Demongaze Armour Part 5

No update or any blog posts last week and I’m so sorry!

I hit a wall with Demongaze when trying to pattern the under armour (Its just another layer under the breastplate to cover what its not already covering). This of course made me really frustrated because I had being doing so well without mistakes and so I gave up for the rest of the weekend.
Which brings us to this weekend.

This weekend I wanted to make the breastplate wearable as it would (surprisingly) help when making the under armour to get the shape/size right. I decided first of all that two clips on either shoulder was a good number which meant sewing four clips in total. To make the most of the tape I hand sewed it together so that I wouldn’t have much excess. I then left about two inches of tape the other side of the clip. To stop the tape from fraying I whip stitched the frayed edges down on the loop side and then burnt the edges on the ‘tail’ side.
Alternatively If I had thought this through I would have burnt both edges and then sewn the loop side down but The Bright Unforgiving Nivera who enjoys making things hard for herself decided to to it that way.

I then pinned them to my dress form making sure to get the placement right.

I then put the breastplate over top of the clips adjusting them where I needed to and then marked the center point of the clip with a white paint pen on the shoulder seams.

I then started gluing the clips in place with a hot glue gun. I drew the outline of where the clips would go first with the white paint pen. I made sure that the clips would line up with the center marks I made earlier on the seams.

You can just see the outlines I made on both the front and back pieces. The first clip on the right side was glued first.
Once finished both pieces looked like this.

And of course I had to try it on!

I’m holding it flat in these pictures to best replicate the way it will sit when I have the under armour made. I’ll have industrial Velcro attached to the inside of the breastplate (About one inch and a half) and then about one inch of Velcro on the edge of under armour. This way the two will connect bringing in the breastplate and back plate (which sits out a little also) shaping properly.
IN THEORY AT LEAST

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And that’s it for this post!
I will have a Very lengthy post Wednesday night about my Elizabethan (I’m calling it that form now on and that is final!) dress if I don’t have an overload of homework. But more about that then!

Thank you for reading
-Nivera

 

 

 

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Demongaze Armour Part 4

So this weekend I finished the breastplate, front and back! 

My very first time using Worbla and I am so very proud of this!!
I just love the in depth details, they stand out really well and make the armour look really dramatic! Can’t wait for it to be painted and really highlight those details.

Its in two separate pieces (Split at the shoulder) so its difficult to wear at the moment because I haven’t got anything attaching them at the moment. Which is why I have no photos for me wearing it yet. I should do in either the next update or the one after. The back plate and breastplate will be attached with small safety buckles (I’ve probably mentioned this before!).  The below photos show and edited photo showing the placement of 4 of the buckles and the buckles and thread (tape? I can’t remember what its called)

I decided to go with two either side to keep it even and more secure. I’m beginning to make the under armour which will sit in two pieces under the breastplate/backplate. The breastplate pieces will connect to the under armour with industrial Velcro. Worbla has a reasonable amount of give to it so it will nicely sit against my back with the Velcro. I have tried the back piece on and I know the bottom plate doesn’t fit against my back directly so it will need something to bring it in.
I had one concerned follower on Cosplay Amino today ask if I was able to sit in the breastplate, luckily I did think of this while designing it. The point on the lower piece of the breastplate (also the lowest point on the whole armour) just goes past my belly button when standing up right and hardly changes when sitting down. Which means I should be able to comfortably sit down.

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Not many pictures with this update and I apologies for that, most of this weekend was spent merging the worbla together which was slow and tedious! I’ll be working on my gauntlets this week after school and I think my mother is getting 10 meters of top pop poplin for me to draft my Ophelia dress as I realized April is only 3 months away and if I want an Autumn shoot I’m going to have to start the dress soon!
The next update is scheduled for next weekend.

Thank you for reading
-Nivera

Demongaze Armour Part 3

Big update for this cosplay! Today I overlaid the foam with Worbla which was also my first ever time using the thermoplastic Worbla!
But before I talk about that I’ll go through my process in order.

Continuing on from my previous post I drew details onto the foam which would become raised details when carved out later. I would draw the pattern on one side of the plate and then transfer it onto the other side using grease proof paper by making stencils. My drawing skills aren’t great when it comes to replicating to the exact detail so the grease proof paper stencil was a great alternative to trying re draw everything.

Mini Tutorial, no images sadly
The stencils were made by drawing one side of the pattern (To the symmetrical point usually the center line of the breastplate) I drew this while the foam was pinned in position on the dress form, this is optional but I think it just helps with perspective. Once the pattern was drawn I would take it off the dress form and then lay grease proof paper over top and push pins into the paper through the foam to hold both in place while I traced the pattern with a ball point pen (marker pens tend to be too thick). I then flipped over the paper and put it onto the blank side of the foam armour piece and pinned the paper into place. Then with my craft knife I lightly  re-‘drew’ the lines with the blade. After finishing I took the paper off the armour piece and used my ball point pen to follow the lines the craft knife had made. And then the whole pattern was transferred! Because I would be cutting along these lines later I didn’t worry about the cuts the knife had made.

Once all pieces had their patterns drawn on them they looked like this.

I then needed to create second layers for each of the pieces that have details (that will be cut out to create depth) on them. Once the second pieces were cut out I glued them to their originals. Below are pictures of the full foam breastplate with raised details ect.

And then the wait was over! Worbla Time!
Its surprisingly easier to work with than I had anticipated. It covers everything so nicely, its great to have a material that has a finish that great. Because Worbla cools hard it means you don’t have to accurately pre-shape the foam first because you can heat the overlay of Worbla to the correct shape once its covered.

You’ll notice that the armour now has indented details this is from cutting pieces out of the top layer of the foam patterns. I then pushed the hot worbla into these indents making it all smooth as I went so that I would look clean and natural.
I started with the breast pieces and then moved onto the ‘V neck’ pieces first creating the top half of the breastplate first. None of these are merged (attached) together yet.

I then moved onto the under boob plate. This piece was the most time consuming of all the pieces I covered today.

The last piece was the lowermost plate (Tummy/stomach plate or something?) This was the easiest one to make and hardly required any shaping.

Ignore the Snapchat caption (despite how accurately it portrays my current feelings) This is what the full front breastplate looks like! Yes some pieces have slipped in the photo but its a pretty accurate representation of how it will look when all together.
I did manage to get the top half of the breastplate attached in the center line. I gave up on the underboob plate because I would need another pair of hands and I didn’t have access to that at the time! Also I hadn’t eaten all day and that’s my fault not the progress of evolution. This is 2016 where is my second pair of arms anyway?
The photo the finished top half of the breastplate is below.

I will try to get the underboob and stomach piece attached tomorrow so I can post a photo of me wearing it tomorrow to social media and in my next update which will likely be next weekend. I have also decided to make the thigh piece from Worbla and craft (2mm) foam. Which means trashing the piece I made from 6mm EVA foam, which I haven’t posted about previously so we’ll pretend that hasn’t happened! I still have the pattern so I wont need to re-pattern luckily. More on that in the next post.. maybe.

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And that’s it for this post! I am so so pleased with this weekends progress and can’t wait to pick it up again after school tomorrow. Also I contacted the store I bought my fabric from when I was in England and now know the material I’ll be using for my Young Girl’s Loose Gown. Italian Duchess Satin. I’ll go through and edit my last post on the gown and dress and change it to that when ever I have time.

Thank you for reading
-Nivera

Demongaze Armour Part 2

A small update on my patterning and armour making process so far.

I’ve finished patterning the gauntlets. The gauntlets were patterned in the same way I patterned the breastplate, just this time I was wrapping my arm in plastic wrap and painters tape. I drew the pattern on as best I could while it was on my arm and then refined the outline (making cleaner edges) once I took the pattern off my arm. After this I transferred the pattern onto EVA Foam. After this I taped the seam up and put it on to make sure it would fit me (Always test as you go!). This was the result.

I’m planing on making the gauntlet zip up but I will explain this further when I have overlaid it with worbla and am ready to start the process of doing that!
Next I patterned the raised details which can be seen as the grey colored sections on the reference image. I had a minor melt down half way through making these when I self convinced myself the gauntlet wasn’t bulky enough (It sounds stupid but WOW armour is known for over emphasizing things like shoulders, lower and upper arms, boots and yeah in some cases boobs!) because of this I dropped making the gauntlets for a day until I cam back and realized the raised details would bring the bulkiness up to standard I might just have to make the gauntlets slightly wider now so they come around my arm properly. Which I didn’t mind having to do so I continued making the raised details and they look like this!

The was all going so well… And then my hot glue gun died on me. And I don’t mean one of those easy to fix in a jiffy deaths.
The trigger was at first stuck and wouldn’t move so I eventually forced it to and it broke so its now got no tension what so ever and will no longer push glue forward. As well as that glue is now getting clogged (I guess?) at the end of the gun and is literally seeping out of any part of the gun it can like seams in the plastic. It died in a hot mess.
So I threw it out and continued gluing the raised details together with wood glue (Which is so much cleaner than hot glue and I hate myself for not doing that first). I do however need a hot glue gun to glue the raised details to the base, this is because of some of the award angles the details must be glued on at so that layer properly.
Once this is complete everything will be covered in worbla.

Next I started on the thigh armour. This was really difficult to pattern, I ended up asking my mother to help wrap one of my legs in plastic wrap and painters tape! Once I was covered I marked certain spots to keep track of where the armour would sit. I then carefully pulled the plastic wrap and tape mess off and then stuffed clothes into the cast of my leg so that it would maintain shape while I drew the shape on. Once I drew the pattern on I cut around it and tried it on.

I have since cut the pattern out for one leg and have found that the top of the leg armour needs to be re-shaped. I’m not going to do anything else with the leg plates until the breastplate and belt is made because I can then estimate how high they need to come up and re-shape the top accordingly. The top will then clip onto the belt with a small safety buckle.

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I’m heading to Nelson tomorrow to pick up some supplies like a Dremel and other things I haven’t bought yet or have forgotten to get. I really don’t want to be spending too much money after tomorrow as I’ll need to be saving up for my school formal dress soon which is going to be even more money out of pocket! I’ll have an haul post up tomorrow or Thursday showing what I bought as usual.
And I’m back at school this Thursday! My last year at college before the scary but exciting University stage of my life! Really pleased that I got all of my first choice subjects this year, which is really rare as my college caters mostly to the science students who attend so all of those subjects have their own subject lines and the arts are pushed onto lines containing other art subjects making it hard for art students to get all their first choice subjects. No subject clashes for the first time in two years! Yay!
From now on I’ll be stuck to working on weekends and after school, I am determined to get this costume finished well before Wellington Comic-Con because I really need to make my other costumes too!

Thank you for reading and I will be keeping WordPress updated on all my costume progress.
-Nivera