Climbing Gear Breakdown (Patreon)

These belts Definitely aren't my cleanest work of all time, but considering I made them in 2 days with no sleep during a manic episode up until the hour I had to leave for a flight at 4am across the country, I'm pretty proud of them! Surprisingly, I don't really have much experience working with real or fake leather so a lot of this was uncharted territory for me

I guess I'll start with the easiest and silliest part: the yarn rope. Yup, that Maroon stuff across my chest is yarn. It's a little more obvious when you know to look for it and when you look close up, but I think it's pretty convincing from far away! I didn't want to use real rope because I could not find anything close to the color and it was going to cost a small fortune to buy enough cotton rope I could dye to wrap around my chest several times. I used some maroon cotton scraps to make a sash that I then draped over a dress form and literally hot glued layers of yarn not unlike how you would glue strips of hair over foam to make a sailor moon or jolyne wig. 

The chest belt was made from a thick piece of black leather I bought from amazon. With Tori’s help, I used a leather sewing machine to sew on the buckle and all of the little loops for the carabiners to hang off of. The shoulder guard I made from several layers of craft foam with light brown pleather glued on top using contact cement. The little gold bracket in the center was also made from craft foam then prepped with filler primer and spray painted with Montana chrome spray paint. The carabiners I bought showed up bright orange instead of copper, so i primed them and then also sprayed them with Montana chrome paint but in copper. 

For the waist belt, I used an existing leather belt. I sewed the small phone-sized pouch Link wears on his right hip out of light brown pleather glued to 2mm craft foam. It was my first time sewing a little pouch together so I didn't really know entirely what I was doing but I think it turned out alright. The detailing on top is simple little pieces of pleather painted with light tan leather paint and glued on with contact cement. I cut two slits in the back of the pouch to slide it onto the belt and over the buckle to hide it. 

The buckle on Link’s climbing gear cannot possibly work as a functioning buckle, so I needed to slide the real buckle under the pouch and make a fake buckle for the gold carabiner to hang off of out of craft foam and spray paint. The clack belt loops on either side of the fake buckle were scraps from the chest belt that I glued on with contact cement.

The red rope around my waist is another pretty chaotic part of this costume. I bought the thick twisted upholstery rope and spray painted it maroon then tied it to the belt with thin leather scraps. 

The little arm belts are simple small strips of leather I folded and sewed sliding buckles onto.