Armour That Grows On Trees –
Step 4
Sand By Me
To get a good finish you are going to require a lot of time for this stage. In fact you will be repeating this stage many times in pursuit of your desired smoothness. Again, it all depends on the type of armour you are doing. For my Generator Gawl costume I was pressed for time and so only managed to get two sandings in. Which worked out fine – Gawl’s organic look worked in my favour. When I do Alphonse though, and so will be trying to emulate metal, I anticipate sanding each piece 5 – 10 times at least.
Materials:
A
Word About Sanding Tools
The sanding rig I used for Gawl consisted
of a sanding disc attachment my father had for a power drill. This sanding disc
was about 4” across and did the job quite admirably (as long as you were
working on a large, open area). For small nooks and crannies I had to use a
Dremel rotary tool outfitted with a flap wheel (it looks like a little wheel
made up of many small pieces of sand paper). For slightly bigger grooves I had
a pseudo-Dremel tool with a sanding wheel on it.
The main problem with the sanding
attachment for the drill was that the sandpaper discs for the attachment were
either constantly tearing or (when I switched to some with adhesive backing)
the adhesive would soften and they’d go flying off. The other thing was that I
kept trying to sand away fairly large ridges and rough patches only to discover
that the sander wasn’t really meant for that. It smoothed the ridges but never
really eliminated them (that’s why I went out and bought an angle grinder – wha
ha ha).
Anyways, if you have these type of sanding tools, great. If you can borrow them, also good (just be nice and buy the person some replacement sandpaper). If you don’t have access to power tools, you can still sand by hand – just start way, way, way, in advance of when you want the costume done (as well as resign yourself to the fact that you are probably not going to get as super smooth or as uniform. a finish)
Sand
Away!
1)
Give your piece a base coat of
artist’s gesso. You can apply this with a paint brush or a sponge brush
(although the sponge brush might tear if it gets caught on any rough spots).
Don’t forget to coat the back of the piece too. Gesso cleans up with just soap
and water. Set the piece aside to dry.
2)
When the gesso is dry, sand the
piece all over (except the back) using the coarsest grit sandpaper you have
(the higher the number on the sandpaper the finer the grit – 80 is a nice rough
sandpaper to start with). If you start to see cheesecloth showing through
you’ve sanded too hard, ease off a little. Get in all the cracks and curves
either with a small sanding tool like a Dremel, or by hand. Make
sure you are wearing a dust mask and safety goggles. Work in a well ventilated
area.
3)
With the brush, dust off the
piece, then rub it down quickly with a tack cloth to remove all the sanding
residue. Coat the piece in another layer of acrylic gesso. Continue to
alternate between sanding and adding gesso, switching to finer and finer
sandpapers every few layers, until your piece is as smooth as you would like it
(the last few layers will most likely have to be sanded by hand). Give one
final coat of gesso and a few light final sanding with very fine sandpaper.
4)
Now the truly fun bit. Paint!
Paint the piece however you wish. Acrylic paint works well and lends itself to
all sorts of faux finish and texture techniques. Let the paint dry then protect
your work with a coat of polyurethane or a spray of clear coat.
5)
You’re 99.9% done. The last
step is to add your fasteners (you have to have some way to keep this armour on
after all!) Some pieces will end up permanently attached to your costume,
others you can fasten on with Velcro, and some, due to their shape (like
gauntlets and so forth) can simply be pulled on and need no extra measures to
keep them in place.
A Note About Velcro - if you use Velcro to hold your armour on, take
it from me, do not bother getting the self adhesive kind! Self-adhesive
Velcro has a paper backing that you peel off and then you stick the Velcro down
where you want it. Only problem? Although the Velcro will hold together like
crazy the self-adhesive surface has a highly annoying tendency to peel off
whatever it is stuck to! I had 2 costumes fall apart on me in one weekend because
of this stuff. Don’t let this happen to you! If you use Velcro, sew it down
where you can (like to your body suit) and use super glue, or a special
separate Velcro adhesive you can buy to stick the Velcro to hard armour bits.
And as you put that last piece of armour in place my friends, give yourself a pat on the back (if you can reach that far with your armour on ;) ). You’re all finished! So run off to a con or some other cosplay event and show off all your hard work!
Armour
That Grows On Trees
Tutorial by Kusanivy, August 2004, Feel free to use this tutorial as you see
fit, all I ask is that you do not try and pass it off as your own.
