Armor tutorial - Bracers (Patreon)

Hey guys! Here is a tutorial on how I made my bracers for my Nightwing cosplay!

First you want to get your pattern! To do this, wrap your arm in saran wrap and then layer down tape atop the saran wrap! Cut yourself free and bam, you have a perfect pattern for your arm shape.

Transfer your pattern to your foam! I got this roll of foam from Harbor Freight but any semi-thick foam will work. You are going to want two bracers to make sure to flip your pattern on the wrong side to mirror the pattern for your other arm.

Now that you have cut it out take a heat gun and heat the inside of the foam, this will allow you to morph and bend the foam to the round shape you are going to need for it to go around your arm!

You could stop here and jump to the end but I am going to show you how I did the detailing for my bracers! I first made this pattern out of cardstock and then placed it atop my foam and cut out the shape of it with an exacto knife! I also added some very thing craft foam atop of the base foam to give more dimension to the bracer.

from there I sandwiched in this white plastic with some contact cement! It is a moldable plastic sheet that can be morphed to the shape you need with a little heat. Here I glued in my fairy lights and glued the battery pack down to the side with some hotglue! I also took some shiny origami paper to help the fairy lights reflect their shiny off it and glued it to a thin piece of foam that I will use to cover up the mess on the inside of the bracer.

From the outside it will look like this!

From here, I took my heat wand and started carving into the foam some lines and borders wherever I saw fit!

I glued down some black elastic with contact cement that will allow me to have the bracers tight while also comfortable!

The spikes that are poking out of the armor are the foam shapes I cut out earlier, I sandwiched them with some worbla (tutorial about this here) and I glued them down to the bracers with some super glue!

And thats it! I hope this helped you out and gave you some ideas for making your own armor!