the winter soldier's arm

The Winter Soldier's Arm - I recently made a metal arm for my Winter Soldier cosplay and took pictures step by step. So here's a tutorial showing how I did it! I wanted an easy/fuzzy arm to make and light/elastic to make, so I came up with a method using foam and duct tape.

This is a gymnastics/cheer top I got from Cheerzone. I like that it fits well under a swimsuit or armor and the fabric has a plastic-like feel and attaches easily. And the color is perfect, as is the little piece of fabric that shows around the inner joints.

The Winter Soldier's Arm

My first metal arm was made to look like my own arm. For version 2.0, I want the screen to be more clear and have muscles to look more masculine. I cut an old bra in half and used one of the cups to cover my upper arm/shoulder area (along with some shoulders for a nice shape).

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To top it all off, I cut off the right sleeve and zipped it up the front.

And that is the basis of the arm! I like to avoid using straps or harnesses for the arms, but help with chest compressions. :)

In the next step, you'll see that I'm wearing a muscular gymnastics top and a thin, fitted, long-sleeved t-shirt. This is very important. I didn't do this when I built my first arm and it ended up too tight. Version 2.0 is compatible without breaking my browsing. Hooray!

To help me shape the panels, I started by taping my left arm. First, my left arm was wrapped in a plastic bag to protect the gymnastic top.

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Then I wrapped my arm in about 3 layers of the widest masking tape I could find (with the help of...I don't think you can do this unless you have a superhuman level of flexibility you). When you wrapped my wrist I made sure it was wide enough to slide my hand in and out.

After casting the arm, I started painting the metal plate pattern. I used many references to look at the arm from all angles and adapt the pattern to my own arm. I find it easier to start with a few key points like stars and elbows.

I painted most of the patterns myself by looking in the mirror. But it's easier if you have someone to help you. The final model looks like this:

After I painted the pattern, I removed the cast by sliding my arm away from it (you can also do this by cutting it from the inner wrist to the armpit and then taping again). Then I filled the ice cream with a plastic bag and sealed the ends.

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If you want, you can take a template by hand first and draw a pattern on it. But I think it helps to draw / remove the cast while you're making it, so you can test how the movement of joints like your elbows and shoulders / scars can affect the design.

I used a plastic shopping bag to transfer the arm casting mold so it would stretch. A thinner, more transparent plastic bag is better.

I cut each plastic bag into a flat, rectangular shape. Then I wrapped it around one part of the arm and used straight pins to hold it in place. I wrote the pattern on the shopping bag using a marker.

(This step is a great time to check fit and correct mistakes in the original pattern! You can see I did it manually below.)

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After I finished tracing each section on the plastic bag, I cut it around the outer edge. Here's a sample before and after I cut it:

The outer edge of the lower arm, the elbow and the upper arm are made to overlap slightly with the inner arm from the wrist to the armpit. The parts of the model in thick green indicate the areas that must be left between the plates for joint movement.

After tracing and cutting my pieces I started transferring them to a large sheet of 2mm foam. I did this by pressing a mark along the entire outer edge of each section, then lifting slightly to mark the corner of each panel. Then I connected the corners with free lines.

It's kind of a complicated process, but the most important thing is to match the sheets in each section. So if you don't move the model correctly, it doesn't matter if the outer edges of the entire section are correct.

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After transferring the pattern to the foam, I cut out each section, and then cut out each panel. As you can see from the previous several pictures, I have numbered the plates and labeled the front and back sides. This helps to ensure that everything is lined up correctly.

When I cut each sheet I made sure to only cut once on each side to fit the pieces together like a puzzle.

After I cut all the panels, I covered each one with metallic silver tape to give it that metallic look.

I was careful to keep the grain of the tape in a horizontal direction on each plate. (Think of it as if you were wrapping tape around your arm.) And I tried to make sure that the tape covered each plate as much as possible without disturbing it.

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In some cases, such as the example shown above, the width of the tape is not enough to cover the entire surface of the plate. In these cases, I added another piece of tape that was slightly tight at first, against the grain for a smooth transition.

After closing the panel, I cut off the excess tape, leaving a small edge to fold over. This is to ensure that no raw edges of the craft foam will extend through the finished sleeve.

Then I repeated the process for all the other panels. I worked on each section from bottom to top, assembling them to check fit as I went.

In the process, the tape stuck to the scissors, so I stopped to clean them every so often by thoroughly wiping the blades with an alcohol cotton ball.

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After all the panels were closed and each section was redone, I placed the sections in full sleeve order. Here is the final configuration with symbols and arrows to show how the arm parts are assembled:

Then, the back of each section was covered with another roll of paper and half of my favorite cosplay supply: double sided tape!

I flipped each section over to reveal the back. Then, pressing the edges of the panel firmly, I covered the back with vertical tape.

Then I cut the extra edges, working from the front to make sure it was right.

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(BTW, these pictures are from the half-arm I built for my Civil War Bucky, which is why this episode looks a little different than the previous picture of the full-arm.)

When I built my first arm, I applied double sided tape to the back of each plate, just like I did with the front metal mounting. For version 2.0, all sections are merged. A single plate that covers the split elbow. Connecting the panels made version 2.0 more powerful and less prone to power outages. And because the double-sided tape creates a removable seal, this method does not affect movement!

To put my hands together, I wore my silver gymnastics top (again, with a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath to prevent the last outfit from being too tight).

I then removed the backing from the double sided tape on each section and pressed it to my left arm. I started at the elbow and worked my way up and then down. The top part of the lower arm touches the lower edge of the elbow and the end of the first part of the upper arm touches the upper edge. Each section that goes up (second upper arm section, armpit section, shoulder section) overlaps slightly with the section below it.

Winter Soldier's Arm By Cyril002 On Deviantart

As with the casting process, I have help with the assembly and I strongly advise you not to try to do it yourself. I attached my first arm to my full arm, not the elbow at all