"you could Kill someone with those things!" **UPDATES**

[Pheonix023]

Mannequin?

But if she doesn't want you to use things that already have the right shape (ie, helmets, bowls, bottles, ect)  how are you supposed to make it?


Another idea...if you wanted to go metal, could you just start with a sheet, hammer out the basic cup part, and then trim it into armor?

[Spanner Murraan]

one of her Sewing Magazines (Shes a professional Seamstress) Has a tutorial for making a very accurate personal Dressform out of Water-activated packing tape. 

We are going to go that route.  If it works, We will post a tutorial for the boards.  The pictures in the magazine looks very good, and a great shape for doing armor on.

[JJ or J'buir]

Hi all, I finally made an account specificly so I could respond to this thread.  I am the H-cups in question.  When Spann wanted to make a mold of me, he was making it sound like he wanted to pour plaster of paris on me and make me lay there while it dried.  No Way.  I know latex takes less time but I'm wanting my plates to look like the way I want my boobs to look and not the shape they actually are. 

The body form is going to be my best bet.  I have been wanting to make a custom dress form for a long time.  However, as much I hear about using duct tape (I dont just hear it on here, I hear it everywhere) I do have to say that the brown water activated packing tape is far supierior.  It actually gets hard when it dries.  All you need is a trash bag, some string, the tape, a sponge, a little water and  a buddy.  Thread Banger made an awsome tutorial http://www.threadbanger.com/episode/THR_20090403

This is a good one but I have a sewing magazine that does a little more professional job of it.  I'll have to scan the mag pics because sewnews.com only has back issues online going back to 2007, this was the august 2006 issue. They did a much smoother job of it.

For these purposes I'll only need to make the upper torso rather than the whole dress form.  I'll be making the form wearing my best bra.  I'm working on drafting a pattern for my femmando vest done from the bodice part of a well fitted dress pattern.  I dont want to do darts, I want to cut it with the curve and actually have it curve in between my breasts as well as on the sides and underneath.  If im to have nice round armor plates, I need a nicely rounded cupped vest to help fill them out.  The pieces I cut from this will make my breast plates, and my back plate.  Cut them out and glass them.

 The thread was kind of going in a direction that was, in my impression,  making me sound like a picky, snooty, whining, elitest "b" word.  Well the fact of it is, I am a seamstress by trade.  My speciality being costumes, all manner of costumes.  Hard armor is new for me and I am striving, as always, to make this costume of the highest quality, functionality, comfort,  and asthetic possible while staying true to Mandalorian tradition.  I just have a high costuming ethic.   The best thing to come out of this thread would be to help other women like me make fantastic armor too.  I'm loving that the ideas are flowing so generously. 

thanks,
angillin  "jj"

[Taglar Dreskk]

Hehe, nobody was assuming that was the case.   You have a specific idea in mind...it's just a matter of figuring out how to accomplish it in a way that either won't take forever, or take up a whole bunch of money. Brainstorm!

The other task too, is going to be the vest.  You will need to make sure that the vest is tight fitting and form fitting so that it "keeps everything in place".  No matter how perfectly shaped the plates are, if the vest doesn't fit right the plates won't sit properly.  That is one of the biggest issues with the female mando costumes.

With my wife's costume, I ended up bypassing this route by attaching each plate to a strap system to be worn over a vest.  Therefore making the plates their own "armored bra" in a sense. Her plates are a little more unconventional though...as I was trying to make them cover her large chest size, but didn't have the talent to make them curved and more "natural".

[DocOutlands]

Hey, "Sis"!  Good luck and hope everything goes easier in the execution than in the planning.

Semper Fi!

[Pheonix023]

Hehe, nobody was assuming that was the case.  

Seconded.    We tend to get very good at coming up with bizarre solutions to problems, which...don't always sound that good...for example, my mom was making crackers and tried to make the holes using a fork, a hairbrush, one of those iron-bead kit thingys, and a meat tenderizer...

I just have a high costuming ethic.

Yeah, I always like things to be perfect too.  End result being that it takes a while to finish things, but when you do, it ALWAYS looks nice.

I'm working on drafting a pattern for my femmando vest done from the bodice part of a well fitted dress pattern.  I dont want to do darts, I want to cut it with the curve and actually have it curve in between my breasts as well as on the sides and underneath.  If im to have nice round armor plates, I need a nicely rounded cupped vest to help fill them out.  The pieces I cut from this will make my breast plates, and my back plate.  Cut them out and glass them.

Oh, I know what your talking about!   My grandma gave me purse of one of those once....I never used it though.    should work...don;t think I've ever seen anyone try it though.

What are you planning on doing for the "flightsuit" ?   I assume it would have to be tailored the same way.

[Spanner Murraan]

i know she wants to do a two peice suit, for ease of using the head.

she has talked of tailoring a fligjtsuit and separing it... but im not sure if thats still the plan...

[OriKad]

Just to give you a little hand, Spanner, two piece is really good, and a bodice from a dress is GREAT for an armor vest.  We did the same thing for my wife's armor.   We used Simplicity 9966 for most of the vest and my old standby shirt pattern to finish the shoulders.  The chest is entirely original with two curved seams.

Here's a vest pic:


And an armor plate pic:


Both of them are from the old WIP.  She's official with that suit now, and a different backplate.  It came out looking both feminine and shebs-kicking at the same time.

It was hard to get the whole thing done... and don't worry about sounding too prissy and demanding, Angillin.  My wife was the same.  Such is always the trials of the armor-building men in Mando womens' lives.  We put up with it and keep on building even better cause it's worth it in the end.

And yes.  DO go two-piece.  It makes putting the whole thing on that much easier.

[Peregrinus]

Heck, I welcome it. I love having an excuse to make yet more costumes. And I've seen the other end of things -- wives and girlfriends who only tolerate their s.o.s'  hobbies... or, worse, don't. Personally, I think geek chicks rock. Add to that a geek chick who can kick butt? World needs more strong, competent women.

Thanks for the lead on an alternative to duct tape. How heavy do you want the armour plates to be? Vhe's using pretty thin-gauge aluminum. Would be easier to shape and planish than steel, or heavier gauges...

--Jonah

[Spanner Murraan]

i have a much harder time with aluminum, Partially because i have a very heavy hammer hand (years of making swords and axes) and aluminums lighter properties tend to make it take the shape of whatever its hit with for me (EI: i hit it with a ballpeen, and instead of a nice arc, i get the shape of a ballpean on the other side of the sheet), and Dishing an H-cup would take WAAAAY more tooling than I have at my disposal.

And she doesnt want metal anyways, so we are going to use Fiberglass for the chest,back and shoulders, and pool chem buckets for the rest.

We also live in an Apartment, without even the hint of a proper shop, so metal working is out of the picture.  But thanks for the input, Perigrinus.

[Peregrinus]

*chuckle* Always glad to be of (no) help. You seem like you're doing a good job of finding your way to the right path for you, so I'll just look forward to seeing what you end up creating.

--Jonah

[JJ or J'buir]

She looks great orikad.  Awsome job you guys!   Wow, i kinda want a kama now.

So, Spanner did a little experiment last night with some fiber glass.  We wanted to start small so we started with a shoulder plate.  My shoulder plates will dish and cup my shoulder a little more than the usual template.  it also come to a point at the bottom. 

I had a little brain epiphany in home depot the other day.  I was worried about what i was going to do for knees, so I looked at the knee pads.  All rather unacceptable except the cheapest ones in the bin.  A pair was about 4 bucks and they lookd like something some one would wear for one job and then throw away.  I asked spanner if we could cut them up some how, glass them and use them for knees or something.  I held it up to my shoulder and realized that they cupped my shoulder perfectly.  He said no at first because we arnt going for foot ball player mando.

 But, he had a brain fart.  The outside of it would be too big, but the inside is the perfect size.  He covered the inside with aluminum tape and smoothed out all wrinkles and places the tape separated from itself.  He used it as a mold to cast a fiberglass plate.  Worked like a charm.  It gives me high hopes for the breast plates and everything else.  Its looking like the majority of my plates are going to be fiber glass. Yay and Squee! (that was my girly moment)

Angillin aka JJ

[Spanner Murraan]

yay fiberglass... i havent glassed since i was in the Navy, but i found its like riding a bike.

Now to find the camera so we can do a tutorial for Mandettes with larger than average..... cannons.

[Taglar Dreskk]

Awesome breakthrough!  Can't wait to see how the progress goes!

[Spanner Murraan]

Ok, so we made the Paper Tape mold of her torso and it came out Great!

I will take pictures when I can and post them up.

As soon as the weather clears up a bit I will start to glass them.  These things are going to be deadly!