M
Maverick118
Guest
Items required
1. Fun foam (obvious really)
2.sharp scissors and a scalpel or craft knife
3. Plain paper (lots of this as mistakes happen)
4. Hot glue gun and PVA glue and some thin material (muslin or cheese cloth
should do)
5. A duct tape dummy of your leg (this is optional but I found it very
helpful indeed)
6. Lots of reference pictures (got mine out of the AVP creature book)
7. Patience (lots required)
Okay so first off and also the hardest you need to make the
templates/patterns for your armour.
For this I used the duct tape dummy of my leg and the plain paper
I anchored the paper to one half the leg and drew the shape of the armour I
had in mind, I then cut it out and placed it back on the leg to make sure it looked correct.
Next I mirrored the template onto another piece of paper and cut that out and stuck it together with the first part.
Then added the additional decoration bits to it
I use 2mm funfoam mainly because it's all I can get, But in this case it's a must for me, as I approached the construction in layers. what you can see above is the foundation layer, the innermost part of the armour, and from the reference pics It had an oval cut out which would have been difficult to re-create with thicker foam. What I did was to draw the templates onto the foam.
Like so, then I cut out the oval from the upper piece and glued the two 2mm template shapes together with hot glue.
Next I drew out the templates for the next layer which is purely decorative, it is also quite tricky to do too, as it contains some shapes that need to be cut out with a very sharp blade.
As you can see the two rounded triangular shapes are what cover your ankles, and these have some rounded slits and also two small circular shapes that will point towards the foot.
Next carefully cut the shape out and lay it atop the lower layer to make sure it fits okay
Once you've done that you can glue it in place. Now for the dangerous bit, heating and shaping it, you can do this over a gas cooker burner. Just be careful not to overheat the foam or burn you fingers, and I can take no responsibility for you singing your digits. Just hold it over the flame not in it and mold away. Once you've got the shape you need feel free to use any old material to back the armour and coat that liberally with PVA glue, leave it over night in the shape you molded and the material and PVA will have stiffened to hold the shape well.
Now you can trim the back of it to fit your calf's and use either velcro or any means of closure you wish. I would run a strip of foam down the seam to hide the join and make it look better.
Now comes your time to paint it. I could write down how to do it. But I recommend you read Mel's original foamies tutorial as I can't add to it any better. The only difference I use is that i do a single coat of thin latex, wait for it to dry, then add a thickened coat to seal any gaps or seams, then I just paint and texture the pieces exactly the same as Mel's tutorial
Have fun
1. Fun foam (obvious really)
2.sharp scissors and a scalpel or craft knife
3. Plain paper (lots of this as mistakes happen)
4. Hot glue gun and PVA glue and some thin material (muslin or cheese cloth
should do)
5. A duct tape dummy of your leg (this is optional but I found it very
helpful indeed)
6. Lots of reference pictures (got mine out of the AVP creature book)
7. Patience (lots required)
Okay so first off and also the hardest you need to make the
templates/patterns for your armour.
For this I used the duct tape dummy of my leg and the plain paper
I anchored the paper to one half the leg and drew the shape of the armour I
had in mind, I then cut it out and placed it back on the leg to make sure it looked correct.
Next I mirrored the template onto another piece of paper and cut that out and stuck it together with the first part.
Then added the additional decoration bits to it
I use 2mm funfoam mainly because it's all I can get, But in this case it's a must for me, as I approached the construction in layers. what you can see above is the foundation layer, the innermost part of the armour, and from the reference pics It had an oval cut out which would have been difficult to re-create with thicker foam. What I did was to draw the templates onto the foam.
Like so, then I cut out the oval from the upper piece and glued the two 2mm template shapes together with hot glue.
Next I drew out the templates for the next layer which is purely decorative, it is also quite tricky to do too, as it contains some shapes that need to be cut out with a very sharp blade.
As you can see the two rounded triangular shapes are what cover your ankles, and these have some rounded slits and also two small circular shapes that will point towards the foot.
Next carefully cut the shape out and lay it atop the lower layer to make sure it fits okay
Once you've done that you can glue it in place. Now for the dangerous bit, heating and shaping it, you can do this over a gas cooker burner. Just be careful not to overheat the foam or burn you fingers, and I can take no responsibility for you singing your digits. Just hold it over the flame not in it and mold away. Once you've got the shape you need feel free to use any old material to back the armour and coat that liberally with PVA glue, leave it over night in the shape you molded and the material and PVA will have stiffened to hold the shape well.
Now you can trim the back of it to fit your calf's and use either velcro or any means of closure you wish. I would run a strip of foam down the seam to hide the join and make it look better.
Now comes your time to paint it. I could write down how to do it. But I recommend you read Mel's original foamies tutorial as I can't add to it any better. The only difference I use is that i do a single coat of thin latex, wait for it to dry, then add a thickened coat to seal any gaps or seams, then I just paint and texture the pieces exactly the same as Mel's tutorial
Have fun
