This is why we prototype
Before I cut my pieces out of EVA foam, I always cut a prototype out of cardboard, paper or posterboard. First of all, it gives me a chance to figure out how it is going to fit together and whether or not I need to assemble things in a very specific order. Secondly, it lets me see if I made any mistakes. I cut the pieces out and then I tape and hot glue it together to make sure it all works.
I am glad I did it this time. I made a mistake while dealing with That Part™. When I was adjusting the back side of it for the truncated cone part we made, I had the cone reversed. That made the “chipmunk cheek” part too long and it covered the fins.
I also hated how the shape curved. So we are going back to the drawing board to fix that one shape. Again. I decided I am going to separate the top of the shape so we can dictate its curve with a separate piece, and we are going to fix where the truncated cone should have been cut from That Part™ instead of added to it.
NOTE: As much as I would like to say I did this so I could show you how the iterations of pattern design work, I didn’t. I messed up. But it is part of the process and we work our way through it.
So, we are going to start up Inkscape. I am going to load our final export document because it’s got the parts we need and I can import the file from Armorsmith so we can get it done right, this time. We just have to overlay the two pieces and adjust the end of the chipmunk cheek.
I’m not going to go through this step by step this time. I think you have the basics down by now.
There were a couple other things I noticed, like the the fact that the cut out for the hose cowl curve wasn’t the right length (the chipmunk cheek had the same problem as well). I also didn’t like the torsion and tension I was going to have to put on the chipmunk cheek to get it to sit in place properly. Lastly, the edges of the visor don’t match up with the two pieces we have. So, we are going to fix these.
The hose cowl is going to be pretty easy to fix, so let’s do that first. Click on your selector tool in Inkscape.
Then click on the hose cowl part to select it. Then we want to duplicate it. I want to work on it without running the risk of messing up our work so far. There are 4 ways to do this. With it selected, you can select duplicate from the edit menu. You can right click on the part and select duplicate from the context menu. You can right click on the part in the layer menu and select duplicate. Or my favorite, with it selected, hit control-d.
After you duplicate it, let’s make a new layer and move our new cowl to that layer so we can keep everything straight.
Then I am going to use the pen tool to make a new path.
With the pen tool active, we are going to click on the beginning of that top line in the cut out, and then double click on the end of it.
Then we are going to activate our node tool. We need to see the nodes so we can change one from a Bezier so we can measure effectively.
With the node tool active, click on the hose cowl. Then click on this node to select it.
Then hit the “Make selected nodes corner” button. This will remove the Bezier handles and let us measure this a little easier.
Now, we want to drag our line segment over and rotate it so it is parallel to the first part of the line.
Then, we are going to activate the node tool and move the end of it to that node we converted to a corner.
Then go back to the selector tool, rotate the line segment so it is parallel to the second section of that line.
Next, we are going to activate the node tool again. Click on the cowl part and drag that end point to the end of our line segment. When you do, It’s going to mess up our geometry a bit.
So, I am going to conver those all to corners. Duplicate the original cowl piece again. Bring it down here to use for reference to fix this geometry. I made the duplicate red so you can see what I did.
Now, I am going to select the 4 nodes I turned into corners and click the “Make selected nodes symmetric” button. Alternately, You can alt-click on them with the node tool active. This is what we end up with.
NOTE: My girlfriend, Kit Foxglove, is a professional graphic artist. She laughed when I explained how I did this. I am self taught and not a graphic artist, let alone a professional one. I am requesting search terms so I can put videos on how to do this the way a professional would do this. Until then – you have been warned – this works, but is not best practices.
I am going to replace my original cowl piece with this one and save everything under a different name. We’ve got a bit more to do and I don’t want to break anything. Now, we need make the visor edges the same size. I am not sure how this got messed up, but it’s a simple fix.
NOTE: I should have checked this before prototyping, but I just didn’t think about it. However, since this whole series is about teaching you the ins and outs of cosplay, this is a good chance to show you how to adjust things as we go.
These are the steps I am going to take to make these edges match up:
1. Duplicate the “1 Center” piece.
2. Move it down away from the rest of our pieces so I can work more easily.
3. Change the stroke color to differentiate my guide from my working pieces.
4. Duplicate the “2 Visor” and “2 a Visor Top” pieces. I want to work with duplicates in case I mess something up.
5. Move them down to the work space near the “1 Center” piece.
6. Flip the “1 Center” piece horizontally. (Then flip it back later because I wasn’t thinking right)
7. Hide the “2 a Visor Top” piece.
8. Align the “1 Center” piece with the edge of the “2 visor piece”.
9. Use the node tool to adjust the points on the “2 Visor” piece.
10. Hide the “1 Center” piece and unhide the “2 a Visor Top” piece.
11. Use the node tool to adjust the points on the 2 a Visor Top” piece.
12. Delete the duplicate “1 Center”,original “2 Visor” and original “2 a Visor Top” pieces.
13. Move the new “2 Visor” and “2 a Visor Top” pieces into place.
And now, we come back to our old nemesis – That Part™. I feel that trying to contort the foam in such a wat that we get the shape we want is going to be problematic. Again, if you bend stuff too far, it puts a lot of tension into the build. That stress can cause it to come apart or bits to fail at the absolute wrong time. SO… we are going to rework That Part™ again.
Back to Armor smith we go!
We are going to:
1. Load our fitting file
2. Extract That Part™.
3. Use the Cut/Join tool to cut a part along the top to ease the pressure on the assembled parts. Specifically, we are going to cut some stuff apart so we can figure out the best shapes to use.
4. Go into inkscape and cut our parts apart using what we just figured out in Armorsmith.
5. Swap it in for the chipmunk cheek part in our pattern.
I didn’t bother to put the other side of the cheek together with my previous prototype run, so I am going to throw this on the laser cutter (just the three cheek parts) and see how this all fits together.
NOTE: For some reason, the cameras came out of sync at the end. Not sure why. Sorry.
With this protoyping session done, I have some final changes to make. I was recording the screen as I did it, but my computer crashed so I don’t have that screen capture. However, this is what we have now.
And that is the finished pattern for the helm. Next, we will be assembling this beast of a build. Between now and then, I will laser cut it. The next episode, however, will be a series of videos on how to properly cut EVA foam and how to assemble EVA foam parts. There are a lot of resources out there, so I won’t be reinventing the wheel with these and will provide resources from other makers who really know their stuff. In the meantime, enjoy the full time lapse of this episode.
December 1, 2025
