Private Jenkins
Jr Member
First off, let me start by giving some background into my experience with anything prop-making...
-ZERO- I have, until about 3 weeks ago had zero skill, zero experience with foam, with cutting foam, with trimming foam, with forming/ shaping foam, etc...
with that being said, I have learned ALOT, and I continue to learn something new every day I tinker.
diving right in, my son, (almost 5) is obsessed with all things batman... I swear every toy he has is batman related... batman pajamas, batman shoes, batman Legos, batman underwear... I think he has a problem, however when we asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween this year he pointed to my game informer and said "I want to be THAT batman" and of course he was pointing to one of the playable characters in Arkham Knight, now there was no way I would be able to pull THAT one off, but he's not even 5 yet.. what does he care? as long as he has cool gauntlets, a mask and cape he'd be happy? so I set out on a fact finding mission... how to make the coolest costume any 5 year old on our block is going to have? after searching a few of the more well known forums that I belong to for inspiration I came across quite a few great tips and fun tricks from you all here at the 405th! with that being said, there are WAY too many people I should be giving props to for posting their tips on here. with that being said I will post a couple of my pics thus far... keep in mind, this is a work in progress, and as I stated above, I am an absolute NOOB, so if you have any suggestions on how to make any of these pieces look better, feel free to educate me!
This is my un successful attempt at putting detail lines in 1/4" very soft foam (don't know where I got it from, it was just laying around. I immediate understood my fault, after reading a tutorial from here on heating very thin cut lines into the foam and watching the lines open up... I added that to the lessons learned list. also I didn't realize you could cut the thinner/ softer foam with a really sharp pair of scissors to get the curved shape I needed... I did it with a dremel tool which practically shredded the edges. (lesson 2) obviously i did this BEFORE I read somewhere on here you should dull the grit on the sanding drum so its less abrasive. WOW... im not off to a great start, but I did learn two valuable lessons and I was ready to move on...
Again as you can see the "rib lines" I used a exacto knife at 45 degrees to create detail lines (see lesson 1) what I originally started out doing was free hand drawing the pieces on paper and using those as templates (unfortunately I couldn't find any pep files for this sized costume) not that it would have done me any good because as I said before zero experience with even pep (which it looks scary but I'm sure its not as bad as I'm thinking it is) anyway as you can see I cut the larger pieces, ie. the abbs and the chest plate from the thicker harder foam, and I used the thinner foam as a base holder. this is where lesson 3 comes into place, I think either buying the proper foam and using a hot knife would make cutting this thinner foam a little bit easier.
Here is a better look at the sides, and the chest pieces, I noticed while uploading these pics, the pattern directions on the abs do not match... at this point I don't think I will re-do those pieces since they have subsequently been glued into place. I found that the rubber cement did not hold the thinner foam to the thicker foam when I attached them end to end, however the rubber cement works great when surface mounting the thinner foam to the thicker foam. so I used hot glue on the edge connections and it seems to hold up rather nicely.
here is a picture showing most of the pieces I have now, the lower left corner pieces are for the shins and they have been strapped using 1/2" straps with 1/2" plastic clips found at amazon pretty cheaply. I used a trick from the forums on these pieces to shape the shin pieces by using my soldering iron to heat up the bend lines and allowing the foam to melt to itself. I will add some detail pieces to these before painting, I just haven't figured out what would look cool on them. I also added the pieces to cover the top of the foot just above the shin pieces which I am at a loss for how to attach them to the shoe... I am thinking elastic looped from one side to another and just "slip it over the shoe" anyone have any experience with this?
The upper left pieces are obviously the gauntlets (HUGE lesson learned here) do NOT shape the thicker foam with a heat gun until all pieces are glued together... it was a PITA to connect the pieces that held the "blades" (I know the blades are from a totally different batman but he really liked them so I remade the blades) to the gauntlets themselves with the strapping on. again the strapping is 1/2" strap material and the 1/2" plastic clips mentioned above.
The pieces in the middle are two different types of shoulder pads I was thinking about using. I like the thinner foam "rounded" pieces but I also like the more squared off shoulders next to them because of how it reminds me of a Halo shoulder pad.
Obviously the far right side of the above picture is the front abb and chest plate, including belt, and below that is the "fake" back plate with my own design for the spine guards. I figured this wont be seen much because the cape will cover it however after Halloween he will probably want to just play with the suit around the house without the cape, and I figured this would be cool to have some "protection" when his sister shoots him with her nef guns.
ill upload what the chest and back look semi connected standing up on its own later.
any ideas of tips I could use to help improve my skills it would be greatly appreciated!
thanks for checking it out!
-ZERO- I have, until about 3 weeks ago had zero skill, zero experience with foam, with cutting foam, with trimming foam, with forming/ shaping foam, etc...
with that being said, I have learned ALOT, and I continue to learn something new every day I tinker.
diving right in, my son, (almost 5) is obsessed with all things batman... I swear every toy he has is batman related... batman pajamas, batman shoes, batman Legos, batman underwear... I think he has a problem, however when we asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween this year he pointed to my game informer and said "I want to be THAT batman" and of course he was pointing to one of the playable characters in Arkham Knight, now there was no way I would be able to pull THAT one off, but he's not even 5 yet.. what does he care? as long as he has cool gauntlets, a mask and cape he'd be happy? so I set out on a fact finding mission... how to make the coolest costume any 5 year old on our block is going to have? after searching a few of the more well known forums that I belong to for inspiration I came across quite a few great tips and fun tricks from you all here at the 405th! with that being said, there are WAY too many people I should be giving props to for posting their tips on here. with that being said I will post a couple of my pics thus far... keep in mind, this is a work in progress, and as I stated above, I am an absolute NOOB, so if you have any suggestions on how to make any of these pieces look better, feel free to educate me!
This is my un successful attempt at putting detail lines in 1/4" very soft foam (don't know where I got it from, it was just laying around. I immediate understood my fault, after reading a tutorial from here on heating very thin cut lines into the foam and watching the lines open up... I added that to the lessons learned list. also I didn't realize you could cut the thinner/ softer foam with a really sharp pair of scissors to get the curved shape I needed... I did it with a dremel tool which practically shredded the edges. (lesson 2) obviously i did this BEFORE I read somewhere on here you should dull the grit on the sanding drum so its less abrasive. WOW... im not off to a great start, but I did learn two valuable lessons and I was ready to move on...
Again as you can see the "rib lines" I used a exacto knife at 45 degrees to create detail lines (see lesson 1) what I originally started out doing was free hand drawing the pieces on paper and using those as templates (unfortunately I couldn't find any pep files for this sized costume) not that it would have done me any good because as I said before zero experience with even pep (which it looks scary but I'm sure its not as bad as I'm thinking it is) anyway as you can see I cut the larger pieces, ie. the abbs and the chest plate from the thicker harder foam, and I used the thinner foam as a base holder. this is where lesson 3 comes into place, I think either buying the proper foam and using a hot knife would make cutting this thinner foam a little bit easier.
Here is a better look at the sides, and the chest pieces, I noticed while uploading these pics, the pattern directions on the abs do not match... at this point I don't think I will re-do those pieces since they have subsequently been glued into place. I found that the rubber cement did not hold the thinner foam to the thicker foam when I attached them end to end, however the rubber cement works great when surface mounting the thinner foam to the thicker foam. so I used hot glue on the edge connections and it seems to hold up rather nicely.
here is a picture showing most of the pieces I have now, the lower left corner pieces are for the shins and they have been strapped using 1/2" straps with 1/2" plastic clips found at amazon pretty cheaply. I used a trick from the forums on these pieces to shape the shin pieces by using my soldering iron to heat up the bend lines and allowing the foam to melt to itself. I will add some detail pieces to these before painting, I just haven't figured out what would look cool on them. I also added the pieces to cover the top of the foot just above the shin pieces which I am at a loss for how to attach them to the shoe... I am thinking elastic looped from one side to another and just "slip it over the shoe" anyone have any experience with this?
The upper left pieces are obviously the gauntlets (HUGE lesson learned here) do NOT shape the thicker foam with a heat gun until all pieces are glued together... it was a PITA to connect the pieces that held the "blades" (I know the blades are from a totally different batman but he really liked them so I remade the blades) to the gauntlets themselves with the strapping on. again the strapping is 1/2" strap material and the 1/2" plastic clips mentioned above.
The pieces in the middle are two different types of shoulder pads I was thinking about using. I like the thinner foam "rounded" pieces but I also like the more squared off shoulders next to them because of how it reminds me of a Halo shoulder pad.
Obviously the far right side of the above picture is the front abb and chest plate, including belt, and below that is the "fake" back plate with my own design for the spine guards. I figured this wont be seen much because the cape will cover it however after Halloween he will probably want to just play with the suit around the house without the cape, and I figured this would be cool to have some "protection" when his sister shoots him with her nef guns.
ill upload what the chest and back look semi connected standing up on its own later.
any ideas of tips I could use to help improve my skills it would be greatly appreciated!
thanks for checking it out!
great work
