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.

WonderFlex question

Zombie Hadouken writes-

Hello there, i was looking for some Wonderflex advice, and was referred to your expertise.
I am making Dr Dooms Armor, and was wondering if i can use aluminum as a mold or base to wrap the wonderflex around.
will the heated wonderflex stick to the metal? I was going to use a small layer of baby powder if it does.

My plan of attack has been to make a mock up of the gauntlets and start there. i will then dissemble the gauntlets, and wrap wonderflex around the aluminum...but can i actually wrap it around? Ive never used the stuff before, and want to have a clear idea of how it will react to the aluminum before i start.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi there!

Wonderflex is kind of a weird substance. You never know exactly what it's going to stick to (or how long for that matter!) The one thing I know about WF is that it sticks to itself. I would encourage you to experiment with getting it to stick to Aluminum but you may have better luck forming it around something else long and cylindrical like a pint glass, jar candle, or anything else that is long and roundish like your gauntlet. I'm not sure how the baby powder would work (or cornstarch for that matter) but I have a BAD FEELING about trying that- sounds like it could get rather messy.

Your best bet is to cut out the basic shaped from foamies and see if the shape will work. Then you can cut it out of WF and start heating it (on low) with a heat gun. You will know when its about right when it starts to get a shine on the surface. For armor and durability's sake I would probably use 2 or 3 layers. This will make it very rigid.

Fun with WonderFlex

I've been playing around with wonderflex for a year now and thought I would give a little tutorial/WIP of my new Boodikka costume.

But first an intro:

Wonderflex is a plastic that has a cheese cloth like fabric embedded in the materiel. It comes in sheets 43x55. I get mine from The Engineer Guy http://www.theengineerguy.com for $39.99+shipping. When you heat WF with a heat gun it emits a sticky like substance and will stick to its self. (it will also stick to nail polish and some clothing but not ALL) This is really a great quality since there is no other glues, ect that are needed. One sheet of WF is flexible, two sheets is pretty rigid and three sheets will withstand quite a bit of pressure. For example my Magdalena chest piece is one sheet of WF with re-enforcement around the neck and arm holes. The sides are flexible and will bend around my ribcage. The red in the photo is leather.
WF will bend around curves and you can gently pull the heated substance around shapes- like bewbs. Or a halo. This is wf over a Styrofoam floral wreath. This is the first heating shaping. If you keep heating WF it will smoosh into its self.

This is the 2nd heating where I smoothed it out more. I use both wood and metal clay shaping tools to smoosh and shape the wf.

After several coats of gesso and some paint you have a Dawn halo:

I first started learning about WF from Amethyst Angel's tutorial: http://www.amethyst-angel...wonderflex_tutorial.html However like all tutorials your results may vary. And mine did. Friendly Plastic pellets are NOT the way to get a smooth finish....or at least I couldn't. Maybe a professional has a better way to use it, but for now I classify Friendly Plastic as UNfriendly.

AA used a paper mache balloon to get her shape. I have made shapes two ways. The first way is to cut out a flat shape and then make notches or wedges like sewing a dart in a woman's top. The other way to get a shape is to lay the WF over the shape and heat it up. I use a combination of both. I make a pattern from paper on 1 inch square 3M flip chart paper. It sticks to the wall like a huge post it so I can hang it anywhere I have room. From there I cut out the pattern and try to shape it. If that works I then cut out the shape from Foamies. Between tape and heating the foamies I can get a better idea of how my wf piece is going to shape up. I get many of my armor patterns from SCA reenactment armor- http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/

After you have shaped your item you need to get rid of the grids. The new and improved wf has one 'smooth' side, however the surface has a reptile like texture to it. Not so smooth in my mind but better than the grids.

There are several methods out there that people use on to smooth out wf.
Friendly (NOT) Plastic - When you heat the pelletts you end up heating the wf. Only works if you are using 3 layers due to heat. One layer for my Magdalena shin armor did NOT work it was a god awful mess. It also really mucked up my chest armor. It's very very very hard to get smooth.

Gesso- the kids on cosplay.com use this. I think it's because they are emo artist types and this is the only substance anyone is familiar with, ergo it becomes cannon. It's hard, very hard but a PITA to sand, it streaks easy and it's expensive for how many layers 5+ you have to use.

Wall Spackle - been there, done that, made a mess. BUT it was quick. I put a layer of this over 2 layers of Gesso. But it's on a tiny piece of my armor on my upper arm that just sorta hangs there. I wouldn't use this on something that will get knocked about/rubbed against.

Bondo or a Bondo product- I picked this up at Auto Zone and will try it on an upcoming project. BUT I don't want to fuss with mixing.

Auto Filler Primer- I picked this up at Auto Zone on a whim. It is made to fill cracks on bumpers. Plastic bumpers. Fill cracks......DUH! I haven't really looked back since. It takes two coats, dry, one more coat, dry, sand & DONE.

I use nail sponges to sand- they are small and can get into cracks. The grit is 270. You can get a huge pack of them at Sally's Beauty Supply for around $8 bucks.

Here are several test strips to show the different smoothing methods. The left is Auto Primer and it's as smooth as a baby's bum.
The middle is gesso and the right is wall patch. It is one coat of gesso and one of wall patch. After sanding you will have to apply a 2nd coat of either. To be honest I'm a busy lady and I like the no sanding between coats thus the auto primer.