Hello guys and gals! Today you're in for something a little different! Along with my love of fashion I also have a love of all things nerdy, so how better to combine those two loves than to teach you all how to make your own armor?! Now I know what you're thinking; "CC, there is NO WAY that I could ever do that!" But you can, and you will! Let's jump right in!
In this post, we'll be making bracers/vambraces/armor for your forearms. I am basing my bracers off of a pattern from Storm the Castle, he has a bunch of FANTASTIC and very simple projects that are perfect for beginners (which is what I am!) Click HERE for the link to his tutorial video and HERE for the project page!
SIDE NOTES: I chose to make a leather varient of this project, so my paint choices will be very different than the ones in the tutorial. Also, I am making this armor for a friend, and he is much taller than I am, which is why the armor will not fit me!
After cutting out the paper patterns I traced them each twice on to 2mm foam. I have a huge roll of this stuff, but the craft foam that you get at somewhere like Michael's Crafts is totally fine! In fact, I will be using it in later tutorials!
Remeber that these pieces will overlap so make sure to draw where that happens to you can assemble the pieces properly!
I cut myself two extra strips (one for each armor piece) to go around the bottom of the bracers. Remember, the pattern is a suggestion, not a rule, so feel free to add little details to yours that the pattern doesn't have!
It was at this point that I realized that I should have used a different type of marker to draw these things out! Whoops! Lesson learned!
Now I hot glued the pieces together!
I felt like adding some detail on my bracers, so I cut out a little diamond shape out of note card and....
Traced them onto my armor!
Next I took my woodburner (I got this one for $16) and made grooves along the traced lines. Do this in a well ventilated room, I learned the hard way that this puts off some terrible smelling fuems!!!
Afterwards I had to heat the foam (I did this over a stovetop flame) to get the foam pliable enough to form around a cylider to give it a round shape. These ARE going over your arms after all! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of this because I needed both of my hands for the process!
After they are nice and shaped, I coated them in Mod Podge to seal them and help them maintain their shape. You can also use a 50/50 mix of water and white glue if you don't have Mod Podge.
Once that was dry I painted everything with a coat of black paint so I would have a nice base coat.
Things got a little messy again! Whoops! Thankfully this paint comes off with water!
It's time for it all to come together! I used three colors for this project, black, brown, and burnt sienna. I used brown for the "all over" color, mixed brown and black for the "shadows," i.e. just underneath where the pieces overlap and in the grooves I made with my woodburner, and burnt sienna for the diamonds and edge piece!
Side Note Again In Case You Missed It The First Time: I am making this armor for a friend of mine, and he is MUCH taller than I am, which is why the armor doesn't fit me!
I added a little bit of gold on two random diamonds so that the bracers matched the rest of the armor (which you will see over the coming weeks here on the blog!)
I've lightened this picture to show you the contrast of colors, but in person the colors are much closer to the previous picture!
Over all, I'm pretty thrilled about this project! This is the first time I've ever done something like this and it worked WONDERFULLY! I highly recommend for you all to try this yourselves, it's a great learning experience and a bunch of fun!
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more posts EVERY week!
~CC~