Question on upholstery foam body build

[Moonreaver]

Hey all... my first project is essentially going to be like a muscle suit in the sense that i'm going to be using a morph suit (or something like it) to glue on upholstery foam on to create the muscle mass and contours of the body. I may even carve in some of the details i'm looking for straight into the foam. Like spikes or grooves in the skin. Once the structure is there, i was hoping to use a liquid latex or silicone to create the skin over the foam either by spray or brush on method.

Is this method possible while getting a generally smooth skin, or should i really sculpt the body parts in clay, mold it and cast the skin in latex foam and fill in foam behind it? I've not been able to find much of any info on the way i'd like to do it (paint on the latex) so I'm wondering if i'm just going down a path that won't work or not.

The end result will be a superhero shape with hopefully a lot of mobility to it since its foam and a small layer of latex. I appreciate any advice you all can give me because well... I'm a newb...

 

[Mr Mold Maker]

It depends entirely on whether or not the suit will be visable. If it will be, then the problem with the foam and latex method is you will never get it to have a nice smooth skin texture. If it won't be visable, that method would work absolutely fine.

I'd also suggest , again assuming it will be under a costume and not visable) instead of using latex to skin it, put another spandex suit over it, in a flesh tone color, and stitch around the muscles to define them.

If it is going to be seen then sculpting and running it in foam latex is a much better option.

 

[Moonreaver]

This actually would be the entire outside of the costume, so it definitely would be seen. Thanks for clarifying the method for me. I was trying to think of the easiest way to do this but i can see it'll have the be the longer route... oh well i guess i get to learn the right way before i go wasting my time doing it the wrong way! Thanks a ton!