Making Of Karlach #1 (Patreon)

Hey hey! 

After I was able to make some progress on my Karlach cosplay build, I have now enough material to make the first #makingof Post! 

As preparation (kind of), I made the hundreds of leather straps contained in Karlach's outfit (it's ofc not hundreds, but it feels like it haha). I bought black pleather straps of two different sizes and dark red pleather fabric. The black straps are double sided, so I had to undo the seams connecting them first, which took an ETERNITY, because I had to pull out short thread pieces (like on the photo on the right) on 30m of straps.

The red pleather I cut into even straps, maked the middle line and then sew the edges together in order to make more straps xD I made 13 in total of these.

I also bought small golden buckles that I sprayed with rubber spray in order to make them less shiny and to weather them (spray is linked down below when I write about priming the foam). Then I sew some of the red pleather straps onto them. Two of them (they'll become the two right thigh straps) got simple leather rivets, holes on the other side and a weathering treatment with simple acrylics.

Second thing I made was the arm band on Karlach's upper right arm. For that I took a piece of paper to figure out the richt shape and size. That I transfered onto a piece of 5mm EVA foam. I also cut out the outer edges on a 2mm foam piece, as the outer decoration. The thorns I quickly made with foam clay. 

Afer glueing everything on, I dremeled the edges, shaped it a bit with the heat gun, primed it with rubber spray and then made the bones also with foam clay. Last but not least, painting and weathering, all with simple acrylic paint.

For the band itself, I took my black pleather stripes, sew three of them together and one of the red straps on the bottom (bottom one is glued with contact glue). Again some rivets, a foam dowel on top, quickly painted with acrylics again and weathering using drybrush technique. It's gonna be closed with velcro, sewn on the band and glued underneath the foam piece.

Next, the arm wraps! I searched a long time for a good black pleather fabric, but couldn't find one like the one I wanted. Then I got the idea to buy a pleather jacket second hand (was only 3$) to salvage! So I cut away all pleather pieces from the jacket and adjusted the arm parts with my sewing machine, so that the fit was better. I also used pieces for the top, but more about the top will come in part 2 :)

Also weathered them with drybrushing on acrylics (mixes white and brown), sew and glued on the red straps and glued the bone pieces on as well. All with contact glue :) Also, more rivets into the right hand wrap.

The vents and belt accessories are so small and detailed that I decided to have them 3D printed. I bought the files here and had my amazing partner (@zio_cosplay on Insta) print them for me using this 3D resin printer. We will also print the rings on the top.

Last for this #makingof Post is that I started with the top. I do not know how to go about this yet, but I started off draping some of the black pleahter straps and pinned them in place on my mannequin. The mannequin luckily is one that you can adjust the size of, so I could put it to exactly my measurements. I had to stop here though because I ran out of straps (only bought 10m at first) and because I need the rings printed before continuing. My current plan is to finish draping and pinning, then sew the pieces together and then find a place to put a zipper or velcro in. Hopefully it will stay in it's shape and fit me. Fingers crossed! 

[Photo credit cover of the post: ©Wai Yeh Leung on Artstation]