Naruto headband tutorial - sealing, painting, and making the fabric band

In the first part, we stuck some Worbla to some foam and made a forehead protector!

In this part we'll seal the Worbla, apply the base coat, and make the fabric component.

You'll need:

• Wood glue (PVA)
• A paintbrush
• Water
• Paper towels
• A base coat (I luckily found some metallic silver Plasti-kote)
• Some fabric (half a meter should be plenty)
• The other halves of those metal snaps

Start slappin' down the PVA with your paintbrush. Don't worry too much about brush strokes - you're going to be layering a lot of this stuff on.

While it dries, copy drawings from your favourite manga. Or whatever it is you do when you're bored.

I did about 7 layers, I think. The last two were applied using a finger. 

To smooth it out, dip your finger in the water and buff the dried PVA. It'll go from transparent to opaque while you do this.

When that dries, run over it in a circular motion with fine grit sandpaper. I used 600, then 1000. Run over it once more with your finger dipped in water.

It should look something like this (hopefully better):

I gave this overnight to fully set. In the meantime, make the fabric component. It's a big rectangle with pointed ends. Cut two strips and sew 'em together. Use your forehead protector to measure how tall you want it - don't forget to add seam allowance!

I'm not 100% happy with this - it's a little too thin. In the manga/anime it has a volume to it. I might experiment with polyester batting, or multiple layers.

Now how do we attach our pretty headband to our pretty forehead protector? If you used snaps, you'll just add snaps to the fabric part. If not, you might want to try some hefty glue like ADOS.

It's easy to match up. Centre the worbla piece onto your band and tape it in place with the delicate stuff. Use tailor's chalk to mark the impression of the snaps. Then attach the other halves in the right spots.

Now you can paint it! Follow the instructions on the can. Multiple light coats are better than one heavy one.

In the final installment we'll weather our headband to make it not look so flat, then seal it all up to protect it!