Learning Foam

[CryptidCutie]

Hi! I’m a seamstress and sfx artist, and hair dresser by trade. I’ve spent a lot of time building patterns and everything for fabric but I’m thinking that to take my future cosplays up to the next level I really should learn foam crafting. The issue is, I have 2+ builds I want to do that involve a lot of foam and I don’t know how to pattern the pieces. Fabric has always been way easier to work with and pattern, but foam is a different kind of structured that I haven’t figured out yet.
Does anyone have any good resources (reading, tutorials, etc) on how to learn foam patterning?
Thanks in advance!

 

[austinungars]

Check out Punished Props Academy ( Punished Props Academy - Home Page ). They even have foam smith books you can get. The have a YouTube channel as well. I love watching their work.

 

[Kitty Butler]

Before I started I watched endless hours of Punished Props, Odin Makes, Evil Ted and KamuiCosplay on Youtube. Still do now. Punished Props does a good job showing how they either sculpt in insulation foam or build up with bubble wrap to cover in duct tape and make patterns from it. Those 4 also have lots of base patterns you could probably use to build off of

 

[SMP Designs]

I’m a big fan of XiengProd and TheFoamCave. Both are on Etsy and Xieng has a YouTube channel as well. They both have very affordable and easy to follow templates that you can download and print as well as video tutorials. Xieng’s templates are very nice, fit together well and wear well.

Also look at Kamui Cosplay. Svetlana was the queen of worbla, but has become a foam proponent. She also has books of generic templates that you can download.