The leg and boot armor was fairly simple to do, yet I messed it up and was forced to remake them a few times.  The resultant product was not ideal and I definitely wish I had been able to redo it one more time.  These are one more element of the costume I will be redoing for any future use.  So, here's what I used and how I messed up.




So, Eiger's armor plates on the legs and boots consist of knee pads and plates over the boots.  These are relatively small elements of the costume and didn't take much time.  Well, they wouldn't have if I had constructed them correctly.  The boot have a coffin lid shaped plates on the front/shin and plates on the back that curve around the calf ever so slightly protruding from the boot itself.  The knee pads are isogonal hexagons tapering at the bottom.

Starting with the shin guards, and the ones that caused the most frustration, I measured around the front of the boots, as I could not rely on the source photo for anything but the general shape due to how badly I messed up the boots.  This resulted in the guards looking thicker, wider, and more, well, awkward then they should have been.  This misshapeness was exacerbated when the two were seen together due to the lack of symmetry between boots.  I created the first attempt with 1/2 EVA foam by simply cutting, shaping, and gluing.  After making one and holding it in place on the boot it just looked terrible.  It jutted from the boot far too much and made it look like something that looked more like the supports they put on people with strained ankles.  It was just bad.  I had to rethink my approach to both attempt to slim down the plate itself and try to create an illusion of a slimmer boot.  To do this I made a slightly less wide shape with an inverted curve cut into the bottom.  The slimmer shape allowed for a more defined distinction between armor and boot and the inverted curve would allow me to angle the plate into the ankle of the boot creating the illusion of the boot's bulk actually being the armor plating.  This worked to a certain degree, but I forgot a few things.  The biggest being the fact that the top of the 'coffin' slants backwards toward the shin.  I cut, beveled, and reattached the top and felt it heading in the right direction.  However, that slant greatly exaggerated the distance between the boot and the armor making it look like a shelf at the top of the boot instead of a good fit.  This was made worse by the thickness of foam.  At this point, I decided to redo it once more with poster/foamboard.  I increased the depth of the inverted curve at the bottom of the plate and lengthened the height of the pieces to allow the inward slanting top to go over the lip of the boot.  This greatly diminished the bulk of the plate and even slimmed the appearance of the boots a bit.  The shape still wasn't good and I wasn't happy with it, but that comes down to the shape of the boot more than anything else.  I covered the face of the plates with black craft foam as I didn't like the uneven surface that resulted both from my frustration and poor finishing due to using the wrong adhesive.  This created a softer appearance and an ever so slight curve that I only managed to kind of hide with painting techniques.

Next was the knee pads.  Taking what I learned from the shin armor, I started with foamboard.  I measured my knee and compared it to the source pictures to come up with a fairly good estimation of the dimensions needed.  I then cut and shaped and it looked pretty accurate.  Once I finished that, I covered the outside with craftfoam both for the reasons I did the same with the boot armor and to match their finish.  On I lined the inside with craftfoam for a bit of cushioning.  I then burned in some slots angled outward.  While the foam and plastic from these slots were still hot, I slid one inch metal webbing loops into these slots.  The cooling plastic and foam did a great job of solidifying these items in place made stronger by filling the gaps in the top with hot glue until even with the inside of the knee pad.  After this, I measured the circumference leg at the strapping point and created a strap with buckles to attach the pad to my leg.  After trying this on, I felt my knee getting sore against the inside face of the pad.  I added a scrap square of EVA foam for a bit of padding and the shaping was done.  Then I was done.

I decided not to create the calf guards due to the already chunkiness of the boots and the issues I had with the shin guards.  The boots appeared a lot less accurate and a bit silly as a result.  But, you live and learn.

For painting, I sprayed a few coats of plastidip, followed with a super light dusting of a dark metallic to give it some sheen, and finished with highlights in silver and white.

In the end, I think the kneepads work a treat and the shin guards were a disappointment.  Though I do believe the bulk of the issues with the shin guards stem from the poorly constructed boots.  If/when I redo these, I will build the armor plates into the boots themselves.  With better constructed boots and armor built into the shape the boots will be much slimmer, more accurate, and just look better.