Down and Dirty, Two Hour, Army of Darkness, Ash's Medieval Mechanical Hand

The library where I work is holding its “Celebration of Fandom”, The Winter Convention tomorrow. I’ve decided to dress up as S-Mart Ash again for the event. Instead of my “Before He Goes To The Cabin In The Woods” cosplay concept, I decided to do an ultra-quick, down and dirty build of the medieval armored hand so I would be Ash at the end of Army of Darkness (but still before the final confrontation with the Deadite… sorry, no firearms in the library, even fake ones).

I put into action something I always wanted to do. The summer before Suicide Squad came out DC and Warner Brothers had a cosplay contest for people to enter to win tickets to the premiere. I attempted to get a Captain Boomerang costume together but it is IMPOSSIBLE to find leather coats at Goodwill or the Salvation Army during the summer. I also didn’t want to shell out $25.00 - $70.00 for a chainmail glove, so I never got the costume together in time for the contest (though I have collected costume pieces since then). And I came up with an idea to make a much cheaper chainmail glove, which will now be disclosed in this Instructable.

The Glove

I started off with the cheapest work glove I could find from

Dollar Tree. A $1.00 pair of work gloves that fit comfortably.

I originally tried to deny the destiny of how I would create the chain mail effect. I tried drawing a chain mail pattern onto the glove with a silver Sharpie, but the tip wasn’t fine enough and I was dissatisfied, so I would indeed act upon my vision – to create the chain mail effect using an iron-on transfer.

Creating Chain Mail

I found a photo of a chain mail glove and did some digital manipulation with the positively ancient software that I use (iPhotoExpress that I got for free with my Windows 98 computer) and created an 8.5” x 11” sheet of chain mail.

Here is the link to the full size pattern via Deviant Art:

https://djmunsettled.deviantart.com/art/Chain-Mail...

I have the distinct advantage of having a professional T-shirt iron at my disposal, purchased when one of the last Daffy Dan's went out of business.

Anyone remember Daffy Dan's? "If it doesn't have a DD on the sleeve, it's just underwear."

Back to the present.

I printed up my transfer onto the color T-shirt transfer. I predominantly (almost exclusively) wear black or colored T-shirts so I buy the pricier transfers required for color T-shirts. It is an entirely different printing process than the transfers for white T-shirts (where you usually have to flip the image). If you use the other type of transfer paper this will work and it doesn’t matter if the picture is reversed.

Kudos to Avery for redesigning the transfers since I last purchased them. The backing of the transfer, that you have to peel off before ironing is no longer the pain in the ass that it used to be and is now an actual pleasure to peel off.

I ironed the transfer onto an old black T-shirt and cut it out..

Fingers

I cut the mail into two strips and wrapped the fabric around

each finger and cut the pieces to length. Original I had bought stretchable fabric glue and was going to glue the pieces of fabric on top the glove and pin them in place, but Mister Impatient that I am, I ended up just spraying the glove with Locktite spray cement, then spraying the individual pieces with spray cement and then wrapping each individual finger, wearing the right glove on my left hand and doing all of the work with just my right hand. Tricky, but doable.

Once I had all the fingers wrapped I trimmed the ends of the fabric so that there was about a quarter of an inch sticking up beyond the finger tip of each finger. I then used the low temperature setting on my glue gun and put glue along the inside edge of the chain mail finger tubes. I was then able to shape the finger tips with my bare hand.

I think the interior chain mail of the fingers is my favorite part of the glove (even though it will be the least seen).

Patterns

I think the interior chain mail of the fingers is my favorite

part of the glove (even though it will be the least seen).

I created patterns for the armor pieces based on excellent photos I found at:

http://evildeadchainsaws.com/website/index2.html

I was originally going to cut each individual piece out of foam and do all of the detail work, but for the down and dirty version I took a different route.

I printed out the patterns on regular paper.

Here are the patterns that I created:

https://djmunsettled.deviantart.com/art/Ash-Hand-T...

The downloaded images should be scaled to 8.5” x 11”.

I spray glued them onto 3mm thick sheets of grey craft foam and cut them out with just a pair of scissors. I scored the edges of the armor plates on the fingers with a hobby knife to give them a bit of actual dimension.

Armor Plating

I then just hot glued the pieces onto the glove (again using the low heart setting since my hand was in the glove).

From the glove I wasn't using I cut off a piece of fabric for the weird thumb piece (my design is very imprecise but close enough).

I highlighted parts with my silver Sharpie. I put hot glue on the fabric that didn’t get covered with the chain mail and when it dried I colored it in with the silver Sharpie.

It took less than two hours to construct (this Instructable took longer to write) and I’m happy I’ll have it to wear tomorrow. Couldn’t take a descent selfie so I’ll hopefully get someone to take a picture of me tomorrow.

Just in the mood to post this now.

I should change my moniker to Mister Impatient.

Enjoy

LIVE FROM WINTER CONVENTION

And here I am, live from the Winter Convention, Saturday, March 10, 2018, 12:00 pm.