Wonder Woman cosplay
Main armour (2017 film)
Heyya Everyone!
In this post I will be walking through the various stages of how I went about creating my Wonder Woman armour, from the 2017 movie.
Wig:-
Starting, as usual, from the top and working my way down the costume, the first thing I bought for the costume was my wig.
I used LF095 from WigIsFashion, as it was super full, and had the perfect bouncy curls. I used my thinning scissors to thin out the wig near the tips, as it was a bit too thick there, compared to Gal's hair in the movie. This is optional, I just prefer my wigs to taper down and be thinner at the tips.
Tiara:-
I made her tiara using craft foam and Worbla. I pulled up a few reference images of her tiara, looking at it's size and thickness, and cut the basic shape from craft foam. I cut the details from a separate piece of craft foam, sanded the edges to smooth them down, then glued them all together with contact adhesive. Once this was all ready, I sandwiched this piece between two long pieces of Worbla, making sure the edges were properly sealed. I used a very sharp craft knife to cut away the excess, then placed it over my forehead whilst it was still warm. This would make sure that it hardened with a bit of a curve to it, and would be comfortable to wear.
Once it has cooled, I primed it with XTC-3D (you can also use Gesso), gave it a light sanding, then covered it in metallic gold spray paint. I left this overnight to dry, to make sure it was fully set, then brushed over the top of it with a black wash (a mixture that's 50/50 black acrylic paint and water). The excess was rubbed off, and that left my tiara with a nice bit of weathering to it!
Final step for this was to use my contact adhesive to glue two small hair combs to the ends of my tiara, so I could easily put it on and take it off. You could also use elastic to keep the tiara in place, I just didn't have any to hand at the time.
Armour:-
I decided to make her costume as close to one whole piece as I could, just to make it easier to put on, and carry around. I made my pattern first, by covering myself in cling film, covered the cling film in duct tape (don't get this on your skin, or it's gonna hurt to pull off). I got my Nan to tape up the back for me, as I couldn't reach the middle of my shoulder blades.
Once I was covered in cling film and tape, I used a marker to draw out where I wanted my armour to start and end. Nan drew around my back to connect the lines I had drawn, and that was the base of my pattern ready. I got her to gently cut it off me, straight down the middle of my back, then I cut away the excess.
I looked over my pattern and tried to figure out what pieces I would need to separate, in order for it to fit together nicely when made from foam. I ended up with two boob pieces, and two pieces for each side. Once I had the lines drawn out for these sections, I drew dashes across the seam lines, so I knew to attach these back together later, to ensure it was all straight.
I cut the pieces out, and added darts into them so they would lay flat. These pattern pieces were then transferred to a 10mm EVA foam sheet, and cut out with my snap blade knife (make sure it's sharp, as clean cuts will be easier to attach together than jagged edges).
I used a heat gun and gently heated the boob pieces, and used my knee to give them some curve and make them more rounded. I then used contact adhesive to glue the darts together, to give me that perfect round shape.
I glued the whole set of pattern pieces for the torso armour together, and put it on to see how it fit. I have a fair difference between my waist and hip measurements, so it didn't fit well at first, as the foam was so straight. I used my heat gun to heat up the side pieces on my armour, then used my knee to give it a bit more of a curve. This still didn't help it fit better, so I heated it, put it around myself, then pressed it firm against my body, so it would fit my curves.
Next step was to add the details. Her armour has lots of lines/grooves running through it, I used a sharpie to mark out where I wanted them to be, then used my thin craft knife to score down the lines, making sure not to go further than about 1/4 way through the foam. Once the lines were lightly scored in, I ran my heat gun over them, which opened the cuts up and gave the same look as the grooves in her armour.
I used the same foam in 5mm and 2mm thickness to make the Wonder Woman symbol on her chest, and for her belt. I
Bicep cuff:-
Wonder Woman has a cuff around her right bicep, to make this I made a template by wrapping part of my bicep in cling film, then going over that in duct tape. I looked at a few reference pictures to work out the shape, then drew this onto my duct tape piece. I transferred these pieces to 2mm craft foam, and glued them together with contact adhesive.
I used my rotary sanding tool to curve a few of the edges and to perfect the shape, then I sandwiched this between two pieces of Worba. Whilst the piece was still warm, I curved it around my bicep so it would hold the shape when cooled.
Her cuff isn't metal all the way around, it has a piece at the back which looks like a leather strap. I added two small D-rings on the inside of the cuff, and attached them with small strips of Worbla. I had a few metres of faux leather cord in my workroom which I got ages ago on eBay, I cut a piece of this off and stitched it to one of the D-rings. I passed the other end through the other D-ring, then stitched some velcro to the end of the strip, and to the strip itself, so I could easily take it on and off.
Only thing left to do with it was to prime it, and give it a blast with some gold spray paint. I weathered it up with the same watered down black acrylic that I used on the tiara.
Boots:-
To make her boots, I made yet another template. I wrapped from my foot to my thigh in cling film, then a layer of duct tape. Her boots are made up of two pieces, one covering her shin, which goes over her knee and up to her thigh, and a back piece which covers from the back of her ankle, to the top of her calf. There is about an inch gap between these pieces.
I sketched the pattern onto my duct tape, then cut them out with sharp scissors. I only did one leg, as the template could be flipped and used for the other leg, so the boots would be symmetrical.
I ended up cutting my template into three pieces; the shin, the calf, and the knee.
All of these pieces were transferred to 2mm foam, and cut out using my snap-blade knife. After looking at the reference pictures, I saw that her leg armour has a lot of grooves running through it, to match her torso armour, however as the foam I was using was very thin, I decided to add on another layer of details onto the first, to give the illusion of the grooves being etched in.
Bracers:-
I made yet ANOTHER template for the bracers, by covering my forearm in cling film and duct tape, and using a sharpie to sketch out the basic shape of the bracer.
After looking at many reference pictures, I saw that her bracer seems to be cut diagonally on the inside of her arm, so I replicated this on my template. After gently cutting it off of my arm, I had my (rather oddly shaped) pattern.
This shape was then transferred to 2mm craft foam, and cut out with my snap-blade knife. Once the shape was cut out, I used my sharpie pen to draw on all the lines that are on Diana's bracers. As her bracers don't have any raised panels, I used my hobby knife (changed the generic blade to the long, thin blade), to gently score over all the lines I had just drawn. Be sure not to cut too deep, or you will go through the foam; you only want the scores to be about half way through. Once all the lines were scored, I ran my heat gun over it, this opened up the scores, and made them look deeper, and more engraved.
Next, I sandwiched the foam piece between two pieces of Worbla, and heated over it slowly with my heat gun. After heating and smoothing all over the front and back, I used my hobby knife to gently score over the grooves I made earlier, as the Worbla was still warm. Once these lines were scored in again, I added a few extra scratches over the bracer with my knife, just at random to make it look battle damaged.
Once all the lines were scored, I heated the back of the piece up, then wrapped it around my forearm. I held it there, focusing on the edges, as these were what I needed to stay tight to my arm.
The final addition to these bracers were some faux leather strips, some rivets, and some snap fasteners. I heated the edges of my bracer, and used a belt hole puncher to make two small holes on both of the edges, about half an inch away from the edge. I attached the leather strips to the bracer on one side with rivets (I used 10mm). To attach them, I made a hole in either end of the leather strips, put the top part of the rivet through one of the holes, put this through one of the holes on the bracer, then put the back piece against the hole at the back. I attached the front and back together using my rivet pliers, and that was the strap held in place on the bracer.
Once I had all the straps attached on one side, I attached my snap fasteners. The cap part was attached to the other hole at the ends of the leather strips, and the socket part was attached to the bracer hole. Both were clamped in place with the same pliers as before. This made it very easy for me to tighten my bracers against my wrist, with no worry of them falling off.