Ame Comi Barda Update

Today was a full day in the studio. I was so focused that I skipped family dinner at my parent's condo (sorry Mom!) and missed 1/2 of my planned workout (swimming). I did come up for air around 7:30 and did get a nice hour trainer ride in.

I started off the day with creating a pattern for the neck corset/collar. This was a new item for me, I've seen these but never made one myself. I cut out 4 trapezoids, stitched them together and then put it on inside out. I took a sharpie and marked the curves. I finally was happy with the pattern and found some black cotton duck cloth to use. I wanted to keep the costume within the same texture so I tacked the collar to a foam head and sprayed it with PlastiDip. A lot of PlastiDip. So much PlastiDip that I was dripping on the basement floor. Unfortunately when it dried, you CAN'T EVEN TELL! I think I will try using the dip kind next instead of the spray. Eh, it's a learning curve.


Here is the pauldron held up next to the collar. I couldn't get the shoulder round enough (I was using a clay jar to shape it on) so I ended up using some drywall crack filler to well...fill in the cracks. It's not my preferred method but this shouldn't get dinged up too much so I'm not worried about it flaking or cracking.



Next I painted because I like to paint. I love the red here. I used Model Master in "Chrysler Engine Red" for the crown and "Bright Blue" for the shoulder piece. The yellow circles are white foamies that I painted with yellow 3d 'slick' fabric paint. I would of used yellow PlastiDip except I couldn't find any locally and I wasn't about to spend $10 on shipping for a can.


I spent some time during breakfast to do some research on Barda's Boom Stick (Megarod- whatever!) and in looking at the reference picture again I missed the detail on the right arm. Oh Noes!! I *think* it's a gauntlet. Filling in the details, I designed a gauntlet and set to work on construction. I'm making it a 2 part item, painting them separately and then joining them together. Below is the upper part.


I used the same construction as the crown- a WF base with foamie strips glued on to create a 3D effect. Next I take a larger sheet of WF and start to soften it around the base gauntlet.

The process takes a bit but is totally worth it! This isn't a final, I can see some lumps and bumps, but it is just about ready for primer.


Right now I've got primer on my pauldron and I need to put the final touches on my gaunlet and shape that as well. I'm going to wait on the 2nd plastidip coat on the collar until the morning. It's stinky stuff. I've got to tackle the bikini part and make a wee pouch to hold my keys/phone sooner rather than later. My goal is to be done by Wed the 26th because my boots should be arriving on Thursday and it will be a last min push to have them ready for Saturday.

Crown

I love working with Wonderflex. There is just so much you can do with it.

First I cut out the crown shape out of Foamie. In order to get it to bend slightly in the front I scored the back side of the shape with a pen, creating a groove. Looking at the reference picture I want some raised detail in the crown so I cut out the raised detail out of a second layer of foamie. Gluing the raised detail to the crown, I set it aside to dry.

Next I cut out the crown shape out of WF. I cut out a second crown but add about an inch all the way around.

Heating the WF on low, I melt the crown shape softly on one side. It is pliable and starts to get a glossy sheen to it. This lets me know that it's ready to stick to the foamie. I gently pressed it to the back edge of the foamie, making sure to bend both foamie and WF along the groove. You need to go slow here, making sure that the WF isn't too hot. I tend to work in small sections. WF does NOT always stick to foamie, sometimes when it's cooled down, you can peal the foamie away so make sure you are gentle. If you are going to use my method to get built up detail make sure you encase the foamie in WF.

After the crown is cooled and hard I heat the front crown cut out. Remember how we cut this with an extra 1" around it? That is so we can wrap it around and 'stick' it to the back of the crown. Heating the WF on low on one side of the crown I wait until it's shiny and then start wrapping. I use a wooden clay sculpting tool to get into the detail and cracks. I used my thumbnail to get inside the circles.



Here is an up close shot of the raised detail after I've given it 2 coats of primer spray. I will use my nail sanding sponge to sand it down, hit it with another shot of primer, sand again then paint.