Hello everyone at the RPF forums. I'm here to reach out in search of help. I've recently because intrigued with making and building. I currently work as a metal fabricator for a shop that contracts with Boeing and the military but I want to branch into home projects and builds. I want to get into foam props the most as it looks easiest with little tools needed. Where I'm stuck is how to make templates from scratch as i am terrible withfree hand drawing. I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos on how to get started foam fabricating but the templates have been giving me some trouble getting them just right. Any help would be so much appreciated. Thank you in advance!
Newby to foam fabrication in nedd of help
- Thread starter Zolixius
- Start date
TunaSpleen
New Member
It's quite alright, I don't think anyone here completely freehands their patterns. When I build a prop like a sword or a gun out of foam, I first draw a doodle of it on graph paper. Then I use the grid marks to determine how much I want to scale each part up to full size, and use more graph paper (hey, it's cheap) to make the full-size patterns, with a ruler or protractor to help make nice straight lines. If it's a symmetrical piece I can just fold something in half when cutting to make both sides the same. I'll have the entire mockup in paper, overlapping and laid out nicely to make sure it looks good before I trace each piece onto foam and cut! Look at enough tutorials and picture guides and you can see that even the pros have tons of sketch marks on their unfinished patterns and foam where they re-drew something more than once (especially curvy bits) until it was just the right shape. As long as you're not gouging the foam with your pen, all mistakes be covered up by the paint job anyways. Good starter projects are things like shields since they're mostly basic geometric shapes that get you used to working with foam before going all crazy with the details.
Armor is a different beast though since you'll be shaping it to your body. That's where things like the duct tape mannequin come in handy when learning how to make patterns. And 3D shapes are a lot easier to hide flaws like imperfect lines and circles, so long as it still fits decently well.
Armor is a different beast though since you'll be shaping it to your body. That's where things like the duct tape mannequin come in handy when learning how to make patterns. And 3D shapes are a lot easier to hide flaws like imperfect lines and circles, so long as it still fits decently well.
Nismo
Well-Known Member
I also work for a sheet metal fabrication shop- good news is you can apply the same process to foam. If you have any ability in CAD software it's a great place to make patterns from scratch and then you can print them to paper, cut with an X-acto and transfer to the foam. Things like weapons you can get pictures and import them into the software scale them to the size you want an trace the shapes needed. Best advice is just learn the medium first with the foam...practice cutting straight lines/curved lines /making bevels etc...and make a few very simple props at first - see how the heat gun can help define lines and mold shapes.
