Princess Zelda Armor – Pauldrons

Worbla.com is working with Element Creations for her Princess Zelda build, and she shared her first tutorial with us on creating Zelda’s iconic shoulder pauldrons out of Worbla’s Black and Red Art.

The first piece I decided to make for Zelda from Hyrule Warriors is the shoulder armor set. It took around half a Large sheet of worbla, some craft foam, and red worbla for the pauldron detailing.

I started with making the pauldrons. Those have a pretty basic shape, but they do represent a challenge when it comes to adding details and merge them all together to get a seamless look.
The way I did it is rather simple. I used craft foam as a base, then cut the desired shape. You can do that with your own pauldron for any other costumes. It’s always the same patterns, but with a little bit of tweaking.

I did used the sandwich method on these pieces because I want the to be extra solid and I also added some extra support. The pauldron comes in two craft foam pieces in order to get the curved look at the shoulder seam. I merge those two sandwiched pieces together and there was my Pauldron base!

Then the fun but most tedious part! The detailing was very fun and I had the chance to play with red worbla. I did use a tri bead roller to make the square cut on the details, then I placed them together on the pauldron trying to be the most accurate possible.

Zelda’s shoulder armor also have a sculpted detail right on the inside edge. I used red worbla, heated a bunch of it, then sculpted by hand the shape. This took a very long time to get it smooth and perfect and also, to make it look seamless.

The process for Zelda’s shoulder armor is pretty easy, but it takes a lot of time. It’s just a matter of having the desired shape and adding your sculpted details on top.

For the centre chest piece, I used the same process. I drafted it in craft foam, I sandwiched it, then added the details. I did use black worbla on this one. I wanted to test the versatility of the two and how both of them looks primed and painted.

The painting process was quite easy. I primed the whole armor with Mod Podge (one of my fav primers for black and red worbla), then I painted it all black, and used my favorite gold acrylic paint. To achieve the gradient/used look on the armor, I used a fluffy brush, and I slowly dabbled into the armor to gradually add paint and make a gradient effect. Without touching the inner corners, adding the gold gradually makes it looks like the armor is old and used. It’s a really fun process!

I added the gems at the end with some sewing thread.

Adding white highlights is optional for these pieces or any golden armor pieces. I did add them myself because I think it gives a cool look. And since Zelda is cartooned in Hyrule Warriors, I wanted it to pop out.

Sarah Kerrigan – Shoulder Armor

We asked Neocoolstar Cosplay to create a tutorial for us using Worbla’s Black Art, and she created this writeup on how she created her Shoulder Pauldron for Sarah Kerrigan from Star Craft 2.

Materials used:
Black Worbla
Foam
Paper
Pencil
Box Knife
Weldwood Contact Cement
Heat Gun
Googly Eyes

The Process:
Human Sarah Kerrigan doesn’t have a lot of reference photos, but before she became part of the Zerg, she was a Confederate ghost. Since Nova is a ghost in the same universe, you can use her armor design as reference. But I’ll be using the cut scenes in Star Craft 2 to get my references for Kerrigan’s armor.

I started out with a free template from PunishedProps.com, cut it out, and traced the pattern over foam.

Once the foam is cut, I use Weldwood Contact Cement to glue the two foam pieces together.
Pro Tip: To speed up the contact cement curing process, use a heat gun on the glue until it bubbles and dries.

I placed the glued foam on my shoulder to test how it would look relative to my body. Then I made marks to redefine the shape so it looked like Kerrigan’s armor piece. The tip is more pointed so I added more foam to the end with contact cement.

Now the piece is ready for details. Here I just eyeballed the design, drew it on the foam, and made shallow cuts with a box knife. I then heated up the cuts to open the foam. I also added googly eyes for the rivets.

Here was the difficult part. Worbla does well with uniform caved objects like spheres. My shoulder armor had caved and concave areas as well as a cut out which would be where I’d include transparent Worbla to the piece. Since I didn’t have transparent worbla at the time, I had to leave it as an open hole.

This whole process takes time and requires a bit of coaxing for the Worbla to wrap around certain areas. It did break in certain points where I’ve stretched it too thin, but I patched it with scrap Worbla since the new Worbla still maintains its self-stick property.


Here I finished wrapping worbla around the piece and took some of the extra worbla lying around to see if I can still roll it into a pipe which is typically used for decoration.

Here I’m cleaning underneath the Worbla where the cutout is. I did the wrap method since that’s the method I’m most familiar with and it has saved me money in the past. Also, people won’t typically see underneath your armor piece.

Here is the finished piece.

Worbla Backing Mother Molds- video

We’ve long thought that Worbla would be a great product to use to make lightweight mother molds, especially when weight or time are an issue – you can always recycle the Worbla when you’re done after all! And we’re so happy to see Lyz Brickley used Worbla for just that purpose in her recent casting video.

Photo by Carlos G Photography
Photo by Carlos G Photography

You can see the video of the whole process of creating her wolf pauldron here:

Demon Hunter Pauldrons

Chrix Design shared this detailed writeup covering the Chest Plate, Leg Armor, Pauldrons, Helmet, Shield and Bracer, and Crossbow of her Demon Hunter from Diablo.

DH shoulders
This have to be the most iconic piece of this armor and I wanted to make sure the looked badass – The pauldrons.

Again I would use worbla, but I wanted to see if I could make the base out of cardboard and then cover it up with worbla and details afterwards. Also on the larger pauldron I needed to make horns and a mean skull face. All this without making the shoulders too heavy (as mentioned before, I’m weak and don’t want to carry more than I need).

Small pauldron
I covered a balloon with paper mache and added details with cardboard.
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When it had dried I added details in foam.
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Tha pauldron has several indents, created by just cutting away some of the cardboard.
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When done I covered it up with worbla, bringing out the foam details as I go along. I used a small wooden stick to press down the worbla (e.g. a pencil or chopstick. I started on the top and worked my way to the sides.
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All wrapped up
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Thin strips of worbla was added along all edges to create dimensinon.
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Under the pauldron there are a couple of smaller armor pieces which were made much like the leg armors, by covering foam with worbla and shaping ot over a ball.
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This a part of the leg armor
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Large pauldron with horns
With the larger pauldron I had a little more touble to the the basic shape. But same method by using paper mache over a balloon and adding foam details in layers was essentially used.
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To get more depth to the mouth.
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Starting to cover it with worbla.
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Here I just used a blunt pencil to press in the worbla and bring out the details
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For the skull piece I first made the form out of clay, then used that as a mold to shape the worbla, so I would end up with a light weight shell.
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A hollow skull shape
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I filled the space with tin foil to help keet the shape up while I added the rest of the worbla.
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Before we move on with the skull details we need some horns. I build a basic grid out of cardboard.
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Filled that with expanding foam
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And carved out the shapes.
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To be able to get the horns off the pauldron when needed, I added bolts to the horn base. Then I could screw them in place when needed.
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Testing
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I used all my small left over pieces of worbla for teeth. The pieces were heated and shaped.
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Priming with gesso and glue, since I needed to get this peice pretty smooth.
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More testing with the chest piece I made earlier.
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I needed a small piece under this shoulder also.
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Painting will be covered in a seperate tutorial eventually.

Until then, enjoy the full effect of these enormous shoulders, I have to go sideways though the doors in our apartment.
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Part 3: Adjutant shoulder armor (StarCraft 2)

Chrisx Design recently shared with us her Adjunct costume from StarCraft 2. Not only is the costume itself stunning, but she also shared with us tutorials on how she made it!

The shoulder armor

Not the biggest piece, but here it is. The shoulder armor for my Adjutant.

Shoulders: again this is worbla wrapped around a cardboard base, and I shaped the top over an easter egg I had laying around.
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For the circular shape I used a hair product box and shaped the worbla over it.
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Added a few LED
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More Gesso.
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Silver base paint and black wash. Details with acrylic paint and silver marker. Four 3mm orange LED for each shoulder. Finished off with a clear coat.
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The shoulders are attached to the chest armor with this Velcro solution and D-rings, keeping both the chest, back and arms together.
This piece actually holds the chest and back armor together over the shoulders as well, so the shoulder armor won’t slide down because it is then attached to the upper body armor.
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Adjutant cosplay