I Am Making an Elf Costume: How to Make Shoulder Pads and Belts?
Hi everyone, here is the second tutorial proposed to help you make your costumes of black Elves: How to make shoulder pads and belts? Note that this technique, quite well known, can be applied to a lot of other creations, ranging from much more substantial armor (like the Marine Space) to mascots.
The explanations in pictures soon!
You will need:
- Several foam gymnastics mats, which are found in sports shops.
- White glue.
- Neoprene glue (or hot glue).
- Paint (bomb) or fabric.
- A hair dryer.
- Parisian ties
- Elastic
- 3-D fabric paint (e.g. “Tulip” brand).
Part 1: The Shoulder Pads
Step 1: Take your measurements and draw your armor pieces on your carpet, using a large felt. The dimensions vary depending on the model, of course. For my very large shoulder pads, we used the following sizes: 3 rectangles of 20*20cm (a square in fact for that one), 20*30cm, and 20*40 cm.
Step 2: cut out your parts and arm yourself with your hair dryer. Heat the parts with it, and give them the shape that suits you. Let it cool for a while, so that the carpet “memorizes” its new form.
Step 3: cover your parts with white glue armor and let dry at least one night.
Step 4: (your pieces are all of the same colors): assemble your pieces with neoprene glue or hot glue. Let it dry. Then you can paint them with your spray paint.
Step 5: (your pieces are of different colors): bomb your pieces separately, let them dry, and assemble them. Careful, neoprene glue can eat away at your paint.
That’s it, that’s it ! Nevertheless, if you prefer to cover your weave with fabrics rather than paint, the white glue step is not necessary. To cover your weave with fabric, I refer you to the previous tutorial. To attach your shoulder pads to your shoulders, use an elastic band. If that’s not enough, connect the shoulder pads (like on the Coco suit).
Part 2 : Belt
Step 1 : same as previous. Measure, draw, cut, paste, assemble and bomb. So far, no surprises.
Step 2: we chose to use scratch to close our belts. That said, You can also use a zipper or buttons. To fix the scratch: neoprene glue and Parisian fasteners.
Step 3: decoration. We used several techniques. For reliefs: you can draw your patterns in floor mats, follow the usual technical and stick on your armor. That’s what Ayumi-Chan did. Alle also made a skull, using a sculpted plasticine mold. The skull is made of dried glue. This principle allows several prints of the same object. Coco took the opportunity to recover a skull in turn and fix it on his belt (neoprene glue, the return). My belt is decorated with patterns in creamless (thinner than the floor mat) and 3D fabric paint. The color is reminiscent of my shoulder pads. The coconut belt is decorated with 3D paint, plus a double of Ayumi-Chan’s skull. The small hooks that hang from its belt are made of self-reinforcing modeling paste. The Quineapple belt is covered with black vinyl. The patterns are drawn in 3D painting, and I have laid a bias with small flat beads all the way through. The little rhinestones that you can see right to left are glued to the neoprene too.