Alright, many lessons learned, and some things accomplished. The girlfriend's armor was done with painting after two coats of Krylon Fusion and a coating of pearl spray so now it's time to take the plates to the sink and wash off the toothpaste. Here goes problem #1. I don't know if I waited too long to wash it off or if it's just how the fusion acts, but the stuff is not washing off. I took my finger nail and scraped off the toothpaste and I discover the root of the problem - the fusion paint is very stretchy and latex-y. I ended up taking off the silver undercoat by scraping also. I didn't really know what to do, so I figured screw it, I might have to repaint. So as a last measure, I grabbed the dish washing sponge that's got the handle you fill with soap and start scrubbing.
I got lucky and the paint along with the toothpaste started coming off. Some of the silver undercoat still came off but it's barely noticeable. I sat the plates aside to dry and sanded down my gauntlet body to prep it for priming.
Meanwhile, I cut a bunch of pleather from a sheet I got at Joann's Fabrics for $8 bucks. I followed WOF templates and hot glued a demo together. it turned out pretty well, so I glued on the back strap and attached a button snap to finish it.
I spent a couple of hours cutting and gluing and churned out 15 pouches, 6 for the girlfriend and 8 for me, leaving my demo. I was surprised that they were so easy and still usable. I wouldn't say I'm at the level of selling them, but I would feel comfortable trading pouches for stuff to be honest.
To finish off the day, I got out some silver Warhammer 40k paint and touched up the battle damage on our plates and hit the edges on all the plates as well. I had watched a guy on YouTube make armor and he hit the edges of his plates with silver. His theory, which I agree with, is that if this were all real, the edges would definitely be where the paint would be wearing off. The pictures above are after the edging. I'm very happy overall with my progress.