Final Fantasy XII - Ashe Leg Armor Tutorial Part 2

Let's take another look at our reference picture, shall we?



The kneecap has a curved surface that follows the shape of the knee. The first step in making the kneecap involved my shaping and cutting out the small flat part that faces forward.



The kneecap was conic in shape so I decided to make the pattern with a front seam like this:



I then taped the edges of the seam together and placed the flat part of the knee on the pattern like this:



After some folding and cutting, I used a little hotglue to baste the flat part of the pattern into the middle of the kneecap:



Once I had established the shape of the conical part of the kneecap, I cut its component pieces from styrene, backed them with a 3mm layer of craft foam and hotglued the seams together, reinforcing them with small strips of styrene hotglued to the back of the kneecap.



I then hotglued a layer of styrene over the flat part of the kneecap, then hotglued the flat part to the conical section. Like so:



It's a bit hard to see from this angle, but at this point in the process I attached the kneecap to the thigh armor, via the use of long strips of 3mm craft foam coated with styrene.



I made the little decorative "flanges" that adorned the kneecap out of craft foam coated on both sides with styrene.



I then hotglued them to the front of the kneecap. (I used a thick needle and thread to stitch the components of the armor together, using small, discreet stitches. I had to use a needle-nose pliers to hold the needle and push it through the layers of foam and styrene.) If you look closely, you can see the little stitches on the undersides of the flanges.



The next thing to be made was the bottom section of the armor--the part covering the shin. I placed a sheet in front of the armor and sketched out the shape of the next piece: the decorative part of the shin band.



It took a lot of trial and error to come up with the pattern for the band that goes around the shin. I wrapped a bit of tagboard around my shin and sketched the shape of the band, then used the tagboard pattern to cut out the styrene and craft foam.



The band needed to be large enough to allow an average foot to go through, since its seams were going to be closed in back.



I used a weird colored foam here, which is why I had to paint the lining of the band with acrylic paint once all was said and done.

After assembling the pieces of the band together, I made the round flat plate that disappears into the leggings of the costume. I made the "maltese cross" design but carefully cutting out a layer of thin styrene into a cross and hotgluing it to the front of the plate.



Here is the armor, pre-assembling and painting:



I used Gold metallic spray and bottle paint to paint the arnmor. (I didn't do much in the way of shading or antiquing, since the armor surface looks rather shiny and even in the reference pictures.)

I attached the shin pieces to the thigh armor using small fabric straps, which I hotglued to the armor pieces' interior. The fabric straps had enough give to allow for some flexibility in the leg. I had to, of course, experiment on the length of the strips needed (and I regret not taking any pictures of the inside of the armor so I could show you what it looks like. That would have probably been helpful -_-...)

Anyway, here's the finished armor:



There are loops on the back of the thigh armor which laces have been threaded through--this allows the armor to be adjustable, although care should be taken not to pull the laces too tightly that it rips the loops out of the material.

Questions? Comments? Leave 'em below or e-mail me at dietzt@REMOVEMEcloudnet.com
(Address is spambot-protected. Remember to remove the "REMOVEME" before you send it.)

Thank you.