Armour crafting experiences of a n00b

There has been quite the demand to show the process of creating a costume and I must already say in advance, that I am not a tutorial-kind of person, so this won't be one.
But especially in regards to my last post, I wanted to share with you, what I mean by "just do it". 

I have to mention that my only talents when it comes to projects like that, are my optimism and my spatial sense. I had no idea how to actually work with leather that way, how to create a pattern and such - so I did a whole lot of research online, found the method that seemed to me most approriate for my purpose and myself  and then jumped right into it.

I decided to just do it, documenting my steps as I went along to compose a blogpost once it was done, regardless wether it would turn out to be epic or an epic fail.

I went for the elegant way of creating a bust based on my own body shape first:

Which essentially means wrapping myself in clingfilm. I wore my fencing breastplate underneath, to minimize the risk of wrapping too tightly and ending up with inaccurate measurements.

Tape went on next to stabilize the base. Lots of tape

The finished product

Next step was to cut it off my body, close the opening again and draw in the lines, where I FELT the seams should be later on. This is where my spatial sense comes into play.

Cut my bust apart where I drew my lines and then transfered these peices onto newspaper. I have to be honest, the pattern-work gave me qutie te headache.

Once I was done with that, I gently re-taped it together and had my mother helping me, to make some small adjustments (I wanted this to have a collar).
Actually making the leather bustier took a day, but I would not recommend doing it on one day, as especially the hole-punching in order to be able to "sew" the pieces together turned out to be quite straining (and in the end also very very painful) for my hands and fingers.

 

 The pattern transfered ontp the leather

So many holes...

Bonus: the rest of the costume:

 Once this was done, my mother (who has a whole lot more sewing experience than I do) and I started to look through old sewing magazines, in order to find an already existing pattern that we could use as a base for the clothing part.  Then I did most of the sewing work whilst she was guiding me, and especially with the coat sometimes took over because she could not bear my slow-motion-sewing speed *laughs*

What is going to follow now is just some of the progress/mid-progress and result-pictures. Apologies, that the actual presentation of the costume is not that fantastic, I am still in the process of saving up for a proper camera and phone-cameras have their limits. Also the reson behind these weird dressing-doll-poses is, that this is not about displaying a character, but about showing the actual design of the costume - posed pictures will follow eventualy~

 

The tunic done

 

The tunic with the leather armour (that still needs lacing in the front)

 

First trying on of the pinned coat with an elegant sock.

 

And the coat with all it's lacing, decorative borders, etc done

Back-view. Just one bracer for the photos to show off both options.

  

I wanted this to be versatile depending on the occasion, layers can be left out, armour can be added - I would say this is an outfit that fits almost any circimstance. We are still going to creat de-tatchable short sleeves for the coat.

Now you have seen my standard process of creating a costume (minus my concept sketches and towards the end in high-speed of course): improvisation, optimis, endurance, more imporvisation, help if needed and if not available: research, research, research and self-education yb just doint it. But oh, the pleasure of finally wearing it out thehe!

A magical sunday everyone, may the last day of your weekend be epic~