Question regarding Worbla (It's Uses and how I can apply it to my own cosplay)

[Faithtality]

Hi everyone, first post here on the forums. Go easy on me please

I've heard the wonders of worbla and wanted to created a scale mail torso and greaves similar to what this designer did on his cosplay in the following link: http://cocins.com/eminence.rain-2984488117

Molding each individual scale shouldn't be an issue for me. My question, however, is how I would attached the scales to each other to form scale "sheets" as you see in one of the pictures posted. Would I heat the worbla scales and stick them together? Or would it be easier to just glue them together?

Furthermore, how would I apply these sheets to form a torso and greaves? If I'm not mistaken, this designer used pleather (faux) as a torso and greaves and applied the sheets onto them. If I were to use pleather, could I heat up the sheets and then stick it on to the pleather? Or does worbla only stick to certain materials?

Again, I'm not too familiar with worbla and was hoping to avoid using a sewing machine, considering I can only hand sew and don't have access to a sewing machine. Thanks for reading, I would greatly appreciate any opinions.

 

[gothic]

worbla likes sticking to itself when heated, trick is to heat both contact points then it will stick.so for scales you would work on the bottom row up. look on you tube for kamui cosplay and lightning cosplay and hundreds of other tutorials. also look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzIvPpLU5GE to make all the scales in the link you showed would add considerable weight to your costume also there are alternatives like foam scales or look two videos with great dragon scale effet, hope it helps

 

[nathancarter]

Personally, I wouldn't use Worbla for this. It's a bit of a learning curve and not inexpensive. If you're going through all that effort, why not buy pre-cut scales from theringlord and weave actual scale mail?

Aluminum isn't too heavy; large-size scales cover a pretty good area per scale; and it's probably not any more expensive than Worbla. And, though it's more effort to weave the scales and rings into maille, you save a ton of effort of cutting and shaping the sales yourself.


Going off on a tangent, now I've made myself curious about the price.

The cosplayer you posted said he got his black worbla from yayahan. The XL sheet is the best value (ignoring that it's currently sold out). 39x59" for $72.00, or 16 square feet, which makes it $4.50 per square foot. What sort of loss can we assume from punching it into scales? 20%? So that ends up at about $5.60 per square foot of scales.

So I stand corrected, the Worbla is still meaningfully cheaper than real scales:
Black-painted large scales from Ring Lord are $5.50 per bag of 100, and the calculator says 300 large scales per square foot, plus about another $5 in split rings, so you're looking at about $21 per square foot, or about $15 if you go with plain or brushed aluminum instead of black painted.



...but I'd personally still go with the real scales, 'cause the real investment here is your time in making it, whether you do worbla scales or metal scales. Also if you leave the worbla one in a hot car it's gonna melt into mush.

 

[nathancarter]

Or, if you want inexpensive, lightweight, mostly-foolproof, but still labor-intensive, make scales out of craft foam and glue them together using barge cement. Some people use a guitar-pick punch to make scales, but I don't think the shape is quite right.