Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012 - Updated finished pics pg 2!

[JoshMosh]

Hey all, I've been lurking here for a while so I thought I'd share my first full costume build. I loved Avengers so I landed on Thor (There are enough Iron Mans out there ).

Anyway, I'll show where my progress is thus far then I'll show some progress pics later and as people ask about different parts of the costume.

I'm using the foam floor mats that Stealth suggests for the armor'd portion. I have yet to sew a single part, so the soft parts have been a pain. I'm also working on upgrading the Disguise Mjolnir.

Feel free to ask any questions. I'm sure I didn't take as many WIP pics as I should have, but i'll show my progress as best I can.

The good news: This is for halloween so I'm hoping to finish this week.

So Far:

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

I'm attaching images of those pesky soft parts...

Again, I didn't sew anything. I cut fabric to the right sizes then simply hot glued it on top of an under armor type shirt for the vest and a pair of pants with a good fit for the pants. The end result wasn't too bad. I still have to add more of the pleather / dark blue vinyl that I choose to use for his pants.

 

[SampleName]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Keep posting some updates!

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Alright! I'll start from the beginning...

I carved the foam pieces first, starting with the gauntlets/vambracers or whatever you want to call them. Being that this was my first time using foam, I relied heavily on what I learned from this forum and Stealth's tutorials.

So in the attached pics you can see my progress on the foam pieces and gauntlets. Those gauntlets have a few layers of mod podge hard coat on them (before I could get some plasti dip). I also invested in a butane torch/hot knife/soldering iron, which was very helpful in carving the details and shaping the pieces later on.

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

As for good ol' Mjolnir, I decided to go with the Disguise hammer upgrade method I saw someone else here do.

Started with this:

Raised grooves using milliput (first time :lol)

I moulded an end cap and attached a piece of leather under a layer of milliput as well.

And after sanding, blackwashing, and painting, we got this:

I also repainted the head but left that in the office so I'll post pics of the completed hammer soon. Just have to do a few layers of clear coat to bring out the shine.

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

A bit more about the process I went to to get where I am:

After cutting all of the foam, plasti dipped all of the pieces with the intention of hot gluing them together. I figured it would be easier to paint if I could do each piece separately.

I also straight up spray painted the red stripes on the sides of the vest and pants... only one side needed to be clean as the other would be covered in more fabric then vinyl.

And after searching EVERYWHERE online, I managed to find this pair of shoes at wal-mart of all places that were just the style I was looking for... Only problem was they were a felt kind of material. so I swiftly proceeded to add about 5 layers of mod podge hard coat to smoothen them out.

I plan on making the top boot piece out of foam and permanently attaching it to the shoe with a zipper up the side. I'm leaving this till last so hopefully it doesn't become a rushed job.

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

As for today's progress:

I finally got the entire armor piece glued together

Now I just need to add the collar piece to the back of the neck and glue in my discs.

Speaking of discs... I really can't find a way to etch or paint the ridges or asgardian letters, so i think i'll go smooth for this halloween. I saw a pair of nice resin discs for sale on another forum but they were Thor Movie themed, not Avengers. :facepalm

Also today, I'm trying to find a way to get the cape to stay arched, so I think I'm just going to curve some of my foam around the shoulder and attach it under the shoulder armor.

Hopefully once I add the cape it will stay ridged enough. Speaking of the cape, I'm using a light fleece material, the same as I used on the wrist wraps. shown here:

It's very light but thick so it keeps its volume. I think it will work out well... Im still working on the mechanics of whether I should attach the cape to the armor permanently so it will be a chest and back piece that I just pull over myself, or if I try to find a way to make the cape removable... Suggestions are welcome.

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Also thought I'd throw this in for funsies. I whipped up a tesseract using the method posted here by electraflier.

Got a baseball display case, sanded then spray frosted the glass, threw in some blue led's and some crumpled wax paper, and voila! Tesseract! This will come in handy if I eventually decide to do a whole Avengers display with Mjolnir, an Iron man helm, and Cap's shield. But don't tell my wife about that plan :lol

I may wire the LEDs to a small switch in the future just so I don't have to open it every time I want to illuminate it, but for now it works.

 

[morcon1223]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

great job, looking forward to the finish product

 

[Spydwar]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Looking awesome dude. Where did you find those template if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Hermes]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

And how to get this "Disguise" Hammer?

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Looking awesome dude. Where did you find those template if you don't mind me asking?

The templates were shared on a cosplayer's tumblr account of all places. It was a single image for the entire chest piece so i blew it up and printed it as a 12 page PDF. Then just trimmed the edges and taped it together.

I will ask the user before sharing the templates as they are not my own, but if they say it's alright, I'll be happy to upload my pdfs.

I then cut each section individually and used them as templates, like so:

And how to get this "Disguise" Hammer?

It's a pretty common thor hammer that is pretty easy to modify to look good. I bought mine on amazon.com, here: Amazon.com: Marvel's Avengers Thor Hammer,Brown/Silver: Clothing

I used the method shown by Captainjaze in this thread: http://www.therpf.com/f9/disguise-avengers-thor-hammer-upgrade-147344/

Hope this helps answer some of your questions!

BTW, I finally grabbed the hammer head from my office so here's what it looks like all put together:

 

[Spydwar]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Looks awesome hope you finish for this weekend.
I found the site you mentioned thank you fr the info.
I also hope you plan to show pics wearing this badboy.

-------------------------------------------------
My attempt at Ironman MKIVhttp://www.therpf.com/f24/ironman-mk-4-first-attempt-foam-build-158310/

 

[elmanusparrow]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

dude, please upload your pdfs.

 

[Captainjaze]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Great work my friend!! Really great work!!!

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

dude, please upload your pdfs.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the creator, but I will be happy to share. If I don't hear back from them today, I'll upload and take them down if they tell me they would rather me not post them.

Don't worry, I'm sure there will be plenty of pics of me wearing everything this weekend and next week.

I got a little more done last night:

Repainted my discs because they weren't shining enough:

I then immediately proceeded to scratch and damage them for realism so they didn't stay shiny.

I got the discs attached to the rest of the chest piece:

And the belt:

And i tried to get some of the shaping done (hard to see in the pics)

I think this makes a huge difference rather than making the armor 2D. If you look at Thor in the movie, the armor moves with him, and definitely helps make my pectoral region look a lot more defined:

Today, I'm hoping to finish the pants, get the cape support attached and attach the cape, and MAYBE if I get time, rework my plan for the boots and do some boot details.

Let me know if you have any feedback or there are parts you want to see more of!

 

[Ace007]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

great work can wait to see it all together!! keep up the good work!!

 

[Spydwar]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Looking really sweat i seem to gravitate twards the belt man the whole thing looks very cool.
As far as the patterns you made I would say maybe not post the pdf just link to the page you found them at. Quote: (Thors chest armor diagram for Rule’s Thor cosplay. Feel free to use it for your cosplay, just link back here so other people can use it too!) I would post it for you but don't waunt to step on anyones toes. If you do post the Pdf I would be sure to include the link to the original.

 

[JoshMosh]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Good Advice Spydwar, that's what I'll do.

Here is the link to the image this cosplayer created:

http://ruleoctobercosplay.tumblr.com/image/29871011014

Their Thor and Loki costumes are both worth checking out as well. Literally all I did with this image was expand it to fit across 12 pages so it would fit my frame better (6' tall man). I had created a template for the belt myself, so I scaled that image until the belt on their template matched the size of mine.

They also created a template for the gauntlet piece (which I made a little more narrow for my own) and a pattern for his downdressed look on the helicarrier. Be sure to credit Rule and October whenever using their patterns, they deserve it.

 

[Dozer3677]

Re: Avengers' Thor Foam Build for Halloween 2012

Im loving this. Keep up the great work. All your foam work looks outstanding!!! Really top notch. I cannot wait to see this completed. Good luck for the Costume contest!