And now you get part of the rest of the story...

 As we are getting closer, I have stepped up my building on the cosplay. I still haven't turned in my final project or taken my last final (shame on me, procrastinationg those for this), so I am attempting to work on both at the same time. Fortunately I have my final scheduled for tomorrow morning, and as soon as I am done editing it I will just turn in my final project and get whatever they want to give me.

After I finished the leaves on the boobs, I glued my spider web doily and a skull. I took a white plastic skull, cut off the back half, then sprayed it with Plasti-dip. Yup, that junk is my new favorite stuff. Then I glued the skull and some plastic spiders to the front of the torso piece. That is all I am going to do for now, until I get the rest of it done. I did hit the boobs with a coat of black spray paint while i was making more leaves to glue to the bracers.

So at some point I decided to make the bracers match the boobs on the torso piece. So I cut out 200 more leaves from some black 2mm foam I ordered off Amazon. The dollar store stuff was great, but textured, and I didn't have time to try to de-texture them. I also decided just to use Plasti-dip, and not put an additional layer of spray paint on them. I thought about it, and decided there really was no point in putting black spray paint over black Plasti-dip. So last night I glued up the bracers. I need to clean up the hot glue hairs on them, but otherwise they didn't turn out too badly.

I also made the greaves. I started out thinking I would do full leg armor. That changed quickly. but I used the packing plastic wrap I used on the boobs to cover my leg. Then I added some duct tape, and drew out my pieces. Then I cut it off my leg, and cut the pieces apart. Now, even if I am not drawing on myself, free handing is not my biggest talent. Once I cut the tape off my leg, it was obvious I had missed a bit. But I found two points on each edge that were close and used them for guidelines.

In the chair there is my helper. As soon as I got up to find the scissors, he took over keeping my chair warm for me. :) As is evidenced by the last picture, I was able to get 3 pieces...thigh, knee and shin. I transferred these to a paper grocery bag and did my best to get an even pattern piece. I discovered that if I secured a small edge piece from the EVA foam on two points to the paper with handi-tac, I could approximate an even curve for the top and bottoms of each piece. I do not know why I didn't think about that before. Works SOOOO much better than trying to free hand if you don't have drawing skills.

So then I cut all the pieces and discovered a flaw in my plan. The 1/2 inch foam was way too thick on it's own. And also, my knee piece wouldn't work.

Unsure what to do about this, I took a look at the skirt I am using, and determined it was long enough you wouldn't see thigh armor anyway. I then tried different materials for the knee piece. Nothing worked easily, and I am running out of time, so I decided to just use the shin pieces and use some of the creepy fabric over the knees.

So I moved forward with heat treating, curving and Plasti-dipping the greaves. Greaves...a fancy word for those shin bits of armor. I tied them to my shin for curving. Which was a great idea, with the exception of one thing. Ya see those grommets on the sides? Well, when you hit those with a heat gun they tend to absorb the heat. And burn your skin. Worked much better after I put leggings on under them. I finished them off this morning by painting the background brown and stenciling some ivy in green on them.

I did work a little bit on the shoulders and front of the shirt piece. I have not even gotten close to being done with that. The saga continues...noward and, um, downward, and all that.