Invoco
New Member
Hello RPF, this is my first post in here and, at the same time, also my debut as costume maker. Although quite far from perfect, I'm quite happy how it turned out in the end.
Especially the fact that I built almost everything from scratch raises some pride in me. The 'almost' part relates to the boots. Since we've got winter here, meaning lots of snow and ice, I had to use a pair of cheap slippers as basis for the boots for a proper shoe sole.
First things first, since this is gonna be a somewhat lengthy writeup, the results!
So, here's the whole story:
After a comparably boring carnival costume last year, I decided to go for something bigger this time around. Since I was doing my 5th or so playthrough of Skyrim around that time, the decision for what to build came rather naturally. After browsing through the in-game collection of armor, I rather quickly decided to go for one of the early-game sets - Bethesda did a much better job with these compared to the comic-ish late-game sets, imo. So, in the end, I decided to do the Banded Iron Armor and, of course, the iconic helmet you see flopping around pretty much everywhere Skyrim's mentioned.
Since I had no idea where and how to start, I figured i might as well kick off with the helmet. First, Pepakura:
Following loads of tutorials, I then fibreglassed it and applied loads of body filler (yes, it's heavy, but I still wore it for long periods throughout the carnival night). For giving the flat horns a proper shape, I wrapped thick threads around them and hot glued it in place, then again worked on the resulting gaps with body filler. I used metal rivets for the proper looks and added (after thinking about it again, far too much) battle damage.
Painting time! The helmet itself was rather straight forward, but I had to think about something more convoluted for the horns. After re-painting them entirely to a more horn-ish beige, I did the following: I thinned down brown acrylic paint a bit and painted it on thick. then, I simply used a sponge and, following the horns from the base to the tips, wiped off the brown with little pressure. After the first pass of this method turned out a bit flat, I mixed up some red-ish brown and repeated the procedure, ending up with something I liked quite a lot.
Unfortunately, I didn't document the rest of the build as thoroughly, but here we go with the armor.
I started off with the shin guards and bracers since they seemed to be the easiest parts. Drawing out the templates was really easy after taking some measurements of my arms and legs. However, after heat-forming them, I was absolutely unsatisfied with their stability. So I ended up wrapping the parts I already had cut out (shin guards, leg protectors, parts of the shoulder and the bracers) in a layer of Worbla. Much better and fit for going out with it. For the remaining parts (the overlapping plate parts of the larger shoulder and front/back of the armor) I directly went with sandwiching craft foam in worbla. This was especially useful when I did the chest armor.
For that, I made a duct tape dummy of my torso and approximated the armor shape with craft foam sheets taped together. After the sandwiching and shaping, I was quite satisfied with the result and primed, painted and weathered all the parts.
Next thing: Its the BANDED iron armor after all, so time for some faux leather work and straps and stuff. Back then, I had pretty much no sewing skills, but these were easy enough. The rings are actually real metal, for the hammered texture I used a dremel sanding drum. Again, weathering gave these parts their final touch.
So as my sewing skill leveled up to about 50, I tackled more complex things.
First off, the boots. I put on the slippers and wrapped my legs with masking tape. I then cut the masking tape where necessary to be able to lay the parts out flat on the faux leather. I sewed the bits together and glued them onto the slippers. You can definitely see the learning curve here, the second one I made looks much better than the first one. Finally, I added that decorative thing on the side, some fur, and straps with buckles, and weathered them. Also, at this point, I decided that I need something to put my stuff into when going out, so I also made a bag with the game logo stitched onto for some additional flair.
Since we're in the faux leather section of the thread, I guess the bracers also go here. Nothing fancy, though. Faux leather glued on craft foam, covered in fake fur and attached worbla protectors.
Just a quick in-between progress shot (I think this was the first selfie I've ever made! so many first-timers in one thread!)
The game now would've said something like 'Your sewing skill has increased to 60', so on to clothing, for which I don't have any progress shots. The shirt was easy enough. I traced one of my shirts onto heavy linen and sewed everything up. For more durability, I added faux leather to the neck and rim of the sleeves. The pants were an entirely different beast, though. First of all, finding the right way of a pair of jeans to copy onto faux buckskin isn't as easy. Second, sewing up to 6 layers of fake buckskin (the front part, I went with a viking-like style here since there are no reference pics for the pants) hurts your wrists, even with a sturdy awl. So at some point, I just hammered the awl through the layers, breaking about 5 needles in the process. Nevertheless, the endeavor was successful! I only have a picture of the finished parts here. I weathered the pants (and later also the shirt) with the usual methods - acrylics, some sand paper.
Since I now hit the limit of uploadable images, the next post will continue with the weaponry.
Especially the fact that I built almost everything from scratch raises some pride in me. The 'almost' part relates to the boots. Since we've got winter here, meaning lots of snow and ice, I had to use a pair of cheap slippers as basis for the boots for a proper shoe sole.
First things first, since this is gonna be a somewhat lengthy writeup, the results!
So, here's the whole story:
After a comparably boring carnival costume last year, I decided to go for something bigger this time around. Since I was doing my 5th or so playthrough of Skyrim around that time, the decision for what to build came rather naturally. After browsing through the in-game collection of armor, I rather quickly decided to go for one of the early-game sets - Bethesda did a much better job with these compared to the comic-ish late-game sets, imo. So, in the end, I decided to do the Banded Iron Armor and, of course, the iconic helmet you see flopping around pretty much everywhere Skyrim's mentioned.
Since I had no idea where and how to start, I figured i might as well kick off with the helmet. First, Pepakura:
Following loads of tutorials, I then fibreglassed it and applied loads of body filler (yes, it's heavy, but I still wore it for long periods throughout the carnival night). For giving the flat horns a proper shape, I wrapped thick threads around them and hot glued it in place, then again worked on the resulting gaps with body filler. I used metal rivets for the proper looks and added (after thinking about it again, far too much) battle damage.
Painting time! The helmet itself was rather straight forward, but I had to think about something more convoluted for the horns. After re-painting them entirely to a more horn-ish beige, I did the following: I thinned down brown acrylic paint a bit and painted it on thick. then, I simply used a sponge and, following the horns from the base to the tips, wiped off the brown with little pressure. After the first pass of this method turned out a bit flat, I mixed up some red-ish brown and repeated the procedure, ending up with something I liked quite a lot.
Unfortunately, I didn't document the rest of the build as thoroughly, but here we go with the armor.
I started off with the shin guards and bracers since they seemed to be the easiest parts. Drawing out the templates was really easy after taking some measurements of my arms and legs. However, after heat-forming them, I was absolutely unsatisfied with their stability. So I ended up wrapping the parts I already had cut out (shin guards, leg protectors, parts of the shoulder and the bracers) in a layer of Worbla. Much better and fit for going out with it. For the remaining parts (the overlapping plate parts of the larger shoulder and front/back of the armor) I directly went with sandwiching craft foam in worbla. This was especially useful when I did the chest armor.
For that, I made a duct tape dummy of my torso and approximated the armor shape with craft foam sheets taped together. After the sandwiching and shaping, I was quite satisfied with the result and primed, painted and weathered all the parts.
Next thing: Its the BANDED iron armor after all, so time for some faux leather work and straps and stuff. Back then, I had pretty much no sewing skills, but these were easy enough. The rings are actually real metal, for the hammered texture I used a dremel sanding drum. Again, weathering gave these parts their final touch.
So as my sewing skill leveled up to about 50, I tackled more complex things.
First off, the boots. I put on the slippers and wrapped my legs with masking tape. I then cut the masking tape where necessary to be able to lay the parts out flat on the faux leather. I sewed the bits together and glued them onto the slippers. You can definitely see the learning curve here, the second one I made looks much better than the first one. Finally, I added that decorative thing on the side, some fur, and straps with buckles, and weathered them. Also, at this point, I decided that I need something to put my stuff into when going out, so I also made a bag with the game logo stitched onto for some additional flair.
Since we're in the faux leather section of the thread, I guess the bracers also go here. Nothing fancy, though. Faux leather glued on craft foam, covered in fake fur and attached worbla protectors.
Just a quick in-between progress shot (I think this was the first selfie I've ever made! so many first-timers in one thread!)
The game now would've said something like 'Your sewing skill has increased to 60', so on to clothing, for which I don't have any progress shots. The shirt was easy enough. I traced one of my shirts onto heavy linen and sewed everything up. For more durability, I added faux leather to the neck and rim of the sleeves. The pants were an entirely different beast, though. First of all, finding the right way of a pair of jeans to copy onto faux buckskin isn't as easy. Second, sewing up to 6 layers of fake buckskin (the front part, I went with a viking-like style here since there are no reference pics for the pants) hurts your wrists, even with a sturdy awl. So at some point, I just hammered the awl through the layers, breaking about 5 needles in the process. Nevertheless, the endeavor was successful! I only have a picture of the finished parts here. I weathered the pants (and later also the shirt) with the usual methods - acrylics, some sand paper.
Since I now hit the limit of uploadable images, the next post will continue with the weaponry.
![DSC_0179[2].JPG](https://therpf-f28a.kxcdn.com/forums/data/attachments/394/394180-8032906d44d15d4b51d5f61ed190cf93.jpg "DSC_0179[2].JPG")
![DSC_0178[2].JPG](https://therpf-f28a.kxcdn.com/forums/data/attachments/394/394178-aca9832f0567907b25fd6cff2bdaebc4.jpg "DSC_0178[2].JPG")
