Leather Vest Armour: One Piece Wet-Forming for Female Shape

I’m no expert in this but pleased with how this worked out, so thought I would share!  This includes making the custom pattern, cutting and fitting the shape, wet forming the leather, then option extras of engraving, rivets and fur.

Due to rubbish rural wifi I can only post a few photos at once, here goes.

The finished armour vest!




Materials List:

Leather (about 2-2.5 mm thick) I used offcuts you can pick up quite cheaply
Masking tape (builders tape?)
Big sharp scissors for leather, small sharp scissors for cutting the pattern off the figure
A body! **Using a 17b TBLeague body here.
Cling film/glad wrap
Cardboard for the pattern (cereal packet type is good)
Pens for marking
Hot water in a bowl
Patience

Optional Extras:
Engraving pen (cheap, $10-15 on those big usual sites; battery powered and can engrave wood/glass etc)
Tiny rivets - I used 1mm internal diameter, setting tool. (I looked up the history of rivets after I’d already used them and this blows any historical accuracy, but oh well…..)
Faux fur and glue
Thin but strong cord/thread for lacing

To begin - wrap the body torso in cling film. Then wrap with masking tape covering all the area you want your armour to go.

Using a biro pen, draw the armour shape. I wanted as few joins as possible so kept it as one piece.

Then, very very carefully cut along the seams with tiny scissors. I did cut one armpit a little, poor woman…. Carefully peel off the shell when done.

Once the shell is off the body, trim to the shape and style you want. I then put it back on the body to check for fit etc.






Next stage is squishing the shell as flat and even as possible, to draw around the template on cardboard.

Cut out and then draw around the template on your leather. I recommend drawing on the wrong side (inside/fluffy side) to hide any marks.

I put the cut out leather inside-out on the body and refined the side seams to be more even; it’s easy to draw on it while on the body to get a better custom fit to the curves. So I trimmed some extra off the sides.

Next, the wet forming. This soaks the leather to take on a new shape and when dry, it will hold it.

Soak leather for at least 30 minutes - 1 hour. Meanwhile, wrap figure in cling film again to protect from any dye transfer.

Then when the leather is fully soaked, I put it over the body and used masking tape the wrong way up (ie sticky side up, not down) to firstly secure the back shaped to the torso. That’s the easier bit.

Then, some patience and shaping is required to try and gradually tape the front down quite firmly, shaped to the chest but while trying to keep any wrinkles smoothed out. I needed both hands for this to stop bunching around the armpit, so didn’t get any in-between photos, but hopefully it makes sense!

Then leave to dry. As I’d wrapped mine so tight in many layers, I left it a week just to make sure.

And the moment of truth - would it work, had it dried, would it hold or be a bunched-up mess…? All good - immediately looked like a good shape to me!






As I wanted viking armour, I decided to try an engraving pen for the first time. A test on some scrap leather showed it was really easy - it is very controllable and makes a nice clear impression. So for inspiration, I grabbed my book from my home town museum back in the UK to find some viking patterns. A bit of artistic licence and some runes added.

Happy with the engraving I did some leather leg and arm pieces too - not wet-formed as the leather is soft enough to bend around limbs.






Then I used an awl to make the holes for lacing.

Added rivets for lacing stability…lets gloss over the historical inaccuracy…

And because I can’t stop faffing with stuff, I decided to add some fur trim around the arm holes and at the bottom. I cut thin strips of faux fur carefully to avoid cutting the pile. Then using tiny scissors, I cut off half the length of hair so that I had a flat surface for glueing, while still showing the fur effect. It’s cold in the north!

And the finale, except she needs shoes! I will try some leather options but it’s a pain trying to work out the construction and sewing real leather nicely is really hard. I sewed up a tunic and trousers to go under the armour, made of shot silk which is surprisingly easy to sew.

Really happy with the final outcome, I love that the wet-forming process really works and holds its shape. Would be much easier for a male torso, hopefully I will get to that sometime.

Would love to hear or see if others have worked with leather, made armour, have any tricks and tips for wet-forming etc!?

Clear and detailed tutorial! Thank you for taking the time to document and share the process with such clarity!

Yes! Great that you did this for us. Your armor looks so soft and perfect. And i need to find such small rivets.

Thanks for this tutorial. Will be checking it out when I'm doing such a thing for sure

Thank you for the informative and inspiring tutorial. And it worked out beautifully! I'm tempted to follow in your footsteps.
By the way, no WiFi in the Shire? Inconceivable!

What an excellent tutorial. Beautiful work.