[ENG] Making-of : Barry The Chopper (Fullmetal Alchemist) Part.2

We're continuing in the making-of of Barry's armor with part 2, I invite you to read part 1 HERE if you haven't already, and if you want to know more about the choice of the costume, and the realization of the helmet, the bust, and the collar.

In part 2 of Alphonse, I talked about making the arm parts, but for Barry, the design of those parts was a bit different. As Barry's arms and shoulder pads are made up of strips superimposed on each other to be able to remain articulated, they had to be painted before assembling them.

As usual, unless specified, the parts are all 5mm EVA foam. 

______________

With the "Making-of" articles I come back to the overall design of a character, including the mistakes made along the way, and even when possible the sewing part (for which I don’t always have pictures…). 

 3. Conception

• Arms :

Barry's arms are in one piece, with no demarcation between arm and elbow, only the forearm is different from the rest.

While analyzing the items to be made, Neevillia noticed that Barry's arms looked wickedly like fume hood ducts. And that's exactly what we used.

So I cut two lengths of flexible pvc conduit, which I hung up so that they would relax a little since the conduit is logically sold folded up.

And since obviously the apocalypse of my desk is THE place to sleep, I had the help of two assistants:

To be able to assemble the arm to the forearm, I attached a foam ring to one end corresponding to the inside diameter of the forearm.

As this diameter was smaller than that of the duct, the latter had to be reduced. Contrary to appearances, the conduit is not made up of rings but of a long spiral of iron wire in a PVC loop, itself attached to a long flexible PVC tube.

To reduce the diameter, I closed the spiral by tightening the ring until I got the right diameter. The plastic is gathered all around the ring:

In the photo, you can clearly see the difference between the diameter of the duct and the reduced diameter, lined with folds.

The original plan was to cover the duct with a 2mm long strip of foam, following the wire spiral, to represent the ring slats on Barry's arms. But the bulk of the foam greatly restricted Neevillia's movements, already limited by the mass. So, I ended up covering three-quarters of the surface with foam, leaving the inside of the conduit bare, which made it easier to bend.

Small assembly test, always using my friend the tape!

As the duct would eventually be visible, it was painted silver before the slats were assembled:

The slats will be glued with superglue once painted (and as I did this almost the day before for the next day, I have no photo of the assembly…)

• Forearms :

To keep the arms in place and allow their movement, they are extended by the forearm pieces. The arms of the armor are more long sleeves going from the wrist to the shoulder.

Barry's forearms are a little odd since it looks like there's a basic shape that ends in a point towards the elbow and another on top, with a kind of lace. To simplify my life, I made a single piece, based on the laces part, the tip being simply added inside.

As I was not sure of my pattern I first made a prototype in floor mats (again I refer you to the EVA foam guide to understand EVA vs floor mats)

The correct shape was then cut from the EVA foam and perforated along its length.

To close the piece in the form of a tube, a strip of foam is glued inside to create a gap between the two lines of holes. A triangle of foam above this band serves to form the base layer of the forearm, which makes the piece appear to be laced over another forearm piece.

To form the lace, I cut 5mm wide strips in 2mm foam, the end of each strip is glued in a hole using superglue, not always in a regular way, and sometimes putting two bands in the same eyelet or by crossing them.

Which gives something like this:

In the photo, you can see that there is still a lace missing (I had not planned enough), and that the too-long piece must be reduced by one centimeter at the bottom.

Finally, all that was missing was the bracelet of spikes. The base of the bracelet is made up of two simple strips of foam glued at an angle to adapt to the circumference of the piece. The spikes are made of EVA foam paste, formed and assembled using a technique that I will discuss in part 3 of Alphonse. (Yes it is complicated to explain linearly, the assembly of two armors which was done simultaneously…)

• Gloves :

I believe this is the only "big" discrepancy between Barry's original and his cosplay. Barry has, in the manga, three fingers: the thumb, a large index, and a block that would correspond on a human hand to the three remaining fingers (middle finger, ring finger, and little finger for those who wouldn't follow). So at first, I tried to make a kind of sleeves (fingers?) in fine foam to separate the fingers. But since with just the gloves she didn't have many, with this system Neevillia lost all grip on things. Complicated when you know that Barry has two accessories, one in each hand. We have therefore made the choice to favor practicality to the detriment of accuracy. Shocking I know...

Barry's gauntlets are therefore leather motorcycle gloves (with five fingers…).

But, on the other hand, I did well on the top of the decorative plate decorated with claws:

The claws are modeled directly on the part with EVA foam paste. Later, I lift them to glue them with superglue, just to be sure not to lose one in the middle of the convention.

• Shoulder pads :

Barry's shoulder pads are extremely simple. These are 5mm foam strips with rounded corners, assembled together using a ribbon (well, it's more like serge here) so that they can slide over each other.

Here is the first version of the shoulder pads, I redid them with 5cm longer strips to cover the arm a little more. 

Because I realized that while it was doable to paint them attached, it would be easier unattached, for a long time shoulder pads and arms looked like this:

• Legs :

Barry's final piece of armor, the legs are also made up of slats, but unlike the arm, don't need to be articulated. We don't see Barry's knees, so no need to make a special piece, and for the shins, he wears boots.

Barry's leg pattern is again derived from Alphonse's leg pattern. Generally, I use my costume to fumble and experiment, so I know Neevillia's is (in theory) cleaner.

The leg, therefore, has a back piece, rounded at the top and bottom, which makes it easier to bend the leg.

This piece is covered with 3mm thick foam strips like this:

the numbers correspond to the length of the strip so that I can find my way around.

Once the strips were glued, all I had to do was cut them on the sides according to the basic shape, and add a border at the top and bottom:

The vertical lines mark the contact area between the back piece and the front piece since the first will be glued to the inside of the second.

For the front pieces, it's the same principle, with two pieces of 5mm foam as a base, then slats, this time 5mm thick, to cover the entire surface:

Once at the top, you can see that to keep its shape, the slat doesn't make contact with the base in the middle, but that's okay:

At this time of the making-of, we are more or less there with the armor:

The armor is ready for painting (yeaaaaaah…) before final assembly. But hey, there are still some non-armor items to do, so watch for part 3!