Advice on Female Armor

[Longbeard]

Hi All,

I've just recently decided to get back into leatherworking after about 2 years. A few months ago I started working on my armor, and I've got the torso finished, but still have yet to get around to the bracers and grieves, this sparked interest in a set of armor from one of my friends. I'm excited for the prospect of another project, especially one with the added challenge of curves. We have been discussing the design elements and I have enough information on what she likes and what aesthetic she wants to go for to start planning and get the ball rolling, luckily she wants to be a badass warrior for halloween, so I also have a deadline.  

I've sketched out a few designs to start as our base, She prefers the molded single breastplate as opposed to multiple pieces and darts to get the curves, but does like an articulated construction so that she has more flexibility and range of motion. My plan is to make a duct tape form to do my patterning and then lifecast her with plaster to create a mannequin in rigid foam that i can use for the wetforming and later be used as an armor stand. I've never lifecasted before, but I feel it will be the best way to get the desired results, since i havent found any bodyforms that fit her measurements.

In design 2, i toyed with the idea of 3 segments to maybe get a better accent to her curves, but she prefers the 2 segment designs. Anyone have any experience with this kind of construction that could lead me toward the best way to go about it?

She also wants tooling done on the breastplate which i know i will have to do before the wetforming of the leather, should i cut the leather to my patterned shape before forming, or just a rough shape so that i can form it into the correct curves and clean it up it after forming? 

I'm planning on using an 8-9 oz leather i have some 6-7oz but i feel like it will be too thin and look flimsy.

Any advice, suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[DJole]

"She also wants tooling done on the breastplate which i know i will have to do before the wetforming of the leather.."

Are you wet-forming this around a mold of some kind (like a wooden form)? Most tooling won't hold up to that-- the wet leather and the stretching will dull a lot of the detail.

"Should i cut the leather to my patterned shape before forming, or just a rough shape so that i can form it into the correct curves and clean it up it after forming?"

Rough it and trim-- the wet leather will stretch and bunch up in ways you won't anticipate, so you'll need extra "slop". If you look up videos about wet-forming pouches,  you can see what this means. 

[CaptQuirk]

I can vouch that wet forming+tooling=mush. I wish I could find a suitable solution to that.

[Northmount]

Take a look at the saddle examples here.  The first pic shows the stamping done after wet forming.  The next 2 show stamping done before wet forming. The third pic shows both stamping done before wet forming, and the makers stamping on the flat with no wet forming so you can see the difference with just this one maker.

If you want to maintain the crispness of the stamping, it has to be done after wet forming, while on a solid form.

Tom

 

[CaptQuirk]

Isn't stamping kinda hard to do on a curved surface, like after wet molded?

[bikermutt07]

Totally out of my league here but I'm gonna throw this out there.

How about doing tooling on smaller (thinner) accent pieces/trim.

Then you could wet form your armor. Make some trim shapes. Tool those then just attach them to the armor. This will also give you an avenue to add some different color to the piece.

(Goes back under rock to eat popcorn)

[Grey Drakkon]

Bikermutt, you took my suggestion right out of my head!

 

 You could rivet those pieces on top of the thicker leather to give some really nice layers, you could probably get away with using a bit thinner leather for the base if you did that too.

[Longbeard]

Thanks for the responses.

I will be making a bodyform out of rigid expandable foam which will be firm and water resistant enough to mould on, but no where near tough enough to tool on. We actually just finished the plaster lifecasting an hour ago. 

I've actually wetformed some pouches in the past, and just wanted to make sure rough and trim was the way to go, since breasts are significantly more complex than the curves on my pouches. 

The saddle examples are great, they confirm my fears of what would happen ti the tooling during the forming process. I was leaning toward the tooling on thinner leather and then attaching it to the breastplate, and now that it has been suggested a few times, i'm going to take that route, i think it will give me more options for the overall design of the piece.

[bikermutt07]

Make sure and post pictures.