During our Wildfire Wednesday, Mason (Hiccup) managed a team of five (sometimes six) people and they pumped out just shy of a dozen armguards. And they were amazing! I, personally, have been scouring the internet for tutorials and patterns and instructions for how to make cool-looking armguards with household items and household tools.
I found nothing I liked.
Then Mason and Creed came up with an original pattern and it looks amazing. I am so impressed with what they have created.
I just watched the boys make them, I didn't actually help, so I would hope that they will correct me if i explain it wrong. Did you hear that Carter, Reuben, William, Creed, Mason? I'm counting on you to fact-check this post.
First things first, you've got to get your measurements. Find out the circumference of the actor's wrist and their forearm AND how long you want the armgaurd to be. We had various sizes for our characters ranging from Hockskull's touch-guy cuffs to Haggi's untra-long archer's guard.
First thing you need is the cardboard tube inside a carpet roll. This stuff isn't your run-of-the-mill cardboard. It's industrial and super tough. You'll need a saw to cut through it, Mark the length on the tube in pencil and then cut two identical cylinders (if you want one for each wrist). All the boys did a fair bit of the sawing, but Reuben (Tuff-Nut) in particular did so much. By the end, the skin between his thumb and pointer finger was rubbed raw. What a sport!
What's cool is that they had extra tubing so they cut enough for some of our extras to have them too. We are going to have the best outfitted cast this side of, well, anywhere.
The next step is to slice a triangular shape out of the armguard so that the wrist-end is narrower than the forearm end. I think the boys used utility knives for this part. Also, if you want the laces to show, you'll want a gap along the inside of the arm. Use the heat gun to warm the cardboard so you can easily shape it in your hands to fit the actor's wrist.
They had quite the system going with someone at each stage, keeping
lists and managing quality. It was really cool.
Now here's where it get a bit fuzzy, so help me out boys.
The next step is to punch the holes into the cardboard that will eventually hold the grommets/eyelets. The number of holes you punch on each side depends on how large your arm guard is and how tightly you want your laces wound. But you don't lace them yet. You still have to add the covering.
The covering could be fur or leather or just cloth if you wanted. We made sure the armguards matched the overall color scheme of each character's costume. Most of the time their boots and armguards were made of the same material. Haggi's, however was made of the same material as her quiver. I loved the look.
The material is cut a bit larger than the actual cuff and then glued on with gorilla wood glue. This is the stuff the boys discovered worked best. After it was glued on, holes were punched through the covering right through the cardboard holes.
Now it's time for the grommets /eyelets.
We tried both the eyelets and the grommets and I believe the boys decided that the grommets were better. The eyelets worked for those arm guards that were less bulky, but they broke apart the minute you used them with anything thick and furry. To raise the stakes, we didn't have enough eyelets for all of the armguards (we cleaned Walmart out) so we held our breath every time one broke.
The final step was to lace the armguard. We used parachute chord and melted the ends with our heat gun so it wouldn't unravel. They boys wouldn't let the girls see the finished armguards until the very end. They had them close their eyes then open once they had the armguard on. Their reactions were so neat. They were as impressed as I was.
Haggi and Astrid with their eyes closed.
It was incredible what they were able to do. Stay tuned. On Friday we're wearing these to the theatre. I can't wait to see everyone in their costumes.
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