Sci-Fi Police Armour

My first Prop project for Uni this year was based upon Alice in Wonderland, however we each had to reinvent the story into another format and create props for our own version. I decided to create a future-noir genre film for my own work. Alice would be a Police detective and would wear a blue trench coat instead of her typical blue dress, I created Prop armour for this costume as if she was wearing a form of futuristic riot gear.

The first part of the build process was to create templates for each piece, that way they could be quickly drawn onto the Sintra plastic multiple times as I needed two of every piece. Each of these pieces were cut out using a craft knife and metal ruler to give clean and sharp edges to each piece.

These pieces were then heated with a heat gun till they became slightly soft and were then wrapped around a 2 litre bottle to give them the curvature needed to fit comfortably on the wearers arm.  

After each piece was curved they received a coat of primer, once the primer had dried I lightly sanded the surface of each piece. By doing this any low spots and 

imperfections created during the forming process would stay the colour of the dark red primer and indicated where to add filler to the pieces to make their surface level.

 Because sintra is a dense foam and not a plastic it needed sealing to give it a smooth finish. This was accomplished by painting three layers of primer onto each piece, it was then sanded using 600 grit sandpaper and if  necessary the process was repeated until the surface was completely smooth.

The details in the comm. pieces for both gauntlets were cut out using a dremel, at this point all of the pieces were dry fit together to check that they fit around each other properly. Sintra can be reheated and reshaped as many times as needed and in some areas

reshaping was used to help make some of the panels more concentric.

Before any pieces were permanently glued down another technique was used to help create a more snug fit and reduce the gaps between each piece, making the whole piece of armour appear seamless. To do this I began by protecting the base layer with masking tape, a release agent was then brushed on top of this. 

 A small amount of polyester body filler was then applied to the underside of the next panel, this was squashed down onto the base layer to make a tight seal. The majority of the excess was scraped off before it could cure.

When the filler was almost cured the top piece was peeled back off of the base layer, by using the masking tape and release agent I stopped the two pieces from bonding to each other, I could then sand the edges of the detail piece flush and then glue both pieces together, this is much easier than sanding it as one piece. 

The completed armour piece was then coated in 3 layers of primer and wet-sanded:

Each piece needed to be prepped for painting, to get rid of any dust from sanding or oil from my hands that might affect the finish of the paint.  All of the pieces were washed in warm soapy water then rinsed in clean water before air drying.

To paint every side of the armour I made two rigs to hold the pieces of armour whilst it was being painted, this allowed me to manipulate the pieces as I was painting them without touching the wet paint and ruining the finish. Each piece was coated with six layers of paint to even out the finish, 15 minutes had to be left between each coat and the coats were sprayed onto the pieces from a rulers length away to make sure each coat was thin and detailed.

The pieces were left in a warm room for 2 days to ensure that the paint had completely cured before the next layer of detail was added on top. The pieces now looked shiny and brand new and I wanted my final pieces to look dirty and used. 

My next step was to weather each of the pieces, I wanted them to be grimy and filthy as if they have been well used but not well looked after. To create this effect I needed to add a fake layer of mud and then scrub parts of it away so that the dirt gathered in the recesses in the same way a real object would. This was done using a sponge, acrylic paint and an old rag.

Tearing the straight edges off of the gave it a more ragged edge making the effect blend better and look more natural, burnt umber acrylic was stippled onto each piece in a fairly light coating, it was then left for 5 minutes till it was almost dry.

To get rid of the excess an old rag was wetted and rung out so it was only slightly damp, that way it scrubbed parts away rather than washing it all off, the texture of the old tea towel feathered the edges of the paint and using twisting motions in recesses near any hard edges blended the paint out.

The final layer of detail to be applied to the armour pieces was the water slide decals I designed in Illustrator, the damage and scratches were added in Photoshop using custom brushes to prevent accidentally taking away too much detail by weathering them with sandpaper. Once printed the decals were sprayed with 2 layers of clearcoat to prevent the ink running when they where placed in water. 

Each piece was then cut out using a scalpel leaving a border around my actual designs. This would not be seen as the decal backing is clear.

Decals were applied one at a time, the decal was placed into the water face down, this was so you could see the water soaking into the backing paper, once the entire back had darkened this indicated the decal would be ready to slide from its backing.

The decal was then 

applied to the piece and a brush was used to push out any trapped water or air bubbles.

Each decal was applied in the same manner:

To attach my armour pieces to the Trenchcoat I made to complete the character design, I decided to use velcro strapping similar to actual riot armour. I opted to use a type of webbing with a herringbone pattern to add another layer of detail to the straps.

My armour was 
weathered to look grubby and the bright white of the straps needed dulling down to match the armour panels, to do this tea bags were used to dirty the colour of the webbing. Four teabags were added to a bowl of boiling water and metre long strips of webbing were added to the dye bath for an hour.

The strips were then rinsed out in clear warm water. They were next squeezed and pressed against paper towels to remove excess water. Whilst the strips were still damp brown acrylic was brushed along the edges of the strips and then smudged into the fabric with my fingers to simulate the look of ground in dirt.

To attach the straps to the armour I found plastic loop buckles with a 25 mm opening, the same width as my webbing. I used plastic buckles to save on weight and cost to make them look more like worn metal I drybrushed 3 layers of silver on to them working from a dark 
gunmetal to bright silver to add depth. The buckles were finally sprayed with three coats of clear coat to protect the silver paint.

 Each of these buckles was then sewn to a 6.8cm length of webbing. This process had to repeated 18 times to make enough for each piece of armour, each tab was hand stitched as a sewing machine couldn’t get close enough to the buckle to secure it down tightly.

Contact adhesive was used to attach each tab to the back of the armour pieces, a small amount was added to both the webbing and the armour surface, once the glue becomes cloudy the two surface are pressed to each other and instantly bond together. 

Each armour piece was placed on the models arm and a piece of 

webbing was pinned to the armour to calculate how long each strap should be. I would need double of each piece so once I knew the length of each piece I could 

calculate how much webbing I would need to weather. This also let me figure out the lengths of Velcro I would need for each strap. 

Each strap was given a 5mm hem on one end, the other was left open so that it could be hand sewn around a buckle once it was finished. The velcro strips were lined up in the centre of the straps and machine sewn down, I used 20mm velcro on the 25mm webbing so that once fastened down the velcro would not be visible.

Each strap was then hand sewn to the matching buckle, the edge to be sewn to the buckle was always sewn on the inner side of the armour to help hide any stitching to look slightly neater.