I haven't been able to work on anything almost all week, so this morning I got started on rigging and a bit of an experiment with the boot.
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The two buckles on each thigh will be connected to the codpiece and backside bulkhead on the belt to prevent any unwanted drifting or shifting, and will be mostly concealed by the inner suit while the buckles are tucked underneath the armor.
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I haven't done the shins yet but I drew up a rough sketch of how I'm thinking the strap will be placed. The buckle (red) will be just out of sight above the knee, then the strap (green) will run underneath a kneepad (blue) and be cemented to the inside of the shin guard a little ways down. The distances are off in the photo but that's the vague idea.
I'm trying a little something with the boot that I don't know will work. My plan is to add a treaded sole underneath using layers of 10mm EVA floor tile and sole rubber.
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I started by opening the boot STL in OrcaSlicer and cutting all but 1mm off of it, leaving just the bottom outline. I merged this with a .4mm thick rectangle. which will equate to two printed layers at a .2mm layer height. This is thick enough that it won't tear out, but just thin enough to cut with scissors with minimal resistance. Once printed I cut off all of the extra material.
This now serves as a more solid bottom layer for the boot, which will be sandwiched between layers of foam, to which I'll add the
tread for traction. All of this will be glued together using shoe cement.
This is about as far as I got this morning so I apologize there's not much more to show. It'll definitely need a lot of testing to see how comfortable it will be to walk in, and it certainly won't be 100% accurate to the game model, but if it works, I think it'll elevate the look (pun intended). It'll keep the plastic from dragging or scraping the ground, hopefully minimizing the risk of damage. It can also give me almost an extra inch of lift. I think the boot will also look more solid this way instead of simply sitting on top of the shoe, while still allowing for some flex.