Wonder Woman Armband

This Wonder Woman armband turned out to be such a fun piece that I actually want to wear it on a regular basis!

I used two types of leather- a heavier weight piece to help the armband retain its shape well and a thinner, more flexible piece to use as a base.  For the heavy weight material, you will need a piece long enough to wrap around your biceps (the piece I used is shown below in black.)  The more flexible piece (shown in tan) needs to be three to four inches longer than the heavy weight piece.  Both pieces will be painted so actual leather color does not matter.

Additional supplies I used include acrylic paint (I used the same thalo gold  and black that I used for the bracelets,) scissors, pen and pencil, permanent marker, and two paintbrushes (medium and fine tips.)  Not pictured: paper.

Sewing/leatherworking supplies included a ruler, awl, black thread, needles (I like to use crewel needles with leather even though I doubt that's their intended purpose,) sew on Velcro, and EcoWeld (rubber cement.)

A few additional items I ended up using along the way include a large flat brush, Exacto knife, and Leather Sheen (acrylic clear coat for leather.)

My first step was to sketch out the armband.  I used a ruler and graph paper to make the design as symmetrical as possible.  This is the template I created for the bracelet.  I made a quick photocopy of it on my printer (optional) so I could cut the different parts out to trace individually later without destroying my original copy.

First, I traced the whole armband shape onto the softer piece of leather.  I added a couple of extra inches to the length on each end of the armband before cutting it out.  The extra material will later be used for fastening the ends of the band together.  This will be the base piece. 

On the heavy weight piece of leather, I traced and cut out the top stripe and the bottom stripe of the armband.  Although the two stripes look similar, they do differ a bit in shape and angle.

Next, I assembled the three pieces together.  Note that the V with the curved edges goes on the top side of the armband.

Next, I trimmed the excess leather at the ends of the base piece as shown below- cutting the top and bottom where the black stripes end and leaving an inch to an inch and a half in the middle for attaching Velcro.  On one end of the armband, I cemented and sewed a strip of the coarser piece of Velcro to the front of the piece, as shown below.  I used the awl to help punch small holes for sewing.
 

On the opposite end of the armband, I sewed two strips of the soft Velcro to the inside of the armband.  This way, I can adjust the fit of the armband if my size changes and only the soft Velcro side would come into contact with my skin.  Note: I discovered that you should not use the leather cement (or use it very sparingly) with the soft piece of Velcro or it will bleed through and the Velcro will not stick.

After the Velcro was attached, I reassembled the stripes on the armband.  I removed the top stripe and marked the bottom stripe right where the pieces overlap (overlapping is illustrated with yellow Xs below.)  I used the awl to punch two small holes side by side in the bottom stripe of black leather.  I used the leather cement to adhere the bottom stripe to the base piece of leather and let it dry.  Then I stitched the two pieces together with needle and thread using the holes I'd created with the awl.

 

Next, I cemented the top stripe onto the base piece of leather.  After it dried, I used the awl, needle and thread to stitch the top stripe to the base.  I used as small stitches as possible and tried to keep the holes symmetrical and right underneath corners where I'd be painting in high contrast later to minimize their appearance.  Sections where I placed stitches in the top stripe of leather are marked with a red X below.

 I also stitched each end of both stripes to the base, as shown below. Here you can see the actual size of the stitches I used.

Below is the armband with all the stitching and cementing completed.

The most tedious step was the painting, which I did in multiple layers with gold and black paint.  Although the armband is already three dimensional, I used sharp contrasts in paint shades to make it appear even more so.  I also applied sharp contrasts directly over the stitched areas on the front of the armband (shown with red arrows below) and used a thicker coating of paint in these sections to conceal the stitching.

I was less concerned with the stitching on the ends, as those will be on the back side of the armband and will mostly be unseen.  As you can see below, the ends with Velcro strips align with the middle section of the armband so it can be tightened or loosened to improve fit and comfort.

The last step was to brush the painted surface with an acrylic clear coat to further protect the paint.  Here is a front view of the finished product.

Edit/Update (06/01/17):

I have gone back and applied additional surface protection to the armband.  The Leather Sheen I used initially made an immediate difference on protecting the paint, but when designing the boots I realized footwear would need more protection.  I e-mailed customer service as the Angelus company and they recommended the two products below- one is a finisher specifically to protect the paint (applies with a brush) and the other is a repellent that causes water to slide right off the leather (spray application.)  I decided to go back and apply them to the rest of my costume as well, including the armband.  Although I chose matte finish, the products did add a slight amount of shine to the leather.  I still intend to entirely avoid getting the costume wet.