Start a piece and shape it

Piece Forge starts every piece as a wireframe cage — rings stacked up the piece, with handles you drag. You shape the cage; the surface follows.

Before you start

Start a piece

1. Open Piece Forge

   In the Cosplay Realm's rail, choose Piece Forge (under The Workshop).

2. Pick a blank

   Under Start from a piece: Helmet, Mask, Torso, Back plate, Pauldron, Vambrace, Bracer, Belt, Greaves or Prop. It drops in as a cage sized to an average adult, named … blockout.

3. Or start further along

   Under Or start further along:, a preset — Open-face helmet, Full helmet, Faceplate, Layered pauldron, Plated vambrace, Cuffed bracer, Back plate with spine ridge or Belt with buckle plate. Hover one for what it is.

4. Or from the Design Shop

   Under Or from your Design Shop pieces:, a design you got opens as an unsaved copy, … (my version).

Shape it

1. Drag a handle

   Drag any handle; the one you pick turns orange. A pull carries the surface around it — Pull spreads over … handles sets how far. With Symmetry on (the default), the other side follows.

2. Use the keyboard for fine work

   Click the workbench, then arrows move the handle, shift+arrows pick another, [ and ] push it in and out, and Esc deselects. Hold Alt for fine steps.

3. Set a ring's size

   With a handle selected, the Rings card reads Ring … of …. Type a Set circumference (cm) and press Apply. + Ring below and + Ring above add detail; Remove ring takes one away.

4. Crease a hard edge

   Tick Hard edge here on a ring for a sharp ridge. It shows once the surface is smoothed.

5. Smooth it

   Under Surface: Faceted, Soft, Smooth or Silky. The view and the STL follow the smoothing; foam templates use the flat facets, which is what you cut.

6. Undo

   Undo and Redo go back up to 50 steps. Reset shape starts the cage over.

Add layers

1. Add one

   Under layers, press + Layer. It stacks on top of the base shell — a plate, a trim band.

2. Set it

   Depth (cm) lifts it off the layer below; Thickness (cm) is the foam it's cut from.

3. Cover part of the piece

   Tick Cover only part of the piece and set From ring, To ring, From segment and To segment (counted from 1).

Trace over your character art

1. Add the picture

   Press Reference on the toolbar and choose an image (PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or AVIF, up to 12 MB). It stands beside the wearer at their height.

2. Line it up

   Choose Front or Side, then use Stands … tall, Across and Up so the art sits on the body, and set Opacity.

3. Trace

   Press Seed rings from the front view (or Trace on the toolbar). The rings take the art's widths; trace the side view too for depth.

Next: resize it to fit you.

If something's off

“Couldn't find a plain background to measure against…”

Art on a clean background traces best. Crop the picture, or pick a cleaner one.

“No ring lines up with the art…”

Move or resize the reference so the piece stands on it, then trace again.

“A piece can carry 8 layers.”

That's the limit. Delete a layer you don't need.

I can't remove a ring

The fitted ring can be reshaped but not removed, and a piece keeps at least three rings.