Bulky Armor Technique Discussion

[aron42486]

This is for the armor builders. When you build armor that is fairly form fitting its not too hard to attach it to your body, but what about when you are building a set of armor that is bulkier than your body? I guess a good example would be a space marine from WarHammer 40k
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How would you attach armor like this to your limbs? My idea is to build a medical type brace and use struts to create a truss under the piece that would anchor to the brace. In the sketch, green reprents the bulky piece and blue could be any combination of struts that secure the piece to the brace.
View attachment 29645

Has anyone tried this before? Do you think this would work? What materials do you think would best be suited for this? And if this is totally crazy then do you have any better alternatives?

 

[TK1536]

I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this with regards to 40K Terminator armor, and when I realized my arm mobility was very restrictive as well as the ability to remove my own helmet, I just stopped. Also keep in mind the extreme weight of something like that. You'd need to be in pretty good shape.

 

[themanwoaname]

theres a member here from the phillipines that makes elaborate armors out of material used to make sandals. she could answer it better than anyone.

 

[Fullmetalsam]

This kind of question can be answered in so many different ways and it all depends on how “bulky” you’re planning your armor to be.

Let’s say we take your example of the Space Marine – what I would propose is attaching your armor pieces to a central piece that sits on a comfortable part of your body. So for example, you could easily attach all the armor pieces that you’ll wear on your shoulders and arms to your chest piece. Meaning your shoulder would be attached to your chest piece directly, and then the biceps part attached to the shoulder piece and finally the forearm part to the bicep piece (or directly to the shoulder).

This is exactly what I did for my Terminator Chaplain – I’m wearing the back piece like a backpack and everything is attached to it (the front chest piece and shoulder directly strapped to it, the biceps and forearm are attached to the shoulders).

For the legs – everything can be attached to the belt – thigh armor directly to the belt and shin guards to the thigh armor pieces.

Now, if the armor is bigger than your body and you want to make sure the armor piece won’t “wobble” when worn… I’d stack foam sheets on the inside of the piece so it would be thick enough that it would fill the space between the armor and my body – you’d then be able to adjust the armor pieces properly. You don’t have to fill the entire space, just a few 2”x2” squares of foam strategically placed would do the trick.

If your armor is way bigger than your body, you might want to look at building something like a frame that you would fit into and your armor would sit on. Here is a link to a blog where someone is building a Wampa costume. This is exactly what he’s doing – building a frame out of PVC pipes to get his body to the right proportions required by the costume. But something like this is a whole new ballgame as you’d have to take into account things like the fact that your hands will not reach the “actual hands” of the costume… so do you want to make them functional or not??? Etc…

Wampa Blog

On mobility – wearing armor will always mean a loss of mobility and the bulkier the armor, the more mobility is lost. This was true for medieval armor – is it still true for costume armor. The way to make this better is to resize a bulky armor to your body size instead of trying to be the real thing. For example, you’ll find a “resized” Space Marine armor more confortable to wear than an “accurate” 8ft high/6 ft wide suit of Space Marine armor.

 

[aron42486]

I am designing a Megaman costume and this is just to brainstorm ideas for attaching the forearms and legs. Since there are no bicep or thigh pieces i wont be able to attach everything to each other, but I like the idea of it

My widest pieces will be 6 inches away from my body. The brace could be made of styrene riveted together. A truss system made out of 1 mm thick light gauge aluminum would weigh maybe 1-2 lbs which is okay for me. I thought of maybe filling the pieces with expanding foam or foam sheets but I would overheat.

I used 2" thick foam to make this costume cheaply for halloween a few years ago and the problem was that my arms and legs would sweat like crazy from the foam. The truss would let me at least air out my arms and legs a bit.

I can make a brace fit very snuggly and as long as I can anchor the piece to the brace it shouldn't wobble or slip off.

 

[Finnlock]

Been a lurker for a while, 1st post I felt I might contribute too.

I built this powerfist armor for my GF's SoB armor.. it's quite a bit bigger then her arm.

It started out like this, made from Foamies,

I made two "cuffs", one that fit her upper forearm/elbow and one that fit her wrist, then built the shell over it.
Here you can see the inside.

I then built another shell to go over the foam out of PVC sheet to make it larger.

Then I added cuffs to the new shell to thicken it up more.

Here it is painted, you can see how much larger it is compaired to her arm. I like the contrast of the slender female arm and the massive powerfist.

It turned out light wieght and dosen't really restrict her movements.

 

[aron42486]

Very nice powerfist.

What is a good foam to use that has a very low insulating value. I know building up with foam is probable the easiest and maybe most cost effective way of bulking up but I tend to overheat very quickly when covered in foam.

My first megaman gaunlets were made of a type of craft foam that i think is used in cushions, cant really remember.

Are foamies a different type of material? Is there a specific type of foam that some of you use in applications like this?

 

[ShackMan]

Nice work on that power fist, and excellent first post. Welcome aboard!


ATM
ShackMan

 

[LOGANCLAW22]

Just like FullMetalsam stated, fill open voids with cushion foam. Much more cost effective than using foamies to accomplish this. You can buy foamies at JoAnns crafts or Micheal's crafts stores. I constructed My bumblebee transformer using a motocross chest protector as the base that I just attached parts to. Shoulder armor, straps for bicep armor, straps for leg armor. I used the same method for my war machine and Iron man armor also. I will be bulking up my Bumblebee and I'll be using cushion foam covered with foamies and plastic sheets. Hope that this helps.

Widened it a bit here but will add more bulk soon.

Paul D.

 

[Dakarn]

I had a related question, how do you attach straps to the armor pieces? Rivets, glue, sewing?

Trying to beef up some Motocross armor and wanted to attach straps to the chest plate but not really seeing how to do it effectively.

 

[BenHA94]

i remember a school project i did once, where we basically cut a hand out of cardboard and folded it where fingers would bend. then we attached rubber bands pulling both ways, and you could sort of wear it and have a longer, mechanical hand. you would pull in your fingers and it would mimic your hand movements. i cant remember how you put everything together, there might be an instructable or something though.
anyway, if the armor ends up being longer than your arms, this could help you get some mobility in the fingers.

 

[Voodoo13]

Has anyone ever thought of making a full scale pair of lightning claws or power fist? Or a storm shield and thunder hammer for that matter.

 

[bleisle]

Just an idea for a base for the gloves if you are trying to make armor that definitely extends beyond your body. Use hockey Gloves. If you can find an old pair they are rather big and would be a great start.

 

[Finnlock]

Hockey gloves have a stiff thumb to prevent injury. it makes closing of the fist difficult. I used Field hockey gloves which have a more flexable thumb and retain the bulk of the hockey glove.
Here is the left handed powerfist I made for my GF's Sister of Battle armor.

Here is a shot during the test fitting that shows the scale of the non-powerfist arm