greetings fellow makers welcome down to the shop I'm bill and today is part 1 of our Skyrim armored building tutorial series these videos are part of a series along with our friends over at Bethesda to help herald the release of Skyrim special edition due out October 28th they wanted us to help you guys build some epic props and costumes from Skyrim and we were happy to help out of course we've already built a couple of really cool things you can see next movie we've got the axe blue thread and the horned steel helm well now it's time to build an entire set of armor and I'm going to show you how to build the steel armor using of course Evie a foam in the description of this video you will find not only a list of all the materials we used but free blueprints that's right full set of free blueprints for the steel armor set what I am currently wearing of course that blueprint is scaled to me I'm 5 9 and roughly average sized human dude but there are some built in sizing lines on the torso to help expand or contract a little bit otherwise you may have to just sort of jury-rigged it yourself if you are much larger or much smaller than I am alright that's enough talk for me let's get started let's start with the gauntlets they all have the same inland pattern that we did for the Horned steel helmet for the hand plate we cut out the outer and inner shape from our foam floor mats then the texture was added to this piece by heating up the foam and pressing a meat tenderizer into the surface just like we did again on that helmet the tiny squiggly looking details were traced from the template and then cut out painstakingly by hand using a hobby knife the squiggles were super glued to the textured surface slowly and carefully then the inlay was pushed into place and hot glued from behind to hold it into place making sure it was the correct depth anywhere that had a little bit of a gap from the front was carefully glued back together using more of that hot glue since these pieces need to lay flush against the back of the hand the extra material on the backside was carefully cut away finally the edges were all rounded over using a grinding bit in the rotary tool the patterns in the files that you print out are all for the left side of the armor so to make the right side simply flip the patterns over when tracing them onto your phone many of the parts of armor were made in exactly the same fashion these include the instep pieces that will eventually go over the boots the shim parts that will also go over the boots also done in this manner were the large thigh parts and the cuffs that fit over the shins to size these properly we measured the circumference of my calf using a foam ruler first we wrapped my shin area in fur since this piece will eventually be backed with fur then we measured my leg all of these pieces were made the same way as the hand plates following our blueprints the gauntlets were a little bit different the template was traced flipped on the midline and then traced again to create the entire cuff which was then cut out of a foam floor mat again this is sized for someone with an average-sized arm so you may need to modify your template a little bit if your arms are larger or smaller than mine after cutting this piece out of foam we use the other part of this template to trace out where it would be glued down this area was heated and textured using that handy dandy meat tenderizer the remaining part of the template was cut out and traced onto some six millimeter craft foam this was carefully cut out both inside and out using an incredibly sharp knife creating a foam frame contact cement was brushed onto both the rim of the cuff and the back of the frame part once it was dried about five minutes later the two parts were stuck together with the frame in place the detail squiggles were all cut out of more of that two millimeter foam and then glued into the respective places inside the gauntlet frame contact cement was also brushed on either edge of the seam it was left to dry and then the two edges were carefully pressed together forming a tapered boob that would be your gauntlet now of course just flip your patterns over and make another one the pauldrons were made for more lore Matt foam surprise surprise the patterns needed to be flipped over and traits to create just one shoulders worth of armor so everything here was done twice later be sure to draw in the hash marks along the seam line after cutting these pieces out and adding the inlay details just like every other piece of this armor the edges were glued up for assembly with more of that contact cement the lower portion was pretty easy but the upper part took a little bit more care to get just right this is where those hash marks come in to play they are super helpful for making sure that your scene gets glued together properly the area where these two pieces overlap was marked for gluing then the underside of the upper piece was sanded with a rotary tool to remove the texture this helps the glue stick better contact cement was brushed onto the front of the lower part and the back of the upper part then they were stuck together forming the main pauldron piece the upper Ridge of the pod room was made from two pieces of floor mat these were cut out along the round edges using a 45-degree bevel it's vital that the blade is very sharp four cuts like this also be sure that the outer edge is cut to an inward bevel and the inner edge is cut to an outward bevel got it good the outer edge was glued up on both sides with contact cement and then press together forming a lovely beveled foam arch one side of this piece was glued up along with the upper edge of the pauldrons and the two parts were stuck together finally completing one majestic looking cauldron now just do another one no problem right the belt pieces were all pretty straightforward to make according to the blueprint the discs on the hips are a little tricky and required a v-shaped groove to be cut into the back of them this groove was hot glued together creating a peak in the front of the piece remaining pieces were then glued in place in the center of this part now the belt will be assembled completely in another video but here you can see how all of the parts will go together once worn there are two main front parts each split down the middle there's also an ornate buckle that will eventually live right in the middle of them the back and front parts of the belt are nearly the same and they will both remain separate for now until we add some strapping to attach them there is a seam between the two of them this seam will be covered by those discs that we made earlier the chest pattern is several pages and it's broken up into front and back sections again these are all for the left side and need to be mirrored to create the right side once the pattern parts were taped and trimmed we got to cutting it out of floor mats the front chest part has some allowances on the shoulder and sides to add or remove a little girth from the overall armor piece if you need it to get a bigger body simply add some length to these areas the first layer of foam was cut out using just a big old hunk of floor mat the front chest parts can be glued up the middle seam if you want but I left mine separate to make it easier to take apart for travel the pattern was cut into several pieces to start making the different levels of foam on the lowest level there's a faux seam that will get stitches later so we cut a small trench along that line the detail layer along the sides of the front armor part we're done just like the gauntlet cuffs the shape was traced a texture was added using the meat tenderizer then a six millimeter piece of foam was cut to shape and contact cemented over the texture the thicker part on the front of the chest was cut from a ten millimeter foam or if you have it a floor mat the inlay part was trimmed out just like before but then that part was carefully cut in half the long way to make it thinner this part was placed back into its happy home and then the part was covered in contact cement from the back the first layer of foam was also glued up for assembly these parts were then pressed together completing that layer of detail oh and yes of course we carefully cut out all of those little squiggles and glued them into place too next a couple of 3/4 inch thick strips of that 10 millimeter home were cut out to add a little bit more detail they were cut longer than they needed to be and trim to length where they were supposed to fit on the armor more contact cement was used to adhere these parts they were then sculpted a little bit using the sanding bit in the rotary tool to bring them to their final shape in fact the rest of this part was rounded over using a grinding bit completing the front of the chest now I ended up gluing a strip of foam and some velcro to the edges of the chest that meet in the front the foam strip overlaps the two parts in the back and creates a nice place for the velcro to stick together this way the front chest armor can split into two parts the back of the chest Armour was done in a similar way as the front but is a little bit less complicated of course the base shape was cut out in floor mats just like before texture was added and several more layers were cut to be added on top of that using that six millimeter craft foam and yes of course there were plenty of tedious little squiggles to add as well the seam line for the back was glued together more contact cement for these big parts pressing the two large pieces together along the scene gives it a really nice gentle curve is completed the back and the chest parts could finally be assembled we carefully heated up the foam from the back remember that direct heat on those meat tenderizer textured areas will actually remove the texture these warmed parts were then muscled into shape by hand to get them close to what they look like when worn on the body parts were then temporarily duct-taped together and the armour was put onto a copy of my torso to check the fit you could of course do the same thing simply by wearing it and having a friend check the fit for you it pays to have some extra material along the sides here it's way easier to trim some of that extra foam away than to try and add more we draw some lines on the overlaps to figure out where to add velcro for the assembly the shoulders were marked and cut to length so the front and back would be flush with one another to hot glue the strips of velcro down the foam was sanded scored and heat gunned to create lots of extra texture for that hot glue then the glue is applied and the velcro was added velcro was added along the overlapping side panels and the shoulders this makes the armor come apart into three main parts that can be taken apart for travel I also like having that seam in the front it really does make the armor easier to take off without anyone else's help the final touch on all of these armor pieces were all of those little screw heads some of the smaller ones were done with a small sanding bit and the rotary tool the bit was pushed straight down into the foam and spun up to create a faux rivet the larger screw head circles were cut out using a sharp metal tomb this aluminum tube was sharpened using a rotary tool and then it was pressed into some two millimeter foam this cuts through the foam creating a perfect circle then a slot was cut into each one of them using an exacto knife there are approximately 50 of these little guys on the armor so have fun these screw heads were then all glued down to the armor and all of the appropriate places using super glue that is it for the foam fabrication portion of this build now clearly we have a lot more work to do and we will be tackling that in the next two videos that includes things like finishing and painting the armor and of course strapping it up so that you can wear it I tell you what - all of this armor crafting has got me super nostalgic for Tamriel if you have your own nostalgic Skyrim memories to share please post them online using the hashtag Skyrim memories kind of like the time that Brittany and me got in our drugger costumes and defended the elevators at Dragon Con like I said we have two more tutorial videos coming at you in the next couple of weeks as we march closer to October 28th and the release of Skyrim special edition and hey if you're looking to get into cosplay you're just getting started this is a great place to start like I said I've got a full set of blueprints linked down below they're totally free go ahead and download them print that out get some foam start cutting it out and gluing it together and before you know it you will have your own epic set of Skyrim armor hey thanks so much for checking out our video if you're working on some really cool Skyrim props or costumes let me know about it down in the comments below and like I said we have two other videos in this series already we've got the woot rad tutorial and the horned steel hemant tutorial all with their own blueprints again if you're looking for a fun project heading over watch those videos and give the bill to try and of course everything else you need to know about foam smithing is at punish'd props comm slash foam smithing you did the channel well go ahead and hit that subscribe button we have more of these videos coming out every single week everything you need to know about prop and costume making and you don't want to miss it thanks again for watching and I will see you all in Solitude