I ordered my Klingon ridges from Bill Hedrick . He did the ridges for Il Troubadore and also for the cast of A Klingon Christmas Carol.
I used this tutorial to create the armor for my costume.
I used paper and posterboard to make my patterns before I cut the foam. This was especially important to do for the bra because I had to create several pieces that would fit together around the curves of my bra cup. Before I attached anything to the bra though, I removed the original straps and created new ones of of gross grain ribbon and thick interfacing.
Next, I started creating my patterns:
The fun part was standing in front of my stove in a bra molding the foam over the fire. After softening the foam I held it in place over the bra cup so that it would form to the shape as it cooled. If you have a dress dummy in your size, you probably wont have to shape the foam while wearing the bra you're trying to form them to. I glued the foam in place, but had to hold some of it with pins. If you choose to do this, keep in mind that the pins leave marks that may remain visible after you finish painting.
To cover the creases in the cup I decided to add another strap.
I also decided to make some shoulder armor
I used a spoon to create indentations.
I used an ink pen to create depressions in my armor for designs. The color will not appear after I paint the armor.
Next I used puff paint to create raised designs.
I used the same methods when creating my belt.
After the puff paint dried I coated the pieces with several layers of the water/glue mixture mentioned in the tutorial I linked above. When that dried it was ready to paint. I started off with a metallic silver spray paint for my base.
Then I rubbed silver leaf over that. In the end I aged the pieces by rubbing them with black and green acrylic paint which I immediately rubbed off with a paper towel before it dried. This cause it to only settle in the cracks. In the photo below, the right side is aged, while the left is not. You can see the difference it makes. Oh and those studs next to the klingon insignia, those are tacks. I removed the
pointy parts with wire cutters before gluing them on (I added them before I did the painting). There are some short screws on the sides of the costume too. They serve to real purpose other than to look like they might server a purpose.
Done!
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Jon Silpayamanant and I at Raks Geek |