So I’m starting to paint some of my armor. This may not be the final paint application… but it’s a good start! I simply painted with my fingers using metallic silver, copper and black acrylic paint. Yay finger painting!
Here are some progress shots of the belt. I still need paint it, sand the buckle and make other adjustments, but I think it’s coming along nicely and it only cost me like $20.00… 🙂
Let me know what you think!
Some more updates with my Hawke armor. If anyone has any questions or suggestions feel free to post a comment!
This is the chainmail for the left arm, pretty much finished (minus some painting to distress it)
Then I made a template out of craft foam for the belt to make sure I had all the measurements right.
I was thinking about making the belt out of actually leather, but that can get kind of pricey. So I decided to try and cheaper option first and see if I liked it. I figured if I hated it I could always fork over the extra money for the fancy leather…. I basically perfected my foam template and then covered it with fake leather, which I will later paint to make it look more realistic.
Not too shabby for someone who can barely sew patches in her clothes! 😉
So I have been working on getting the rest of the arm armor done. Again, it’s made from sintra. I got mine from this site here… I work with the 3mm stuff, but they do have other thicknesses…
http://www.foamboardsource.com/sintra-pvc-foam–sintra-pvc-board–sintra-pvc-3mm.html
I tested my painting skillz on the claw part to see how it would go. Not sure if I like the coloring, so that may change a bit for the final version, but it’s a start. I used acrylic paint and coated it with spray Shellac.
Chain mail has definitely been the most tedious part of this costume. I purchased some cheap bolt cutters from lowe’s and a coil of 14 gauge wire to make the chain mail. I used two long ass hex bolts (one small one large) to wrap the wire around in order to make the different size rings.
Now onto the leather pieces! Feel free to leave comments, ask questions or give me suggestions!
I have seen many blogs and posts in forums about different ways to build costumes for different Cons. I thought, I can do that! So I decided to build a few costumes this year and wanted to post a how-to. I’m by no means saying that my way is better, but I find that as many sources as possible when constructing these costumes and props helps. The first costume I have been working on is the Female Hawke Mage armor from Dragon Age II. I will be posting photos and steps to building the costume and props associated with it as I finish the pieces.
For those of you who don’t know which costume I am talking about here is a link.
I would like to preface that I not an expert at all. I am just someone who loves playing video games and likes to build things. To prove that I’m serious, here is the first part of the costume that I have tackled. The claws gauntlet. I constructed them from Sintra (pvc foam). It’s the cheapest material I have found that is the easiest to work with for this armor. They aren’t painted yet. Feel free to post comments with questions or thoughts. You can also shoot me an email at artisall2888@gmail.com
🙂
scenicpenguin 