Wonder Woman Cosplay: Shield, Bracers, Shin Guard, Harness

My Daughter wants to have a superhero birthday party, what could be better than having a Wonder Woman costume for her. We had purchased the costume, but some of the props are not as good, so I decided to embark on some research to make a set of props that are looks much better than what comes with the costumes. All in all it took me one week, long sleepless night to complete it all, but I am quite happy with the result. So I thought why not share this with everyone else so that everyone can benefit from this.

Thanks to other contributor Seamster, I found a instructions to make the shield. Here are his instructables to make Captain America shield.

Here are the list of materials used:

- Cardboard (I used recycled chocolate wafers box)

- Fibreglass cloth

- Epoxy resin

- Gold spray pain

- Colouring pastel

Tools used:

- Acto knife

- Hot glue gun

Just a note, I scale the shield to 75% when during the printing so that it scale for my daughter.

It is important to follow his guide, by having 20 piece and glued 5 piece together to make the quarter shield. Once I am happy with the shape, I proceed to make the shield stronger by using the fibreglass resin.

To coat the epoxy resin, make sure you mix only a small amount (100ml) because the resin dried within 20 - 30 minutes. And it is very sticky so make sure you wear gloves and also smell quite strong.

Cut the fibre glass cloth the size of the inner shield. Apply the first coat of resin evenly on the inside of the shield, then put the fibre glass cloth and dab the rest of resin to make sure there is no air bubbles and also all fibreglass cloth is covered with the resin. Make sure you work in the outside or well ventilated area. I used 200 ml of resin to cover the inside of the shield. I let the resin dry for 24 hours.

Once it dries, you will have a stronger shield. Then I apply the resin on top of the shield, this time I only use 100ml of resin because I only use the fibreglass on the inside and not on the outside. I also let it dry for 24 hours.

Then the fun part begin, I spray pain the shield using the gold spray paint to get the shiny effect. I wanted to apply Bondo and continue with the sanding step, but because I am running out of time, I did some short cut. I printed a copy of the reference shield (inner circle) on a piece of A4 paper and then stick it to the middle of the shield. Then I am struggling to find a pen that can draw on the gold metallic surface. I used gold pen, silver pen, marker, sharpie, and all failed to dry on the surface. Finally my daughter suggest that I should try the crayon, and voila it works like magic. And we both painted the Shield using the reference photo and I am quite happy with the result.

I used Seamster's instructables to make the holder in the inside of the shield.

First I took a few measurement from my daughter.

- The first piece is from her left shoulder to her right waist from the front, this is about 45 cm

- The second piece is from her left shoulder to the middle of waist from the back, this is where the sword will be stored, this measure about 36 cm

- The third measurement is from her left waist to her right waist from the back, this measure is around 38 cm.

- The fourth measurement is from about 2/3 of the first piece to the left waist, measured from the front, this is about 30 cm.

- The fifth measurement is from 1/4 from the top down vertical to the waist at the back, this measure about 23 cm.

The fourth and the fifth measurement is much easier done after all the three piece had been connected. I used the leather rivets to punch hole and then connect it using the nuts and bolt. There is a bit of trial and error, to made this piece. I didn't have chance to make the detailing on left and right side. But I included the drawing in case you want to make it.

This piece took me the longest because of dealing with thick leather, I should have use the right tools to punch holes and proper leather rivets which will save a lot of time and double work.

The base of the shin guard is a cardboard, recycle from cereal boxes or any other thick material. Then I trace this over to Evo foam, and cut the pieces out with a gap of about 1-2 mm to make a small gap between all the pieces when it is glued to the cardboard. Do the same with the back piece and make another pair for the other leg.

To finish off the shin guard, I spray painted this with red coloured paint and alternate this with gold paint. I purposely didn't saturate the pain to give a good mixture of red and gold. I did this a couple of time, until it produces the desired effect that I like.

Then the next step is to slice a few holes and put a elastic band connecting the front part and the back part so that both are connected and can be stretched a little to allow easy wearing. I loop the elastic band and stitch it using a string.

The material I used for the bracers are the toilet paper roll. Using the template that I had found on the internet, I trace it over the roll, and then trace it again on the evo foam. Using the same technique as the shin guard, I spray painted with gold and red for some part and gold for the rest.

I use the the cardboard as the base for the headband. Then I spray painted the base with gold colour along with the others while painting the inner part of the shield. Once the paint is dry, I cut pieces of leather to form the pattern and dray the star in the middle using the silver coloured pen. Then I tied the rubber band at both end.

Now that everything is ready, it is time to PARTY!. I hope you had enjoy reading this, as much as I do making them. If you like this, please drop me a line, and if you have any questions, please let me know. I didn't manage to document some of the things that I did in a rush due to time restriction to get this ready for my Daughter's party.

There are additional things that I didn't end up finishing due to the time constrain, but I would like to list them out here, in case it is useful for other people.

- Further improvement can be done on the shield to make it stronger to use bondo and then sand the surface off to make it much smoother.

- Additional knee guard to make it closer to studio version of the costume and adding the high platform shoe to complete the shin guard.

- Better replica copy of the sword using a few layers of the evo foam and etched the character as similar to the studio version of the sword.

- Body Armour with reinforced fibre glass epoxy and real leather.