Those of you that have been following me for a while know that I've made quite a few sets of the Male N7 armor, but I had never done the Female variety. That changed recently when I was commissioned for the FemShep set. Much of the pieces are identical to the BroShep armor, so I won't go into a lot of detail of the patterning/tracing/cutting. Some of the pieces are shaped a little different, of course, but only a few pieces (some obvious) are different: the chest plate, the hips, and the shoulder bells. The legs, as you can see, are still pretty much the same. You'll see a difference in the details on the hips as we go, though. The biggest difficulty, naturally, was the chest plate. While I had the measurements I needed, I still needed to make sure it was shaped properly, there was room for adjustment later, and everything needed to look even. I cut out the pieces for the main section, then used a heat gun and a hard, rounded surface to shape a couple large pieces of foam. On these I traced the shape of the open areas of the main section, and was able to cut out the now properly shaped breast pieces and attach them. After that, the rest of the pieces were rote, I just had to remember to shape them differently after cutting and assembly. The shoulder bells were a little trickier, but I ended up freehanding them. They're essentially 2 layers of foam, but stacked one on top of the other unlike BroShep, which the bell itself attaches to the end of the under piece, and that piece sticks out a bit. FemShep, though, the main piece is the under piece, and the upper bell is really just an extended panel. It'll make better sense once you see the pics of it, I promise. :) Anyway, all pieces done and shaped, so I threw on the Plasti Dip and paint! See the bells now? Make better sense? Good. ;) Strapped everything together, leaving room on them for the client to be able to adjust to a better fit for them when they got it. Once all the straps were on and everything looked good, it was time, as always, to weather the armor! The spine is also custom and freehanded, to save a bit of time and give a unique look to the armor. Making the same armor over and over is nice and all, but I try to throw something different into each one to give it a little bit of its own character. This was a lot of fun, and gave me some good insight into manipulating the foam. Love learning new things! :D
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