furtech | New Komamura Armor and FANTASTIC pics!

[Okay, so these won't be in chronological order: I'm just so excited by these pictures by

lionboogy !]

Background: I made the mistake of mixing metallic powder tints with latex to coat the armor the first time. Latex is cheaper and easier to work with than tool dip, but unfortunately I discovered that metal powder tints cause latex to rot incredibly fast-- like less than a month and most of the armor was a gooey mess. I am nowhere -near- the prop-master that Lionel is and I'd been putting off re-doing the armor for some time. Anime L.A. came up and I had some time, so I used that to propel me into production again.

koma-iba

This time I made improvements over the original helmet and shoulder guards: I let the ribbing go across the eye-hole (with a lot of careful checking to make sure I still had -some-vision, as I wear the fox head under the mask and I have to be able to see through two teeny sets of holes). This time I made the fancier version of Komamura's shoulder guards: they're more ornate and curvy. And I hemmed the hakama (so I didn't have to hike them up like a nun when I walked). Overall I'm very happy with how they turned out!

Another incentive to get Komamura finished was that

waynekaa agreed to do Komamura's Vice-Captain, Iba. Naturally he did a fantastic job on that character and the wimmen were all over his studly bare chest!

Here's what the two characters look like in the Manga:

koma-iba

Wayne and I ran into Lionel at the con and we were very fortunate that he had time for an impromptu photo shoot! They turned out fantastic and really made our costumes shine! Thanks again, Lionel!!!

Here are more pics:
Komamura and his loyal aid, Iba