The Shield of (rusty) Justice

In case you are unfamiliar with the genre known as Post-Apocalyptic, here’s the run down: Civilization has collapsed, and the few remaining humans must fight to survive by making armor and weapons out of whatever they can scavenge. Some common causes of the end of civilization (apocalypse) could be nuclear war/radiation, robot takeover, zombie outbreak, natural disaster, etc. Some examples of the post-apocalyptic genre would be Mad Max, Fallout, Water World, Terminator, and The Matrix. We have yet to determine the exact cause of the calamity in our story, but I do know that our armor will feature lots of car parts. Case in point is our first piece: The Hubcap Shield, perfect for fending off zombies, mutants, raiders, and viruses!

The great thing about doing Post-Apocalyptic cosplay is that it’s cheap! Since everything is made from junk, it’s pretty affordable. One good place to find material are thrift stores. I visited one such local store the other day and came across this hubcap for $5.

It looks new and shiny (except for the few scratches I put in it), but we want to make it look old and rusty. It’s all about the rust in Post-Apoc cosplay. The problem with this hubcap is that it’s not really metal, it’s made of plastic. I’ll show you how to really rust metal in another post, but for this piece, I used rust paint.

It was a cool 2 part paint set that I found at a craft store that worked really well. I’m no expert rust painter, this stuff just looks good.

The paint came with 2 bottles, a dark rust that was really runny, and a lighter one that was really thick. By mixing the 2 together you can get streaks that look really nice, and they are both kinda grainy to give it some texture. Very nice effect.

I tried to put more of the red rust in holes and crevices.

Here it is finished painting. Now to make a shield out of it!

I drilled some holes in it, and used some nylon webbing for straps, then used some rusty nuts and bolts to hold it in place. Pretty rudimentary, but that’s the point, isn’t it?

I wanted to make some padding between my arm and the shield, so I cut out a piece of EVA foam (great stuff, that’s what all our scifi armor was made of) to fit. Then I wrapped it in a cut up old tshirt that I dirtied up real good and hot glued onto it.

Here it is, all assembled. Captain America’s totes jelly. Vibranium? Player, please. We got rustoleum. I may end up rusting the back if I have time. But that’s it for now. Let me know what you think in the comments, and let me know what you’d like to see on the blog. My first time doing something like this, so any suggestions are welcome.