Sophitia's Accessories, Sword, and Shield

Sophitia's Armor, sword and shield

(I apologize for not having any progress photos, I made all of this in a hurry and completely forgot to take them… I'll add in some detail shots later so you can see what I'm talking about. As aways, feel free to ask me any questions you have, either here, my email, or my Tumblr!)

Sophitia was the first costume that I have made which had any armor or weapons, so I did a lot of research first.  I decided that the way I wanted to make my armor was using craft foam and thin styrene plastic. I decided for the weapons I'd use the similar materials, but in a slightly different way, adding Bondo on top of it all to harden it.

For the shoes, I took some cheap brown flip flops and cut the straps off. I made straps for each of the pieces, and sewed them together. I used the combination of some Loctite glue, and straight pins to attach the straps to the soles of the shoes.
It was a lot of trial and error, but I got them to work.
For the silver bits on the shoes, i used one layer of 3mm craft foam and a really think piece of styrene, and cut out the shape. Simple.

For the belts, I made the flat one out of pleather, and painted it with Jacquard Lumiere Paint. For the belt made out of circles, I made the large circle out of Lightweight Sculpey, which I sanded and painted with the same Jacquard Lumiere Paint as the flat belt. For the repeated circles, I made a form out of sculpey, which I took a mold of using liquid latex, and I cast using Epoxy Resin (EasyCAst Brand). It was the first time I ever made a mold or cast anything with resin, but it was super simple. I may make a tutorial on it based on the way I made my belt.

I also cast jewels for the upper arm armor, the shoes, and earrings.

In order to start making the armor, I made paper patterns for each piece, as well as patterns for each raised design.
For each piece of armor, I used two pieces 3mm thick craft foam for the base of each piece, which I cut out using the paper patterns. I then cut out a piece of thin styrene about 1 inch larger than my pattern piece. Using hot glue, I glued the styrene to the foam, bending it to fit my arms as I glued it. when I made the outline pieces, I only cut out the interior, so when I glued it to the styrene, I stretched it to make it fit the base of the armor perfectly. I glued in the small interior pieces after trimming the extra foam from the outline.

After I finished gluing all the pieces of armor together, I then painted on Elmer's glue on all the foam pieces to seal it before painting.

I first sprayed all the armor with Rustoleum Hammered Silver paint, then I painted in the blue with the same Jacquard Lumiere Paint as the belt.

Sword and Shield:
The sword and shield were made out of blue insulation foam.
The shield was made out of two layers of 1" insulation foam, backed in styrene, using 6mm thick craft foam for the edge and center design. I used a palm sander to sand down the shape of the shield, before gluing the craft foam onto the shield.
After painting it with Elmers Craft Glue to seal it, I applied Bondo all over it. I sanded the Bondo smooth, filling any low spots with Spackling Paste.
After I was happy with the finish, I primed and painted it with Rustoleum Hammered Finish Gold, then I painted the blue with the same Jacquard Lumiere Paint as the belt and armor.

For the sword, I cut out the outline of the sword on2 layers of 1" blue insulation foam, with a piece of thick styrene in the center, which goes all the way through the sword. The thick styrene makes this a really strong, but really light prop.
I cut smaller pieces for the raised up sections, and glue them in place, sanding the shape to how I wanted it, I covered it in Bondo and Spackling paste, just like the sword.
I primed and painted it just like the shield, but using Silver instead of gold, and painting in the black areas by hand.

Weathering:
To weather everything, I watered down some cheap craft acrylic paint in black and brown.
I put a lot of it in all the cracks of raised edges of all the details on one piece at a time, then I would wipe it so it would leave the black in the cracks and only leave a little all over the piece. I used both black and brown for both oxidation and grime.

And that's all.