Chanfron completion

 (Alternatively, as complete as I'm willing to share until the photoshoot. Unless I change my mind.)

The black biothane bridle and reins I ordered from Chick's Saddlery arrived within a week and I couldn't wait to get it on Skeets. I considered borrowing or buying a new snaffle and scissor clips for the reins so I wouldn't have to swap back and forth. Then I decided to just make the swap; she can ride in her black costume set up between now and July.

That mare of mine. She can be such a turd, but she can also be so patient. I'd adjusted the cheekpieces longer than I thought she'd need so that I wouldn't be yanking on her mouth if I'd made them too short. I slipped the bit in her mouth and pulled the crown over her ears while I held the bit steady. I realized then that I'd adjusted the cheek pieces way, way too long and when I slipped the crown up over her head I'd also slipped the brow band behind her ears.

Y'all, have you ever felt your horse roll their eyes at you?

It only took a few minutes to get her bridle adjusted properly and she stood like a champ the whole time. I'm not thrilled with the throat latch, but it could be because I have the headstall over her halter. Or, it could be that it's a stupid throat latch and I'll just have to deal with it.

I couldn't quite figure out how I was going to mold the chanfron to fit her face. I had a vague idea of making markings where it needed to bend and trying to remember how much it needed to bend. I was willing to give it a go. But then my brilliant husband just said, "why don't you use some of the wire we bought to form her wings?"

I'm glad I've got him to come up with simple solutions. I cut a couple of pieces of wire, taped it to the chanfron, and put the whole thing on Skeets' face to bend the wire to fit.

I didn't attach the chanfron to her bridle at all, just bent the wires until they held it on her face. She was a rock star. Just between us, I think she likes playing dress up.

Once I had it fitted to her, I took it in the house and hit it with the heat gun. Since I didn't want the nose portion to bend, I was careful to only heat the top part. 

I'd used 2mm foam to cut out the layers of armor, taped those to the wire and base, and heated them up to form them as well. Having used the wire to mold the base made it easy to use it again to mold the layers.

You can see that not everything lines up correctly, but I have a craft knife that'll fix that right up. :) I swerved away from the original reference picture when it came to putting it together. I figured (I don't know for a fact, so this might just be GunDiva lore) that armor would be layered over leather because the metal would rub the horses raw. With that piece of GunDiva lore in my head, I decided to add a piece of leather instead of going full metal.

Hobby Lobby had a roll of crafting leather that I picked up for about $20. I cut it out, smeared it and the base with tacky glue and stuck it on.

My original template out of the white foam didn't have side pieces long enough to reach the cheek pieces of the bridle, so I extended my base and covered the side pieces with leather as well.

I played around with the idea of simulating rivets by indenting the foam and painting them on, then I remembered I own stuff to do rivets from my scrapbooking days, so I dug out my old punch and bought some more rivets from Hobby Lobby and went about linking the layered pieces together before gluing them to the base.

Even though I'd formed the 2mm foam to the base, as soon as I painted it, it flattened out. It turned out not to be a problem, as it is still flexible enough to bend around the base. When I move onto doing her leg guards, I won't bother molding the 2mm for those. I know I can just glue them on and they'll take on the shape of the base.

The (mostly) finished project makes me all sorts of giddy. When I started this project, I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I'm so excited about it now!

Looks heavy, doesn't it? It weighs in a 1.5 ounces!

There are a few finishing touches that need to be done: Jay is going to help me weather the armor to give it a battle worn look, and I'm going to add velcro dots to the bridle attachment points. The black bridle I purchased will be primarily her "costume" bridle, so I don't mind permanently attaching velcro dots to it. Having those dots will make it easier for us to switch back and forth between a Skeeter-sus and a War Horse.

My goal is to have all of her armor complete by the end of this month, and I can spend April working on her Skeeter-sus wings. May will be time for me to start my own costumes, which will take a while.