Oh, more learning this year! While I was pretty pleased with how the final product looked, there were a zillion hurdles to overcome with this one.

Things I learned:
-Armor takes forever
-DO NOT save the attachment/testing phase til the day of the con. Getting all the straps and such attached and working took a few hours, and my saving it til the last minute casued me to completely miss cosplaying day 1 and entering the contest. I was pretty upset with myself. Lesson learned.
-If you use velcro, use insutrial strength velcro
-...You may as well just use buckles
-Choosing the axe over a helm was a good idea!
-Always be willing to accept help when it is offered, and ask when it is needed. I got yelled at for not wanting help on day 1 when I was struggling, lol.

Construction notes:
-Armor is Wonderflex/craft foam base with paperclay detailing
-The "leather" bits are actually upholstery vinyl, which not only looked good but was nice and durable
-The axe (the Butcher's Carver) is a pvc pipe handle with an axehead of rigid insulation foam and bone detailing of carved expanding foam. The "bones/skull" were then papier mached (they have a lovely toilet paper texture up close!) and part of the handle wrapped with "leather."
-The bra (and the sleeve that I didn't manage to get attached due to weight/time) was covered in "leather" and the boobie panels (lol) were both hand-linked with real metal scales from theringlord.com. The scaling parts alone cost me about $100; I used over 1500 8mm rings to put those suckers together over the course of ~25 hours.

All in all, a great experience, and I am quite proud of my first foray into armor and weapon-making. Thank you to everyone who helped!

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