I love Bucky Barnes so I'm doing a cosplay (part 1)

We finally got into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't know why it took this long because I have so many friends that are into Marvel. Maybe it's just because there are so many movies that we didn't know where to start, but this summer, we've jumped in head first. And I love Bucky Barnes. :)

Soooooo, I decided to do a cosplay.
First things first. The arm. Whether it's a silver arm designed by evil Dr. Zola or a cool vibranium arm (happy punch in the feels - Steve's shield and Bucky's arm now match 💖 ) designed in Wakanda, I needed to figure out how to make a convincing metal arm.
My sister has done a lot of research in the world of cosplay armor, so I went to her first to get help with making the arm. After looking at several other costumers recreations, we decided to make the arm out of EVA foam. (other options included warbla, or painted fabric, but we chose not to do those because warbla is too expensive, and painted fabric... not very realistic.)
 Here is our Prototype:
We started by wrapping my *super skinny noodle* arm in saran wrap and duct tape to make a pattern.

Next, my amazing sister freehanded the design from the first arm (from the Winter Soldier) onto the duct tape. I was in a dilemma on whether I should do the Winter Soldier arm or the new Vibranium arm. The vibranium arm is pretty cool, but the Winter Soldier arm is much more iconic. For now, we decided to do the first arm.

Next, we *carefully* cut the pattern off of my arm.

We cut out each individual piece, and cut them out on EVA foam.

I made a snug fitting sleeve out of an old T-shirt to be the base of the arm. We hot glued each of the pieces onto the sleeve to make the arm.

(forgive the EVA/pattern scrap mess in the back :) )

Aaaaaaand this is what it looks like:

My amazing sister made the elbow joint moveable which I'm very thankful for...

Next, paint job! It was amazing how a coat of paint really made the arm come to life so to speak.

Because this is just a prototype, we painted it gold (because that's the only metallic paint we had on hand. Or on arm ;) )

So! I'm really excited with how the arm turned out. We've made notes of what we'll change when we make the real arm, but overall, our prototype was very successful. 

Now I know that this arm is *considerably* smaller than Bucky's beefy arm, but will I ever be the size of a Russian Assasin Supersoldier? I don't think so. So let's just call this my little fangirl appreciation for one of my favorite Marvel characters. ♡

Thanks for reading!!

Coming soon: making Bucky's leather jacket, & a ton of knives, guns, and other Supersoldier gear ;)