Dragon Armor 3.0: Bigger...I Mean Smaller, and Better

As I mentioned in my last post, I was having trouble deciding whether to upgrade my armor from last year or just remake the whole thing. Well, I guess I'm doing a full remake, however, I'll be reusing parts of the last build because there were many things that worked very well and I don't want to waste them. 

I've been busy ripping apart the old one and "harvesting" bits for the new one. Scales, mostly, which will be nice since I won't have to worry about messing up my wrist again from all the Dremmeling I did last year. After months in a brace and a steroid shot in the tendon from my doctor, my wrist is completely healed now, but I am NOT doing that again.

*Sigh* All that hard work...

Useful bits and pieces.

It's interesting how much a few tries at something can teach you. Not only do I now have more experience working with various materials and tools, I've also been able to dig into the design of the armor a little deeper. By now, I know it very well and I have a solid plan to make it all work the way I want it to.

Starting my remake back in March has allowed me the time to really focus on the details and proceed slowly and carefully. There were many things I noticed this time around that I didn't the first two-- things I simply didn't have the time or desire to include before. I've been able to find more reference photos, some of which are much more detailed than the first ones. I've printed, collected and organized them all in the pages of a sketchbook which I can pull out and write on as I work. Having everything in one place and not contributing to the overall chaos will be a huge help.

Things That Worked

• Overall Design- Close to movie-accurate, patterning was challenging, but I feel like I did pretty well and plan to use mostly the same patterns for v. 3.0.

• Scales- Despite the injury, the shimmering color-shift paint, the smooth edges, and the care and attention I put into every individual scale really made the whole outfit pop, which was reflected in my score/judge's comments from the competition. The scales are basically what makes the whole outfit, so I felt (and still feel) that they are the most important aspect of the armor. Pulling the scales from the old build has caused some ripping and wrinkling, but I'm confident that with a bit of foam clay, paint, and a few passes with the heat gun, I can make them look good as new.

• Paint- The Plaid FX was an excellent choice because of its vibrancy and flexibility, it's easy to work with, not too expensive, wide variety of colors. 

• Plasti-Dip- I used it for priming for the first time and I'm never going back. Provides a flexible primer basecoat and is easy to paint over. No more cracking Mod Podge! Don't get me wrong, I love Mod Podge, but it's not the best choice for priming/finishing foam armor.

Things That Didn't Work/Need To Fix

• Size- This was the biggest issue. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until the morning of the competition when I put it all on and could barely move. I made the mistake of sizing the armor closer to the actual movie-proportions than to mine. Accuracy is a must for competitions...within reason. Most judges understand that things that work in a movie don't always translate so well into the real-world. However, it's possible for a cosplay to still be accurate even when fitted to the individual cosplayer. This is real-life, not an animated show. Astrid is tall with a long torso and limbs. I am not tall, and my torso and limbs definitely show it. I'm also quite a bit wider in some areas because...well, I'm a nerdy, 33-year-old human woman who has given birth to two children, not a CGI Viking dragon-trainer. Everything is being scaled accordingly. Bigger isn't always better.

Me frantically trying to finish the morning of the competition. (Photo: Julia Anderson)

• Stuff Falling Apart- The second-biggest issue. Since I decided to cram the whole build into just a couple months and had to rush things in the pre-con crunch, I wasn't able to attach/secure the various parts the way I should have. The first time I tried the entire outfit on was the morning of the competition (bad, don't do that) and immediately, it started falling apart. Not ideal when the cosplay requires a lot of movement and you have in-person judging in an hour. While it may have looked pretty good on the outside, the inside was a total mess. Weak attachments and badly-placed straps and details made it nearly impossible to move without losing bits. As soon as the morning in-person judging was finished, I had to rush out of the con to go back and reattach parts and attempt some last-minute repairs. It caused a lot of stress and I missed out on some of the fun. Yeah, never doing that again. I'm going to make absolutely sure that I build the armor in such a way that not only looks good, but allows movement without things breaking and more comfort.

• 
• The arm straps fell off before I even got onstage. Then I accidentally pulled my glove off. (Photo: Get Geekish)

• Inaccuracies- Like I said before, there were details in the armor that I never even noticed during the first two builds. For example, the blue part of the back of the chest-plate isn't actually part of the chest-plate at all. It's some kind of vest worn over the undershirt underneath the plate. The bottom two strips of the chest-plate aren't attached to the chest-plate either. They're also part of the undershirt, which actually makes things a lot less complicated this time around. I'm very excited to add these parts.

• Wig- Astrid's hair in the third movie is mostly loose down her back as opposed to her usual braid. And while I'm very proud of the wig I styled, it wasn't very practical for this particular cosplay. The hair kept getting stuck and tangled in the fin on the chest-plate and ended up being a huge annoyance/mess. This time, I'm going to wear the hair down for the in-person judging, then pull it back for the onstage portion to keep it out of the way.

• Fewer Individual Pieces- Part of what made last year's build and competition so stressful was the fact that I had so many parts to keep track of. This year, I'm hoping to group and connect/combine the pieces of the armor that can be put on/taken off at the same time.

These fixes are going to be tricky, but I have some ideas and I'm confident I can make them work. I'm really looking forward to bringing this cosplay to the next level! It's going to be awesome.

Here We Go Again...

It's been about 5 1/2 months since 2022 FanX and around January, I started feeling the itch to get working on cosplay stuff again. I don't know. I thrive on that surge of focus and drive I get while working on a project. My brain needs the challenge of putting bits and pieces together until they grow into a real-life version of a familiar character. I need to try the new techniques I've picked up through research and experience and improve my skills. Most of all, my hands need to make things. And as I hope to someday turn my love of creating and cosplay into a career, I need the practice.

I've been on one of my How To Train Your Dragon streaks lately. They're pretty common, and honestly, I don't think I'll ever get sick of HTTYD--it's my favorite--but sometimes I'm more into it than others. This is one of those times and I very much need to update and/or rebuild most of my Astrid cosplays so I can get back to doing events. I've started remaking Astrid 2 and upgrading Astrid 3 and they're going well so far (I'll post more about them later), but I've really been looking forward to Astrid's dragon armor version 3.0.

It's veeeeery early spring, and this year we seem to be stuck in some kind of more-enthusiastic-than-usual eternal Winter, so I can't do as much as I want right now foam-wise. Utah very much needs the water from this year's snowpack, but I wish it would warm up and dry out a bit so I can Dremel and prime outside. In the meantime, I've been busy with wigs and patterning basic pieces using the armor I made last summer. I'm not sure if I'll reuse parts of it or just remake the whole thing yet, but I'm leaning towards a total remake. 

While I feel like the armor I made for the competition was good, it was definitely lacking in some areas. It was rushed near the end and came out not quite as put-together as I'd have liked and it showed. Admittedly, the morning of the competition was the first time I'd put on the full costume, which was when I realized how badly it fit and exactly what not to do to keep it from falling apart with every move. I was stressed and tired from the crunch, I didn't get to finish some of the details I wanted, and since I'd spent all my time and energy on the costume itself I hadn't even thought about what I would do for the onstage round. In short, I was not prepared. But now that I know what I need to work on and (mostly) how to do it, I aim to fix all that.

(This is me, but I don't know who took the pic, I just found it.)

And when I say "fix", I mean I'm taking this thing to the next level. I plan to enter again this year, and if I make it in, I've decided that I'm gonna kick some serious trash this time around, if not for the sake of the contest, than to prove to myself that I can. I'll be bumping up a category from Novice to Intermediate, which means much stiffer competition and tougher judging. If you've ever seen or been in the Salt Lake FanX competitions, you've seen just how cutthroat it can be. That's why I'm starting early, getting a jump on it so I'm not scrambling to finish it the morning of the competition. That was just...no. I don't want to do that again. It wasn't fun and it wasn't exactly healthy either considering I ended up messing up my wrist pretty badly. (Don't worry, it's completely healed now.) I want to take my time, get all the details, have fun with it and avoid the panicked last-second crunch, make sure everything is the best it can be and go into it knowing it's my best possible work. I feel like I did fairly well last year, even if it was a bit sloppy, and I'm proud of myself for pushing through despite how terrified and unprepared I was, but I'm really excited about the future of this cosplay and confident that I can and absolutely will do better. 

Fresh Start, 2023

I've been doing some cleaning out/rearranging over the past week and I finally have more room to start working on some projects. I'm completely remaking Astrid 2, (hopefully for the last time), and starting improvements and repairs on Astrid 3. When it warms up (if ever, lol), I'll get going on my dragon armor again since some of it needs to be done outside. 

Astrid 2

The fur on Astrid's hood from the second movie has been giving me grief for years, but I think I've finally achieved that ultimate floofiness I've been looking for! I had a fur rug draped over a chair in my living room as a decoration for a couple years, and I always loved how thick and beautiful it was (even if it was just a cheap rug from Ross). It just kept slipping off onto the floor, which was kind of frustrating, but it never occurred to me to use it for a cosplay until recently...so I did. And it looks AMAZING.

First look. I tightened things up a bit after this.

It's not finished, but this is how it looks currently. I'm so excited! I love how fluffy and comfy it is, but I'm definitely going to have to reserve this cosplay for cold weather events only, otherwise I'll die of heatstroke. 

I was hoping to keep some parts of my old cosplay, like the boot covers, but it looks like I'm going to have to remake all of it since I only have one color of fur to work with and I don't want to get more. 

My cat Biscuits is loving this project. So many soft things to sleep on! We adopted her in December, so this is my first experience making a cosplay with a pet around. It should be fun. 😀

Astrid 3

I've started replacing the fur on my Astrid 3 outfit. I've only ever worn it to FanX last September and it was kind of a rush-job so I wasn't exactly happy with the way it turned out. For example, the fur lining was too white and it got filthy as I walked around in it all day. The fur I'm using now is much closer to the actual color in the movie and I'm going to try to fix the covers so they don't drag on the ground as much. 

I also ripped the white fur off the shoulder armor.

Sewing the new fur.

I broke a needle. 🙄 And then I broke the replacement needle twenty minutes later when I accidentally sewed over a pin. Ugh.

One way or another, I always end up sewing this stuff by hand. 😒 Oh well. At least it looks authentic.

I didn't get around to finishing the second boot cover because Biscuits thought I'd made her a lovely new bed. She was so cute and comfy that I didn't have the heart to move her. She stayed there all day. 😁

This is already looking so much better!