Leg Armor Process!

Hello! Okay, so i start school soon and i'm trying to get this done before it starts, but from the looks of it, i will have to squeeze this and homework in the small time space that i have left *sad face*. But oh well, i'm having supper oodles of fun doing this and i do hope it turns out as i imagine. 

ANYWAYS, So, as you can see i traced on the pieces of my armor, using the craft foam to trace it rather than the paper is a lot easier as it's thicker. 

 Once it's traced in, i carved it out using my super awesome heavy duty cutter that my mum kindly picked up for me when i couldn't go out. Simple enough.

After tracing it out, you just have to heat up all the edges and then attach them to each other, and you'd end up with something like this-

 I'd say that having the leg piece in different parts really helped when i was trying to get the shape right. 

The only problem that i have with worbla's finest art is that it's so thin, and i wanted to layer it, but i get the feeling that laying it on top of each other would give it a bit more weight and would be wasting the product. Next time, i hope to find a way to get the Worbla's to really imitate the chunkiness of metal, whilst still maintaining it's comfortable weight.

Attaching the pieces did take a little time as as you can see from the above photo, some just didn't work out because of my terrible estimating skills, and i had to spend some time heating it up and flattening it with a ruler or a flat surface without sacrificing the whole project. 

 What i absolutely love about worbla's is that you really can do anything with it, it's just down to your imagination, so i added a nice border to give it a more three-dimensional effect and the spikes. This part took the longest, but it is the most rewarding because it makes the biggest difference to how it looked before.

 Then, using some Acrylic Gesso, i painted over the leg piece a few times, and this just creates a nice base for the paints to go on. I thought about sanding it, but i think the bumpy texture gives it a nice edge, and makes it look a little more realistic.

So i haven't gotten onto the painting yet, because i just can't find good affordable metallic paints, i don't want to spend a fortune on this project because money doesn't grow on trees and i'm still a super amateur.

Anyways, i hope you liked the pictures, you can ask any questions in the comments section.

Thanks for reading :D

Riven the Exile Cosplay - Part 1

Hello!

So i'm a huge cosplay fan and i've done a few cosplays in the past, but they've all been small jobs and not that grand, but this time i wanted to step out of my comfort zone and really think about the materials i use to make it the most animated and realistic ( at the same time ) as possible.

For those unfamiliar with Riven, she's a champion out of League of Legends. I know that not many people actually like her as a champion but i absolutely fell in love with her look and so i decided that it would be perfect as a cosplay. 

Here are some pictures: 

The above is a fan artwork, or concept art by Dimelife on deviantart, this particular piece of art has helped me extraordinarily and i actually want to include the details on the leg armor and belt in my cosplay, hopefully i can manage to do so.

Here is my progress so far, although it's not much at all:

These are just rough sketches i did before getting down to the crafts, i find it really difficult to draw out something which is 3D and then making it 2D. As you can see i went through many many many leg armor designs.

I find it really amazing watching something which was on paper come to life, and this is my final template for the leg armor. I sketched it out on paper first, then took leg measurements, re-sized the drawing to fit the leg measurements, cut it out, copied onto craft foam (found in probably all craft stores, i got mine from hobby craft, it's blue because i was going to use it for something else, but never did) I cut the craft foam out so i can reattach it with wonderflex, which would make it more angular and armor-like.