Cloud's wolf shoulder pad

[Punksee]

I'm making a cloud costume for my cousin and need help with the shoulder pad.Should I make it out of wood then paint it metallic? I also need a pattern of some sort.Much is appreciated!

[The*Fallen*One*]

Well, one idea that I have would be to make a wire-frame in the shape of the pauldron (official name for the pad), and then stretch some fake leather over the top, gluing the extra ends underneath. That way you can also attach the wolf-head easier to the fabric, plus it will not be as heavy and bulky as wood can be. Plus if he bashes the shoulder into something like a wall, instead of damaging the wall, other cosplayers, or even destroying the pauldron itself, the wire frame might simply just bend with the impact, allowing it to be re-bent into shape. Plus having it being made out of leather, you can easily sew it onto the harness.

[Rokrin]

In addition to the comments above, if you REALLY want to be lazy, and you have a Chinatown near you, check out the shops there. If you're doing FF VII Advent Children, Advent Children's pretty big in china, and a lot of Chinatown places actually sell the vest with the shoulder pad. I just unstiched the seam on the shoulder pad and put wire in it, which allowed me to shape it and make it solid enough to look good.

[Feawen]

I used the back part of a hockey goalie mask (the part that isent actually connected to the rest of the helmet) added foam to it, added some fiberglass over the top to give it strength, sanded the faberglass REALY badly to make it look beat up, and then painted it with a really matte black pain which is actually supposed to go on brabeques and grills. The wolf can be made out of lots of things, i would advise some form of clay like sculpey, with a foil ball as a base for the head. wood sounds like a seriously bad idea to me. I find wood is hard to carve acurately and dossen't go metalic well.

[The*Fallen*One*]

Also for the wolf-head, you can always find a plastic dog/wolf toy that looks like the one on the pauldron, as well as being the proper size, and cut the head off, then just glue it onto the pauldron. Sounds kinda gruesome, but it worked for my Cerberus.

[paopu]

Hi :3

I'm also making Cloud-cosplay at the moment and for the wolf-head I use help of this site
http://www.amethyst-angel.com/castingguide2.html

That tutorial is a really good one and I recommend to use it ;P I've made now 4 different versions and I'm still not happy with the result :D

About the pauldron, I personally am gonna use material called Wonderflex. I've never used it but it sounds pretty useful and kinda easy.
You can buy Wonderflex from cosworx, for example :3
http://cosworx.com/home.php?cat=11

For making pauldron you can also take a balloon and blow it so it is correct size for shoulder and then mix paper and paste (I don't remember the correct name for this on english ;____;) and dab it on the balloon. When it is hard (this takes some time :D) you can pierce the balloon.

There are also other ways to do it but I find these the best ones :3

[Yunalicia]

Ametyst Angel has tutorials on how to make both the pauldron and the wolf head

Wolf Pendant (http://amethyst-angel.com/castingguide.html)
Pauldron (http://www.amethyst-angel.com/propcloset/aa_wonderflex_tutorial.html)