TurboCharizard's Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Link Build Log

[TurboCharizard]

It's been three weeks since I've posted any updates on the quiver so here's a little post on the slightly behind current state version.

The quiver is all EVA foam except for a few detail pieces so it was quick to pattern, cut out and piece together since it's all relatively on one plane and just layered pieces of different thicknesses. The main structure is all 6mm EVA, the raised pattern details are all 2mm craft foam and the central banding is 10mm EVA.

The game model and the collectors edition figure which I was using for primary references disagree on a few details along the outer edges so I created a hybrid which just ended up being more stuff going on. That seems to be the name of the game with this costume, tiny part loaded with detail to make even the most bland and boring part interesting to look at.

Pictured: Glorious detail

The leather lace is MVP for this costume, I've used it in so many places already that I definitely got my moneys worth since I was only planning on it being used on the arrow shafts. Actually stitching the pieces together probably would have been easier but I didn't have a needle wide enough to take the lace and didn't want to rig up something to pull it through so I ended up punching a hole with a sculpting tool, pushing an end of the lace into the hole, gluing the end of the lace in place and then repeating on the opposite side of the lace twenty nine times.


Rivets are everywhere apparently so I had to do some de-googing of 12 7mm googly eyes and 9 10mm jiggly eyes because apparently knock off googly eyes are a thing.


An old buckle from a belt and a couple 3D printed loops that were left over from another project and I had a way of attaching the quiver to my belt. One last quick sand and edge cleanup before heat sealing and it was off to paint.

Everything is currently primed and drying on my painting jig (it's just dowel drilled into MDF but hey) alongside the bow arms. There'll be a final update for each later on this week or on the weekend. Tonight will probably be an update on either the Ancient Arrow, Shiekah Slate or the leather armour, it depends on which I finish off first and which I like the looks of more. Wish me luck.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

Luck.....very cool dude. Looking forward to the finished product.

 

[TurboCharizard]

Looking forward to the finished product.

Same.

I just want to wear all the parts together.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

Well is would look silly if you only wore the parts separately.......

 

[Schankerz]

First off, everything I see here, marvellous, simply awesome work as always Turbo, a million high fives are being sent your way.

And how coincidental it is that I too am in the process of helping out with a BoTW build for my GF. Which means I may be stalking you for a while for tips and ideas....hehehe sneak sneak sneak...

 

[TurboCharizard]

Remember this?

. Tonight will probably be an update on either the Ancient Arrow, Shiekah Slate or the leather armour.

Yeah, painting went awesome and I'm loving the way everything is turning out. Leather armour. Yes. It went about as well as imagined and I almost had to buy a new sewing machine for CplYapFlip

Something that should have taken two hours to make had me cussing and dismantling the machine for five hours instead and I didn't get the full armour finished. I sense a high horsepower sewing machine ending up on my shopping list soon.

Slow progress but progress nonetheless. The Hylian Tunic has an archers chest guard, spaulder and bracers all made of leather or a material that looks like it so that's where my love of marine vinyl comes in.

To start off I put on the tunic and then wrapped the rough area to be covered in tin foil and then some cheapo dollarstore duct tape to maintain it's shape. Then came the nerve wracking part of drawing on the shapes for the pattern using sharpie dangerously close to a fabric that really doesn't like sharpie. The pattern was cut up and then transferred to foam.


Two copies, a front and back facing were cut out of marine vinyl with the back facing having a very technical thumb and a half width seam allowance. The font facing was stitched to the foam using the presser foot and the foam edge as a guide and excess on edges was trimmed to the foam width. For edges that form seams with other sections an extra allowance was left and not trimmed down.


For the front closing more of that 1lb/sq.in adhesive backed Velcro was used and sewed to the front facing of the guard in a section that was extended to be hidden under overlap.


Edges of the back facing were folded twice over the front facing to form a rib and then stitched closed to make a nice border. Yes this piece is different than the other one included in all the other pictures oh eagle-eyed reader. As anger levels rose at the machine I stopped taking pictures so here's one that was sent to Mrs. Turbo while she was at work and wanted to see what was going on.


All pieces were joined together using registration marks on the patterns that were transferred to the inside of the guard with chalk. Pieces were clipped together and sewn together. The spaulder is connected using a strap on the shoulder and a lace on either corner. A 1" grommet was punched through with much joy around midnight. Therapy hammer is my new favourite thing.


Today I'm adding the two side buckles, two front straps and snaps then going onto the spaulder and bracers. If there's any global news about a Victoria centered crater appearing it wasn't an asteroid impact, it was my hatred for single use machines not being able to do their job boiling over and atomically slamming the thing with the therapy hammer.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

I can't even begin to say how cool this is....I know it's just one small piece of your build.....but its a technique that I don't have (sewing) and am highly impressed w/ anyone that does. Do you give classes?

 

[TurboCharizard]

I can't even begin to say how cool this is....I know it's just one small piece of your build.....but its a technique that I don't have (sewing) and am highly impressed w/ anyone that does. Do you give classes?

I'd give classes on sewing but I don't know any of the terms to explain what I'm doing and kind of just make it up as I go. I literally just run up to people with a sample in hand and ask "does this make sense" and then go off and make the thing.

I am doing a class type thing though next month for foam work at a local library. And I guess a panel the week before on 3D Design but that's not quite as fun.

As far as small pieces go, Mrs. Turbo was playing around on BotW last night and asked me about when I was making the little knife sheath. Last night I learned that Link has a knife sheath. Add one more detail thing onto the costume.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

I literally just run up to people with a sample in hand and ask "does this make sense" and then go off and make the thing..

Well, you're definitely 2-3 steps ahead of me in this dept.....If there is any sewing to be done......it the old needle and thread. 1 stitch after another.......

 

[PerniciousDuke]

High powered sewing machine would be nice, but the leather stitching that I do has to be done by hand, or I would have to open a leather factory to pay off a machine that could do it! Lol. Love the work you've been doing.

 

[TurboCharizard]

So I'm at the deadline for submission to a local cosplay contest in two weeks. The rules for submission is 60% completion at 23:59 tonight local time. Cosplanner says I'm at 87% so let's roll with it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and there's only fun stuff left really. I need to update the time spent and figure out if there's a way to add in the budget so I can cry at how much money I've poured into this.

More to come later on. I'll probably be doing up an individual post for each sub element, breaking down the costs of the parts and then including links to patterns and other good stuff in there. For now though, cartoons and alcohol so that I can get a bit of celebration in before diving back in.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

wow TurboCharizard, that look so cool.......true talent. Good luck on the contest.....you have my vote....if it would help.

 

[Lieutenant Jaku]

I second dirtdives I would definitely vote for you.looking awesome

 

[TurboCharizard]

wow TurboCharizard, that look so cool.......true talent. Good luck on the contest.....you have my vote....if it would help.

I second dirtdives I would definitely vote for you.looking awesome

Cheers guys, having the positive feedback coming in definitely helped for motivation in this project. Here's hoping that the judges can dig my insanity as much as you do.

 

[TurboCharizard]

Things I learned today.

1. How to make gloves
2. How to actually make gloves the correct way
3. One of my future planned cosplays will be ezpz after all this leather/vinyl work

Link has gloves, they kind of make sense but not really. There's belts, there's buckles and it's all very anime. It almost makes me wish I chose a less cool armour set, almost. For reference I used these two images and a method that involved running towards the camera while holding a rock above my head in game. Taking a screenshot that was clear was almost impossible so we're taking this magical in game thing and making it work for real.


Each gauntlet is broken down into four sections;

• the glove
• the bracer
• the fist plate
• mid-arm plate with belts.

Since I'd never made gloves before, it was a learning experience and I went through two failed attempts and two more mock ups before the real thing so yeah, I now can say I have practice with making gloves. I came home all eager after work, tossed on a bunch of YouTube tutorials, found some that seemed to know what they were doing and got cracking. The cosplay community apparently really likes taking the easy way out and just traces their hand, sews two copies together and calls it a day. It sounds easy, it sounds awesome, it just plain doesn't work for leather-likes if you want a decent fit, with a material that has more stretch I'm sure it's awesome but it's not for me. I'll just keep on trucking down the hard way of doing things.


You know what I am good at though? Making patterns! I put on a nitrile glove, some tin foil and wrapped my arm in duct tape to guarantee the sizing and shape was right. Trace a loop around the thumb, add a seam down between the fingers and then extract carefully from the most uncomfortable mitten ever with scissors. I made a mock up in canvas which is equally if not more rigid than vinyl in terms of flex and made adjustments to the mock up and the paper pattern that I was building.


With a bit of time on the sewing machine I managed to get everything together for each arm and not manage to mix up any of the very similar looking pieces. Taking pictures with one hand is always a chore so enjoy a "Full Image" version of shaky hands.

More patterning! The bracers were pretty easy since they're just done like the chest guard, two layers of marine vinyl sandwiching craft foam and rolling the edge so if you're following along you're familiar with my edge finishing for leather bits.


The other day I picked up a leather punch because I needed to lace through two layers of vinyl and a layer of 6mm EVA foam for the spaulder and it is a fantastic tool for putting in grommets. Place, press and then go to work hammering grommets as per usual. Only 16 this time on the edges to thread lace through to tighten the bracers and let them be removable. I need to do a run to either a craft store or a fabric store for buckles for the other two pieces of the gauntlets so this is where I stop for the day.


Tomorrow is the finished product of the whole Hylian Tunic, I'm pretty excited to cross off another whole (and admittedly the most difficult) part of the whole costume. Glamour shots maybe? Find out next time on Dragonbal... Wait.

Update

PREVIOUSLY ON YUGIOH [go back and read whole thing again]

I said it'd be finished but I had a lazy day (gasp) and went and visited family and was generally a good person. There was productivity though, the only thing left is to assemble the belts which I need to go get some leather for that'll contrast the vinyl slightly.

The fist plate was super fun, not too complex of a shape for sewing and I got to add a 3D printed stud to make everything look as it does in game. I used scrap fabric to pattern the shape, cleaned it up, transferred it to foam and did some sewing. The mid arm plate was similar to all the other pieces but I needed a way of attaching it in a hidden manner that would keep it from moving. I could have done more velcro but grommets and snaps are currently my jam, it's probably something to do with either the new leather punch or the hammering involved in the process. The male side of two snaps were hammered into the fabric of the plate before sewing the piece together and the female side was added to the bracer to reduce friction on my arm.


The 3D printing was something though. I'm not sure how it catastrophically failed but I set it to print before leaving the house for a bit since it was only a 20 minute job. Big mistake apparently. I had to tear apart the whole hot end down to heater block to remove filament somehow wedged itself in there after warping the PFTE tube. I almost got to the point of putting it on the drill press to blast out the blocking filament but I was saved from doing that by clamping the block in place and breaking the filament apart with a needle file.

Fun adventures of printers aside, I made a thing and it makes the gauntlets look pretty rad I think. I painted the studs up quickly with some model paints P3 Thamar Black as a base, P3 Pig Iron as a heavy drybrush colour coat and then Citadel Color Ironbreaker as a light drybrush for the edge highlights. A bit of glue and it was on.

I just need an 18" long strip of leather and I'm calling these good to go. Wearing these gauntlets makes every action feel way cooler, I may or may not have cooked dinner to "break in the vinyl".

One last photo for today

A semi blurry one of the ring that I'll be wearing that Mrs. Turbo had made for me a while back. Bonus points to the forum member who can identify the markings.

Update Again

The leathers are all done and the sewing machine has been set to rest for a bit.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

They look like the notes for the Ocarina.......

 

[PerniciousDuke]

You did a phenomenal job with those gloves! People are going to love this cosplay.

Nice to learn of cosplay planner too. I may have to look into that to help keep my next project to under a year. Lol.

 

[TurboCharizard]

They look like the notes for the Ocarina.......View attachment 253590

Getting warmer.

You did a phenomenal job with those gloves! People are going to love this cosplay.

Nice to learn of cosplay planner too. I may have to look into that to help keep my next project to under a year. Lol.

I'm hoping people like it. Worst case scenario I have more cool stuff to hang on the wall.

Cosplanner is pretty awesome, there's some limitations on the free version with number of photos and if you're building an item you can't attach a budget to it but it's easy enough to fiddle around and keep track of those in other ways. I highly recommend it.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

Getting warmer.

What... like the "Musical notes of the Ocarina of Time" warmer? Or "wrong game, but right buttons" warmer......?

 

[TurboCharizard]

What... like the "Musical notes of the Ocarina of Time" warmer? Or "wrong game, but right buttons" warmer......?

I'm not going to give it away good sir. If someone gets it correct there's bonus points involved and a shiny thing in the mail for them.