jprezemexi
New Member
so, I am a first time poster and long time lurker to the RPF. I came to this site based on the podcasts of Adam Savage and some other podcasts that mentioned the site. I love it here as I have come across projects that I couldn't move forward with until I looked up the answer here. this is such a great resource and community!
Onto my first cosplay maker experience, this started several months ago when I vowed to go to the comic expo here in Cincinnati. Which led me down the road of wanting to do a cosplay (which I have always wanted to do since I was turned onto the whole idea). But, as the spring turned into summer and time dwindled (my wife and I had a baby = no sleep for a couple of months) I realized that I only had time to make my son's costume. The plan was do a Thor Cosplay based on 2 sets of concepts; the first being the latest movie (the darkworld) and the second concept was Jeremy Love's concept work for the avenger's 2 movie which the artwork was shown on several websites.
Jeremy Loves concept art for thor:
the darkworld suit:
With these 2 ideas I had to meld them together and scale them correctly for my son who is 7 and is pretty tall for his age (I can't remember exact right now). In doing my research I couldn't scale the movie costumes and concept art correctly, which moved me to look at the "oct and rules cosplay blog" (I cant remember their rpf tag or I would directly reference them). From them I got the line work for the front armor piece and the bracers, which helped me tremendously since I could bring them into my CAD software and scale them correctly and print them to a large format printer to make full size templates. The one thing that I didn't have was the back piece; I had planned to use Jeremy Love's back armor design and I did to the best of my ability.
Once I got a pic of my son imported in (holding a tape measure out to his side showing 12" of tape) I scaled him correctly and got all of my front measurements copied down. This led me to import the front armor piece and scale it accordingly, which wasn't too hard but I did have to tweak the scale a little to make it fit. After that I printed everything out and it sat rolled up on my computer cabinet for a week or 2, after which I accumulated all the eva foam and items I thought I needed to complete the task.
With that being said I sat down at the table and looked at the front armor and realized that a.)I wasn't going to do a cape b.) I didn't like the pointy things at the top of the shoulders c.) I had to make this thing have levels since I wasn't going to paint the levels in by hand. I sat and hand sketched onto the paper the changes I needed to make and cut out the front into several pieces, the bottom (which was the whole pattern) the 2 chest pieces that hold the "discs" (which I cut out after I had marked the bottom piece).
line work from OctandRulesCosplayBlog:
so after I cut all the sticky backed craft foam, eva foam out and carved the layers with a dremmel here is the pieces hot glued together (next time i'll use barge cement):
Front Armor Piece:
Back Armor Piece:
I had to also do layering on here for the shoulder pieces.
Belt piece:
Picture of 1 of 2 bracers:
this was all pre paint in which I couldn't find any plasti dip at the stores around me so I had to use a rubberized spray which just looked like it was a off brand plasti dip. I sprayed a first coat of the stuff all over the foam to seal it all up so I could paint it with a "stainless steel" paint I got from the automotive store near my work. I guess I should mention that this was all the night before the comic expo and so I still had to make the pants and hammer in between the paint drying.
With all of that said I had to make the pants which I originally had planned to sew a layer of craft foam and leather onto a thrift store pair of jeans I had purchased a few weeks earlier. I had already split the 2 side seams of the outer part of the legs of the jeans so I could make them alittle bit bigger and could alter the fronts a little easier. The sewing idea was out the window, so hot glue was used to hold down the sacrificial leather from a thrift store black leather coat. The leather was to be covering craft foam cutouts to make the pants look like they were somewhat armored, the effect was deadened somewhat since I didn't have time to sew. But none the less I was able to put them together and finish them. the good thing about these pants were that I knew I only had to get the leather to go a little past his knee which I was able to do and not have to cover the whole leg. I had bought a set of womens size 6.5 riding boots for $10 off of amazon that fit him great and came up past his knee.
Pants:
After the pants I was able to move onto the hammer which long story short I had to make a really simple one. originally I had planned on blue E.L. wire to make the whole thing light up and look like it was charged up with lightning. so after I "cut down" the hammer template I had made via CAD I cut it all out and glued it together with a wood closet pole and cap used to hold the whole thing together. after I had gotten this hammer figured out and made I wrapped the handle with sticky back craft foam and moved onto the next stage of the project (which began about 1145pm the night before).
Finish paint: yes, I had to put stainless steel paint on the whole set of items. this normally wouldn't be too bad but I was running on fumes and well all the fumes of paint and some of the glue I was using was taking its toll. It being late and all I roughly painted everything I needed to paint to finish it all out.. here are the pics of the items with paint applied to areas I thought they need to be.. as I did want a "battle worn" look to the whole thing. I thought hey a set of armor needs to look a little like its been used and beat on..
Armor set painted:
Hammer with Caps painted:
With time run out and my energy gone I wrapped everything up that night and hid the hammer so my son wouldn't see the finished products. Needless to say when I picked him up after school that Friday he was excited as he knew he was going to get dressed up and we were going to go to the comic expo. The one thing that I didn't get to complete or start was the Helmet (which I made the template but it was too late to start), so you will see a store bought one that we have had for sometime. here we go here is what my son looked like at the comic expo (I will get a couple more later that I have stored on the camera):
and this brings my post to an end ... key factors I learned: 1.) don't procrastinate 2.) watch as many youtube videos you need too in order to learn to do something, I can't tell you how many I have watched over and over to understand something. 3.) use barge cement or contact cement (same thing I think just one is a brand name). 4.) make your costume sturdy enough to last for a 7 year old that runs and jumps and plays in their cosplay (the day after was a family day where we dressed up and his suit was almost destroyed due to play lol which was ok by me at least he looked cool playing in it haha). Anywho, I love this place and I hope maybe someone can glean something from my experience. hope you all have a good rest of the day!! I will update with a couple more shots of him with the costume on.
Onto my first cosplay maker experience, this started several months ago when I vowed to go to the comic expo here in Cincinnati. Which led me down the road of wanting to do a cosplay (which I have always wanted to do since I was turned onto the whole idea). But, as the spring turned into summer and time dwindled (my wife and I had a baby = no sleep for a couple of months) I realized that I only had time to make my son's costume. The plan was do a Thor Cosplay based on 2 sets of concepts; the first being the latest movie (the darkworld) and the second concept was Jeremy Love's concept work for the avenger's 2 movie which the artwork was shown on several websites.
Jeremy Loves concept art for thor:
the darkworld suit:
With these 2 ideas I had to meld them together and scale them correctly for my son who is 7 and is pretty tall for his age (I can't remember exact right now). In doing my research I couldn't scale the movie costumes and concept art correctly, which moved me to look at the "oct and rules cosplay blog" (I cant remember their rpf tag or I would directly reference them). From them I got the line work for the front armor piece and the bracers, which helped me tremendously since I could bring them into my CAD software and scale them correctly and print them to a large format printer to make full size templates. The one thing that I didn't have was the back piece; I had planned to use Jeremy Love's back armor design and I did to the best of my ability.
Once I got a pic of my son imported in (holding a tape measure out to his side showing 12" of tape) I scaled him correctly and got all of my front measurements copied down. This led me to import the front armor piece and scale it accordingly, which wasn't too hard but I did have to tweak the scale a little to make it fit. After that I printed everything out and it sat rolled up on my computer cabinet for a week or 2, after which I accumulated all the eva foam and items I thought I needed to complete the task.
With that being said I sat down at the table and looked at the front armor and realized that a.)I wasn't going to do a cape b.) I didn't like the pointy things at the top of the shoulders c.) I had to make this thing have levels since I wasn't going to paint the levels in by hand. I sat and hand sketched onto the paper the changes I needed to make and cut out the front into several pieces, the bottom (which was the whole pattern) the 2 chest pieces that hold the "discs" (which I cut out after I had marked the bottom piece).
line work from OctandRulesCosplayBlog:
so after I cut all the sticky backed craft foam, eva foam out and carved the layers with a dremmel here is the pieces hot glued together (next time i'll use barge cement):
Front Armor Piece:
Back Armor Piece:
I had to also do layering on here for the shoulder pieces.Belt piece:
Picture of 1 of 2 bracers:
this was all pre paint in which I couldn't find any plasti dip at the stores around me so I had to use a rubberized spray which just looked like it was a off brand plasti dip. I sprayed a first coat of the stuff all over the foam to seal it all up so I could paint it with a "stainless steel" paint I got from the automotive store near my work. I guess I should mention that this was all the night before the comic expo and so I still had to make the pants and hammer in between the paint drying.
With all of that said I had to make the pants which I originally had planned to sew a layer of craft foam and leather onto a thrift store pair of jeans I had purchased a few weeks earlier. I had already split the 2 side seams of the outer part of the legs of the jeans so I could make them alittle bit bigger and could alter the fronts a little easier. The sewing idea was out the window, so hot glue was used to hold down the sacrificial leather from a thrift store black leather coat. The leather was to be covering craft foam cutouts to make the pants look like they were somewhat armored, the effect was deadened somewhat since I didn't have time to sew. But none the less I was able to put them together and finish them. the good thing about these pants were that I knew I only had to get the leather to go a little past his knee which I was able to do and not have to cover the whole leg. I had bought a set of womens size 6.5 riding boots for $10 off of amazon that fit him great and came up past his knee.
Pants:
After the pants I was able to move onto the hammer which long story short I had to make a really simple one. originally I had planned on blue E.L. wire to make the whole thing light up and look like it was charged up with lightning. so after I "cut down" the hammer template I had made via CAD I cut it all out and glued it together with a wood closet pole and cap used to hold the whole thing together. after I had gotten this hammer figured out and made I wrapped the handle with sticky back craft foam and moved onto the next stage of the project (which began about 1145pm the night before).
Finish paint: yes, I had to put stainless steel paint on the whole set of items. this normally wouldn't be too bad but I was running on fumes and well all the fumes of paint and some of the glue I was using was taking its toll. It being late and all I roughly painted everything I needed to paint to finish it all out.. here are the pics of the items with paint applied to areas I thought they need to be.. as I did want a "battle worn" look to the whole thing. I thought hey a set of armor needs to look a little like its been used and beat on..
Armor set painted:
Hammer with Caps painted:
With time run out and my energy gone I wrapped everything up that night and hid the hammer so my son wouldn't see the finished products. Needless to say when I picked him up after school that Friday he was excited as he knew he was going to get dressed up and we were going to go to the comic expo. The one thing that I didn't get to complete or start was the Helmet (which I made the template but it was too late to start), so you will see a store bought one that we have had for sometime. here we go here is what my son looked like at the comic expo (I will get a couple more later that I have stored on the camera):
and this brings my post to an end ... key factors I learned: 1.) don't procrastinate 2.) watch as many youtube videos you need too in order to learn to do something, I can't tell you how many I have watched over and over to understand something. 3.) use barge cement or contact cement (same thing I think just one is a brand name). 4.) make your costume sturdy enough to last for a 7 year old that runs and jumps and plays in their cosplay (the day after was a family day where we dressed up and his suit was almost destroyed due to play lol which was ok by me at least he looked cool playing in it haha). Anywho, I love this place and I hope maybe someone can glean something from my experience. hope you all have a good rest of the day!! I will update with a couple more shots of him with the costume on.
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