new having trouble

[BelowAverageJoe]

So i'm just getting started in the world of foam costume building. I watched all the tutorials and i tried to create the gauntlets from the movie thor. I modified the pepakura files as instructed in shadows tutorials and tried to build them and about 20% in some parts didn't fit correctly and it was angled really wrong and i managed to burn my fingers with the glue lol.

So i was just wondering if there is some Easy project just to get me started instead of just diving in to a harder one like i did.

 

[Mojo_Turbo]

You got to be way more clear... easier project using pepakura? Easier doing the Thor costume? Easier in general?

Of course there are easier costumes. But costume building isn't about easy or hard it's about passion and picking the character you want to be.

Pepakura is time consumiing and takes lots of patience. For a lot of costumers, that isn't our style - some like fast, some like cheap, others like slow and methodical. It's all about personality and temperance.

Start with something you want to do. Pick a few costumes you would like to do, and then you decide which one might be within your skill set.

Then, I would do a lot of reading... scour this website for all it's worth. People aren't going to just jump in and help you if they can tell you haven't done the leg work yet.

Reading is a big part of costume building....
And to be truthful, so are mismeasurements and burned fingers.

Good luck

 

[BelowAverageJoe]

Well the ones I really wanna do are thor and iron man. Thor seems like an easier undertaking. I found this thor pepukura:

Pepakura Gallery

and i used Stealths technique for making it a foam version. I have watched all his tutorials numerous times. I'm pretty sure i added 25 views to the foam conversion part lol. And i've read other articles on it from here and around the web.

So i felt pretty confident that i had the basics grasped. So I decided to start small and do just one of the gauntlets. Maybe that was my mistake starting with something wit a bunch of tiny parts which i suppose is harder. but i didn't wanna start with lets say a chest piece and then screw up and waste a lot of Foam.

I do understand that a large part of this is trial and error but i was just wondering if there is like a trick i'm missing. Should i start on bigger pieces and work down to the smaller ones? Should i just find an easier costume? I mean i have the drive and passion to do this i know i do it's just a tad disheartening when i spend an hour or so and i have 1/10th of a screwed up gauntlet.

 

[P4r4dox86]

More specific questions would be good as it would give us somewhere to start when giving tips. I haven't worked with foam much myself yet, but from what I have done with it I would imagine starting with a larger piece would be easier for more people. Yes you run the risk of wasting more material if you mess it up, but at the end of the day foam building is relatively cheap compared to other methods so it's not going to completely break the bank.

Being that Thor's chest plate is fairly straight forward laying of basic shapes I would imagine that would be a better starting point than a gauntlet. It would allow you to get a bit of experience cutting/gluing/moulding foam without any fiddly little angles etc.

The most important thing you will learn about any sort of costuming, be it sewing, pepakura, working with fibreglass, bondo or foam, or any other of a million different crafty thing is that it doesn't hurt to make mistakes (Unless you're burning your fingers, which we've ALL done at one time or another when dealing with hot things ) and that is how you learn. Just take it slow and keep puttering along and you'll eventually build up your skillset enough that you will wonder how you ever questioned you abilities in the first place.

If you have more specific questions first use the search function to look for some info here, there's stuff about almost everything, and failing that ask in your thread, but make it specific.

Good luck!