I’ll be honest, I didn’t normally call it the chest plate, instead it was fondly dubbed “space boobs” at some point in the construction phase…
Regardless it was one of the trickier portions to get right for a, *ahem* curvier gal such as myself. Many of the suggestions I found online involved taking a flat sheet of EVA foam and heat molding them over a curved base (like boob shaped bowls). Given the amount of curve I needed this probably wasn’t going to work.
Thankfully I was making the Mass Effect 3 version of the armor which comes with many more visible seam lines, so I used those to my advantage in the construction process.
Materials
- Dress form with the correct size and shaped boobs. I used a duct tape form, with one of my bras over the top stuffed with socks. This gave the right size and shape and was the base of molding.
- 2-way stretch fabric (I used some scrap jersey I had lying around).
- Paper to transfer the pattern to
- Tailors chalk (though pen/sharpie would work)
- Pins and stuff like that.
Construction
The first step is to draft the pattern. I used the jersey and draped it over the boobs on the form, making sure it was lying flat without wrinkles, stretching the fabric as needed. I did this because I figured the jersey would have a similar amount of stretch as the EVA foam could achieve when heat formed. I had two separate pieces of jersey in order to cover the whole breast while keeping the fabric wrinkle free.
I then drew on fabric where the seams would be for the armor. After removing it I flattened them and transferred these to paper, creating a pattern. I ended up adding more material to the pattern, figuring it was better to have them too big to start.
Next was the first draft, after cutting the sections out of EVA I molded each of them to have the right sort of curve. This was achieved by heating them with the heat gun and then smushing them into a bowl that had the right amount of curve. Final adjustments were done by heating them a little more and holding the sections to the dress form.
I did an initial fist test by taping it altogether, before finally hot gluing the whole thing. I ended up having to adjust some the sizing once it was hot glued which mostly involved slicing out a small section and then re-gluing the seam.
Hope that helps other chesty people make space boobs, don’t hesitate to send me any questions!
