HOME | DD
RoxyRoo — Shoulder Armor Tutorial
Published: 2009-05-05 01:00:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 137846; Favourites: 2290; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
EDIT: This tutorial will be featured in 2 Cosplay magazines! 
4th Issue of the Indonesian cosplay magazine called CozMagz www.cozmagz.webs.com/about.htm… Portuguese cosplay e-zine, Cosplayer issuu.com/cosplayer/docs/cospl… MiscCostume Blog: www.miccostumes.com/blog/how-t… Isn't that awesome??? zomg, I'm so excited!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
**EDIT: a constant question I get is, "How well does this stuff hold up? Won't it crack or break?" I think this is a rather silly question. Of course clay can crack or break. It's not metal.
Has mine broken yet? No. I made sure to take care of it by securing it to my jacket and packing it well when traveling. Treat it as you would any prop: With care.
As said above, this tutorial can be used for other armor and characters too, not just for Lightning. I'm sure other materials can be used as well, like real clay (if you have access to a real furnace) or paper clay, which air-dries. I chose Scupley cuz I knew how well it held detail, which was important for this prop.
I'll be adding fiber glass on the inside (if I can get ahold of it) to strengthen it so it doesn't break.
Materials:
...1/2 box of white sculpey = $6
...Tin foil = free
...Wire = free
...scotch tape = free
Time: 14hrs (so far)
Finished Pauldron
:thumb251246655: :thumb261611292:
------
People who've used my tutorial. 
's armor: catnip23.deviantart.com/art/Li…
's armor: themiddlechild.deviantart.com/…
's armor: fav.me/d2u7rm7
's armor: barista89.deviantart.com/art/L…
's Amano amor: img.photobucket.com/albums/v31…
's armor: fav.me/d3elyo8
's armor: tae-kia.deviantart.com/art/Lin…
's armor: beyondfantasycosplay.deviantar…
Related content
Comments: 420
This will be so helpful for when I do Daenerys Targarian
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Fantastic tutorial, thanks a lot! Quick question. Do you bake the sculpy right over the tin foil/scotch tape shoulder mold you made earlier? Is there no worry of the scotch tape melting? Thanks!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes. The scotch tape will not melt. Bake everything and then peel the stuff right out of the armor. But remember, this isn't metal. Be careful with your completed sculpy item. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks so much! By the way, GREAT job on the details, it looks fantastic!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
How would you attach it? Like im getting her outfit soon in the mail how would i attach it, like make holes in it or??
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
yes. There are 3 holes where the straps attach to the jacket and onto the pauldron. Just look at pictures and you'll see where they should be.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Could try using PVA glue to seal the thing, it dries super hard and leaves a shiny look to it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Awesome tutorial (:
I was looking for an armor tutorial that I could use for my III cosplay from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and I guess I found it 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
All the tinfoil stuff is to make a base. You put the sculpey on top, and then you put it in the oven. The oven is practically the last step.
I think it might be easier to make a dual disk out of foam, but I can't see the picture of it too well. The rest of the armor looks pretty complicated. Don't use sculpey for all of it, just the very rounded pieces. Sculpey is rather expensive. Craft foam is not.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
No no I'm not using sculpey for everything, just his shoulder armor. So to summarize the way i'm going to make my armor is use the tin-foil as a base, put the sculpey on top of the scotch tape and then into the oven? (Well following the tutorial of course) And you can get this stuff at Home Depot or Canadian Tire as well as the craft foam? Come to think of it, I just got an idea on what material I can use for the duel disk XD.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes.
And I don't think Home Depot has it. You'll have better luck trying a craft store like Joann's, Michael's, or Hobby Lobby. It can be bought online too.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh. Alright, good to know ! ^_^. Just to clarify, you can spray paint this material right?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
yes, I believe so. It's rigid, so the paint stays put.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
With any kind of clay you'll have breaking issues however! There are a couple things you can try to help strength it a tad.
1. You can coat the out side (after you paint it) with several layers of modpodge. Sealants are always nice.
2. Before you paint it you can do a layer of paper mache over the main piece since its very hard to detail nitpick with paper mache for the smaller piece and use a flour + water paste over it. You can sand paper mache once it fully dries.
3. Use Super Sculpey its a much stronger version of sculpey (it can be sanded, drilled and my friend once threw a skull with a tin foil/aluminum base within it across a room and it didn't break. However since this isn't as dense Im not sure how itll effect the strength but it can't hurt and will probably stand up to a drop or two.)
4. Fiberglass and/or Resin coating*-*Easy Cast you can get it at Michaels or a craft store*. The resin by itself probably wont give that extra oomph I can drop it out a window feel, but with a few layers after you paint it will definitely give it some durability. Im unfortunately really new with using resin so I can't be terribly sure.
5. Like she said, Paper clay or something called "paper mache clay" which there's a recipe for that dries really strong only problem is it's lumpy until you sand it, good news you can always add more, i'd try the super sculpey clay first.
This are just a few suggestions, some will work better than others.
This tutorial? Is absolutely phenomenal. I was scratching my head as what to use since I wasn't able to get my craft foam to quite curve correctly however, this with some strengthening? Perfect! I can't believe I didn't think of this first.
Excellent!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I've had this piece of armor for ... two years now? o.o So far, it hasn't broken. Of course, I've been careful. But it's not as flimsy as you might think. Although, strengthening it is not a bad idea, especially for people who are more active in their costumes. haha.
Goodluck with your armor! ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I'm unfortunately known for handling things rougher than they should. And that's good to know, i'm usually really wary of clay pieces in cosplay since they can be fragile. But thank you! and once again awesome tutorial!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
On a scale of 1-10 how durable is it? I made cosplay ar once and it fell apart withing ten minutes of me putting it on
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
erm.. 5? It's not going to fall apart randomly, but I wouldn't chance dropping it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I have a question. What type of wire did you use? Chicken wire or what? Oh Also great job! c;
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hangar wire. From the hangars you use to hang your clothes.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hi! thanks for the tutorial!
I have finished the little emblem! WOO, but before I begin working on the main piece I had a question.
You said you left the tape on the mold while it baked, and I was wondering, how stinky was it? I've put some weird stuff in with sculpey before and a few times it was so smokey and gross I could barely take it. How bad is it for tape? I'd assume something like masking tape might smell/burn less compared to scotch tape, but I would like your feedback.
thank you~
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It was so long ago, I'm not sure. But the smell of the baking sculpey was stronger than anything else I put in there soo.. not bad? I just used regular masking tape.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you sooooo much! This is such an accurate, awesome way of doing this armor and I look forward to using the tutorial for my own!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
thank you so much for doing this but how did u make the little lights on the shoulder pad
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You're welcome.
I bought el wire. It's the same stuff they used in the Tron movie.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What do you mean by "wire" what kind of wire @_@
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Any wire you can use that is thick enough, pliable enough, and strong enough to make a form. For example, you can probably use hanger wire.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
That's incredible! You've really outdone the cosplaying world.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
...Did I comment on this already? xD
Haha, oh well! This is a great tutorial! I was really hesitant about cosplaying as Lightning because I wan her pauldron to be perfect but this is a really simple and easy tutorial.
I'm feeling more confident about it but I don't know how I feel about having to make two (Going to be doing her Guardian Corps uniform)!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What you could do is make a mold of the one you sculpt, and make duplicates out of fiberglass and resin. You just have to make sure that both sides look the same. >.>
I wish you luck with the Guardian Corps uniform. You get to wear a hat too! XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
You are the king of awesomeness!!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
How did you get it to stick on to your cosplay XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
could you use, PaperClay for this?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I would say yes, however you would need a base to mold on top of. >.> I would use meshwire. Remember you need to sand it when it gets dry to make it smoother.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
| Next =>