[ENG] Making-of : Alphonse (Fullmetal Alchemist) Part.2

We are continuing with the making-of of Alphonse’s armor, with part 2. If you didn’t already read part 1, you can find it here, if you want to know more about the craft of the helmet, bust, and collar. 

With the « Making-of » posts, I go over the whole conception of a character, including the mistakes sometimes made, and when possible the sewing part (for which I don’t always have pictures…). 

3. Crafting

If not otherwise specified, the whole armor is made with 5mm EVA foam.

We keep going on the upper armor with the conception of all the arm’s pieces:

• The upper arms :

The upper arm pieces are quite simple, with a band in an O shape and a decorative plate on the front. The plate has two ridges formed by cutting a V groove on the back side of the piece, the groove is then glued shut.

However, Alphonse's stature is quite massive, and mine… not so much. So based on the same idea as the bust, with a layer 0 at my size, the arm pieces have an exterior diameter for Alphonse's arm, and an inside one, shorter, corresponding to my arm size.

Basically, before gluing, here are all the pieces composing the arm :

Upper left is the base of Alphonse’s arm, and right is the decorative plate with the ridges already glued, the tiny ring in the middle is my arm size, the two plates one from 5mm EVA foam and the other 3 mm are used to thicken some part to hold the decorative plate.

After gluing, the inside looked like that :

And the outside :

Without the shoulder pieces, Alphonse's arms look like some swimming armbands you used when learning how to swim...

• The forearms :

The forearms are a bit more complicated than the upper arms but were mostly quick to make. I started with a base pattern I already have, from Medusa’s forearm:

To have a more flared shape, I add a triangle from foam scrap Like I did back for Palutena’s armor.

With my flared base (with a Sheldora’s size ring on the inside, like the upper arms), I made a pattern for the exterior part, using reference pictures as a guide, and being careful to do a 45° cut for the middle, to create a sharp ridge when both pieces will be glued :

To thicken the piece, I also add a 3mm EVA foam plate on the back. 

(some fitting with Loki’s gloves to see if Alphonse’s will fit later at the wrist)

For the double spikes, on the top of the piece, I choose to keep them open in the back, even if they are full in some pictures, to help later when assembling.

Like the exterior part, the spikes are cut at 45° on the inside, to make a sharp ridge.

The under spike is missing a corner, so the other can fit right above it :

The upper one is complete, but the edge is cut at 45° (exterior) so fits under the plate of the forearm :

The last spike glued on the first one, the forearm is done :

• The gauntlets :

The gauntlets were so quick to make that I didn’t even think to do some WIP shot, I just covered some big leather gloves with masking tape, to trace two plates on the top of the hand. I cut the two pieces with some margin to glue one on top of the other. And that’s it. 

• The shoulder pads :

I didn’t do any progression shot of the shoulders either, Oups…

Even though I had to redo them because the first ones were too short.

The shape is not exactly the same as the original, I just did a simpler version. There is a plate in the front and in the back to form the general shape and some stripes to add some thickness. Clearly not my best work.

(here it’s some prototype with a 45° cut, I finally choose to do it with straight edges)

The shoulder pads have some screws on top, so I cut a circle of foam:

And to do the screw part, I cut a V groove in the middle of the circle :

You just have to put the circle back in place slightly deeper than the rest of the shoulder, and very professionally glue it, with two tonnes of hot glue :

From the outside, ready to be painted :

• The shoulder straps :

I don’t really know what to call them, so strap is good enough.

Again, the piece seems complicated, but if you decompose it, not so much.

I started with the global shape on EVA foam (5mm as always), and for the edges, I use 20mm foam dowels, with a V groove, wide enough to glue the 5mm piece.

To shape the angles on the corners, I cut part of the dowel, still from the V groove technique.

The joint didn’t need to be perfect since it will be hidden later by another piece.

The dowel and the base assembled : 

About that: the angles have some sort of reinforcement, so I cut a rectangle from 2mm EVA foam, larger than necessary :

(Here we can see that I finally close the gap between dowels, by adding a short leftover, like that the decorative buckles will have some support later. )

I shape the rectangles with the heat gun :

After gluing, I just needed to trim the edge, to have a clean finish.

The decorative buckles are just rectangular shapes from 5mm foam, and a front shape is made from 2mm.

For it the adhere both on the dowel and on the base, I add a spacer to compensate for the thickness of the dowel :

(We can see the attachment system for the leather strap, spoiler: it was not a good idea)

The thickness of the dowel gave me a second problem to solve: Since the edges of the strap were thicker (because of the dowel) than the middle, the straps couldn’t touch the bust, so it was not possible to attach them.

To level everything up, I patterned, still with masking tape, the middle of the strap :

Then I add a 5mm foam piece based on the patterned shape. It has a double advantage: first, it helps the strap make contact with the bust, and  keep its curved shape.

With the base done, it still needed the 6 spikes on the upper side. First, I pattern the cone, from a circle: the part of the circle (quarter, half…) will depend on the size of the circular base of the cone. Mine is a little wider than a quarter. The rayon will depend on the height of the spike.

For this step, you’ll probably need some assistance :

I did two sizes: a big one for the middle and one smaller for the front and the back.

To shape the cone, the idea is to remove most of the foam at the tip and to cut the side at a 45° angle, one on the inside and one on the outside, so when glued, they lay flat against each other:

To help while cutting I mark the side with the outside cut with E (for « exterieur » "outside" in French) and I (« intérieur » inside).

Like that the joint is flat :

It’s exactly the same for the helmet’s spike in part 1.

Some fit tests, very professionally held together with tape :

Because the spikes are hollow, there is not much contact between them and the strap base. And I did enough convention to know that long and thin elements easily knocked down and tiny surfaces glued don’t go well together.

At first, I thought I would shut the base to have more surface to glue, but because of the curve of the strap, it was not making many contacts anyway. Finally, I put a wood spike inside each cone :

And so in addition to the glue on the base, the cone is also stabbed in the different layers of the strap. Then I just needed to cut the wood spike on the inside and reinforce the joint with a dab of superglue.

And with that, the straps are ready to be painted :

(you can see the wood spike with the super glue, I didn’t really bother with sanding it, since it was under everything.)

What about the elbow? You could ask since I go from the upper arms to the forearms. Because the elbows were made exactly the same as the knees, I will explain it with the legs in part 3. Stay tuned!