Cardboard Breastplate

For this project you will need

• Cardboard boxes
• Scissors
• White acrylic paint
• Black acrylic paint
• Paint brushes
• Duct tape
• Plastic cups
• Paper towels

Optional:

• Q-tips
• Toothbrush
• Sponge

Select a piece of cardboard to use as the front panel. Make sure it's wide enough, it's better to go too big than too small. Cut a scoop for the neck, round the shoulders, and taper towards the bottom. It should resemble a faint heart shape.

Mix the white and black paint to create shades of grey. Variation is a good thing here, we're going for lots of texture. Paint strokes should be from top to bottom, up and down.

Now that we have a base, we're going to start adding the fun stuff! Using a smaller brush paint a thin fine line all the way around. The cardboard I chose had some damage from taking the tape off, so I'm going to use that to my advantage. Add a bit of black around in the cracks and any rips you might have in your piece. We're going to add onto that in the next step.

There are several different ways to get an aged effect. First ix a small amount of black paint with water in a cup. That will be what we use for everything.

Rust drips

Holding your armor vertically, take a brush and dip in the water mixture and press at the top. Using a larger brush will store more water and give you longer drips.

Stippling

Take some toilet paper or paper towels and dip in water mixture. Dab on armor until the desired effect is reached. It's a good idea to do a little at a time and build up lots of layers. The more texture the better. Q-tips can be a good way to add rivets or round details.

Splatter

Take either a toothbrush or a very large paintbrush and dip in plain black paint. We want it to be really loaded onto the brush and thick. Use your finger and quickly run your finger over the brush bristles. A small splatter pattern should form. Keep doing this until you get the look you want. A toothbrush works much better with this- brushes take a lot longer.

All of these techniques were used in the final picture.

You will need to do this all again to have a second panel. They will be attached together in the end.

Take duct tape and cut at least an 8" piece for each strap. Fold them over on themselves. These will be used to connect the front and back of the breastplate.

Although you don't have to make these, I took some extra scrap I had and made some additional armor for the shoulders. Any other decorations could be added at this stage.

Take your duct tape strips and tape them onto the front panel as seen in the picture. Take the other end and tape onto the back panel.

Now it's finished! Enjoy wearing it :)