flying pink elephants.





Back to work,

-yoki

We've got something!

Last month was crazy, plain crazy. While Yoki travelled across Finland first taking care of her duty as an aunt and then tracking Saimaa ringed seals, I was married to my work for two weeks and then on holiday the other half of July. And somewhere between we worked on our costumes for Tracon VI!

Four weeks and this is the outcome? Pair of sandals!

The progress we have made is satisfactory. There is still lot to do, especially with the performance, but I could carefully state that we are half way there. Clothes are nearly done. Currently we are working on props and armors. Because of the workload the update speed will not increase much, but at some point I’ll make costume cross-sections from Luminara and Barriss and I also have some silliness from Megatron and Starscream shoot waiting on my photo folder.

Barriss' belt buckle

As a padawan, Barriss Offee doesn't have many accessories, only the detailed belt buckle. Our version was made mostly from materials we already had, except the gold acrylic paint and embroidery thread had to be bought.

The main materials were thick poster board and craft foam. It's good to remember while drawing on craft foam that every line you press on its surface will be seen. So, note to self: draw on the backside.

After successfully drawing the shapes it was time to cut them off. A scalpel or a thin utility knife works well while scissors are too clumsy, except while cutting bigger shapes like in Luminara's leather cloth and gauntlets. I also trimmed some foam from the boarders of the patterns so that the pieces would fit in nicely.

Note: this wasn't the frame I used in the finished buckle.

An old hair pin proved to be an excellent choice for scraping, poking and dragging different textures to the foam. The Karelian pasties texture on the inner edge of the 'heart' was made by first pressing down then dragging the pin down.

That pin must be over ten years old.

Then it was time for the paintjob, and acrylics never fail you, unless you put too thick layer of it and cover all the textures you made earlier. Note to self: don't take too much paint. Gold, copper, brown, dark grey and their mixtures were used.

The surround was made from four strands of embroidery thread. They were "twisted" twice [due the lack of better term] and clued to place then painted with gold. Finally the parts were clued to the poster board base and weathered with black paint.

This one hasn't been weathered yet, but can you see were the ends of the thread are?

-yoki out