Cosplay Tutorial: Wonderflex Arm Bands!

While researching what type of material to use for armor, I came across Kamui Cosplay’s blog, which blew me away! Her craftsmanship and attention to detail is amazing and her WOW cosplays are to die for! Turns out she uses a lot of Wonderflex in her costumes. So after doing some reading up on the stuff, I decided to buy a large roll of Wonderflex (free shipping too) since I figured it might come in handy for future cosplays.Basically the stuff is hard plastic that is malleable when heated. Once you heat it, you can bend it, sculpt it, whatever. And once it cools down, it’s hard plastic again! And you don’t even need a fancy heat gun. I found that a regular blow dryer worked fine. I knew that I definitely wanted to make the She-ra head piece and arm bands out of Wonderflex since those items needed to look for stiff and metal-like.

To make the arm bands, I started by wrapping some paper around my arms in the desired shape. This took a few trial and errors since I didn’t have someone to help me. :( I ended up with a “house” looking shape for these. I also needed to make sure they were not too tight for me to slip my hands in/out of since they weren’t going to have any clasps to open/close them.

Next, I taped it with some regular masking tape to hold it together while I applied heat.

Once you start using the blowdryer, you’ll feel the wonderflex starting to soften. It still remains pretty firm, but can definitely get really flimsy if you keep it under heat for a while. One of the best things about Wonderflex is that it sticks to itself! So one you apply the heat, you can seal the two ends of the arm band together just by pressing down.