This post falls into the category of ideas that have been around a while but are new to me. I recently stumbled across an old (but still useful) tutorial on Juniper’s Hunter about using a bra for the basis of a breastplate. The breastplate was part of a valkyrie costume she made for Halloween in 2012 and she built the entire thing around a bra coated in epoxy. This tutorial inspired her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENJuLaeVC9U

She used a full coverage bra that was a size up from what she normally wears and coated it in clear casting epoxy. She attached white craft foam to the sides of the cups with hot glue and sketched a pattern right onto the top of the bra. She used paper clay to sculpt the pattern directly on top of the bra and craft foam (she also added craft foam to the bottom) and then painted everything with two coats of pewter finish Sophisticated Finishes.

Read more about the process at Jupiter’s Hunter.