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Tag: eva foam

General Kael Armor

Posted on by jimel

General Kael’s armor in the movie is leather with metal shoulders, shin guards, and a gauntlet cover on his sword hand.

Build Materials & Sources

  • Front Chest Plate – 6mm EVA-50 High Density Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Chest Armor – 6mm EVA-38 Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Back Armor – 10mm EVA-38 Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Chest Armor Scales – 4mm EVA-38, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Shoulder and Shin Armor – 6mm SKS Props HD-Foam and half round dowels
  • Shoulder Spikes & Fan Symbol on Upper Chest – Foam-Mo Foam Clay
  • Faux Rivets – Metal Sewing Buttons, Square Pyramid Rivets
  • 3/4 Length Fleece Cape from Etsy
  • Leather Sword Gloves
  • Scrap Leather and Buckles
  • Barge TF Contact Cement
  • E6000
  • Aluminum Foil
Patterns Used:

Chest Base – Evil Ted’s Basic Male Body Armor
Facemask – Kamui Cosplay’s Villian Mask (Modified)
Helmet Base – Evil Ted’s Viking Helmet (Lower Half, Modified)
Gauntlet – Freehand cut from 4mm TNT EVA Foam with scrap leather buckles.
Shin Guards – Freehand cut from 6mm SKS HD Foam

Build Process

General Kael’s Chest Armor

  • Front Chest Plate – 6mm EVA-50 High Density Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Chest Armor – 6mm EVA-38 Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Back Armor – 10mm EVA-38 Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply

The chest armor base is another one of Evil Ted’s patterns (Male Body Armor), resized to my dimensions and modified to fit the cut-out of the armor in the movie. The back of the armor is 10mm Foam. The front and back are attached at the shoulders and the thickness were chosen so the armor would have a similar weight and feel in the front and back. If I remember correct, the Evil Ted pattern actually closes in the back.

Chest Armor, “Leather” Scales

The scales were cut from 4mm EVA Foam. I used one foam scale as a template and used scissors to cut them out. I sanded the edges lightly with finer grit sandpaper to give it an organic, worn look. The leather look was achieved by crumpling and flattening a piece of aluminum foil and pressing it lightly with a hot iron. I had to scale the size of each piece to match the number of rows and columns of the movie version. Each one was glue at about 1/3 of the base and overlapped with each row.

(Tom usually paints my stuff because I have a color deficiency issue along with red-green colorblindness. He wasn’t too thrilled about having to paint the scales after they were assembled. I tend to get overzealous with the build portion.)

The Chest Plate Border

I used half-round foam to create a border for the chest plate. I would’ve liked to use something thinner, in maybe a 1/4 round version but… Con Crunch was on at this point.

The Chest Isignia

I learned a couple of lessons working with vegetable tanned leather. This applies only to me though, so if you find a method that works for you, go for it. I have a friend that teaches leather tooling classes and I’m tempted to take a class or buy one of his guides.

  1. You really only need a few tools to accomplish this kind of work. I got really overzealous and bought a large kit with too many things to store. The metal tools get really heavy in a single organizing case. 
  2. Get a leather scribe. Using a gel ink pen was a terrible idea. It’s especially bad if you’re planning to dye the leather when you’re finished. Luckily, might was painted with Angelus Acrylic Paints.
  3. Don’t use too much water. It makes it too soft and hard to keep a print. Too little is also a problem as well, if it dries out before you can get a pattern to set. It also took a really long time to dry. Use a spray bottle. 
  4. It’s way harder to do that it looks. I did a pretty terrible job, but it’s a passable specimen for a first attempt. (Actually second. I messed up the first one.)

Painted Chest Insignia

Painted with Angelus Silver Acrylic Paint. I believe it also got a clear top coat after the armor was fully painted. The paint pretty much covered up the pen marks. Pretty ‘not terrible’ for free-handing and zero experience.

The Fan Emblem

This took a few tries, but I made the Fan Emblem (above the chest insignia) from Foam-Mo Foam Clay. I rolled out several small lines of foam and curled them. I cut them in half to get the mirroring right.

Shoulder Armor

The shoulder armor was built from a should armor pattern, but I can’t recall which one. I believe it was a generic template. The spikes were made by pressing the Foam-Mo Foam Clay into Pyramid shaped silicone molds I bought on Amazon. They took quite a while to dry. The base is made from SKS Props 6mm HD Foam. To be honest, not my favorite foam to use.

Tom finished up the assembly and got it ready for paint. He used hot glue to simulate the welding lines in the movie prop.

Gauntlet

The gauntlet is designed from a generic gauntlet pattern, with extra pieces added to make up the finger guard. I used half-round pearls from the craft store for the rivets. I didn’t want to deal with the sound of rattling googly eyes every time I moved.

This one is coated with DAP Kwik Seal thinned with water. We’ve been trying out different seal coating products for this purpose. Tom gave it the standard metal paint treatment.

Finished Gauntlet with Sword Glove and Helmet

The Final Shin-sult

Apparently, I didn’t take many photos of my shin armor. They’re in storage right now and a pain to get out, so this picture will have to suffice for the time being until I can update it. I know they’re sitting a little high. That’s why the rest of the picture is there to distract you.

General Kael Helmet

Posted on by jimel

Build Materials & Sources

EVA Foam – 4mm & 6mm, TNT Cosplay Supply
Foam Clay – C4 Foam Clay, TNT Cosplay Supply
Styrene Plastic Sheet – TNT Cosplay Supply
Aluminum Chainmail Coif (Split into 2 pieces for Kael’s Helmet and Sorsha’s Chainmail Collar)
Faux Fur – Part of my winter coat that I didn’t need. It was removable.
Leather, Gun Metal Colored Rivets, Stainless Steel Screws

Patterns Used:

Chest Base – Evil Ted’s Basic Male Body Armor
Facemask – Kamui Cosplay’s Villian Mask (Modified)
Helmet Base – Evil Ted’s Viking Helmet (Lower Half, Modified)
Gauntlet – Freehand cut from 4mm TNT EVA Foam with scrap leather buckles.
Shin Guards – Freehand cut from 6mm SKS HD Foam

Build Process

The helmet was built as a combination of two templates. The funny part is that the 2 pieces I used for the base were just laying around from some practice builds. A little bit of trimming and adjustment and I was able to fit a pivot point for the mask to flip up. Hardware was later changed to stainless steel since I have a nickel allergy.

Facemask – Kamui Cosplay’s Villian Mask (Modified)
Helmet Base – Evil Ted’s Viking Helmet (Lower Half, Modified)

General Kael – Helmet Base Construction

I had the bottom half of one of Evil Ted’s helmets, which I modified a little and attached a facemask to it after finding a suitable pivot point.

General Kael – Facemask Reference

I used auction photos, as well as other reference photos to sculpt the facemask. The base is Kamui’s Villain Mask with a foam block added at the bottom to fill out the jawline. My understanding is that the mask is a Troll skull, like the ones crawling all over the Castle at Tir Asleen.

General Kael – Facemask Sculpting with Foam Clay

It took several applications to sculpt the mask fully. I went a little thick and it took a while to dry. This part was really a lot of fun and easy to carried away on. In this case, the sculpt was a little less symmetrical but pretty close. I think this added to the organic look of the skull.

I used TNT’s C4 Foam Clay for this mask. The texture is softer and is more pliable. I think they use some sort of flexible PVA in the formulation. I really like it. Pixiss has a similar formula to TNT’s and is sold on Amazon, if that’s easier to get. 

The density of the Foam Clay sold by Foam-Mo and SKS Props didn’t feel right for this kind of sculpt. The formulation of these two brands are very similar, if not the same. I used this foam to make the spikes for my shoulder armor. This foam can get brittle.

General Kael – The Troll Teeth

I can’t tell you how much fun it was to sculpt Troll teeth with the foam. I ended up making a generic upper and lower jawline before added the teeth. I rolled the teeth out individual and smoothed them into the upper and lower sections. It was fun making the broken and impacted teeth as well.

General Kael – The Helmet Fins

I had less than stellar results with the original fins. I used a thermoplastic sheet that had a lot of flex. I later changed this to a Styrene sheet, also from TNT Cosplay Supply. I curled it using can of some kind, if I remember correctly, and a heat gun.

Thermoplastics are not rigid…

General Kael – Helmet Features

The details were fun to put together. I think the leather strip along the center line could have turned out a little better. I used scrap brown leather for this part. After this, I added tassels of hair, made from a cheap, black wig and bead crimp loops.

The strip under the leather weave and along the bottom is 2mm EVA Foam, folded over on both sides of the lip of the helmet. There’s a section of clothes hanger wire inside to prevent the chainmail rings from tearing through.

General Kael – Helmet Features

This poorly smudged out photo (I’m definitely not a great graphics person), features the helmet flipped up. You can see that I’ve fully commited to the part, replicating Kael’s shaved moustache center and I let my beard and hair grow wild.

Princess Sorsha Helmet

Posted on by jimel

Build Materials & Sources

  • 6mm EVA Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • C4 Foam Clay, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Black Leather
  • Styrene Plastic Sheets
  • Aluminum Chainmail
  • Half-Round Pearl Beads
  • Barge TF Contact Cement

Pattern Base:

Evil Ted’s Samurai Helmet (top section only)
Freehanded Parts

Build Process

Sorsha’s Helmet

Helmet Materials: EVA Foam, Foam Clay, Styrene, Leather
Sword Materials: EVA Foam with a 3/8″ Metal Core, Leather

Helmet Base Form

This is the earliest in the process that I started taking photos. I used the top part of Evil Ted’s Samurai Helmet as a base to work from. The brim, nose guard, and the fins were freehanded pieces from scrap foam.

Helmet Finial

The finial was fun to sculpt. I used a circle cutter to cut out rounds of EVA Foam and then stacked together and glued. I used a round toothpick to hold anchor all of the pieces and to center the point on the top of the helmet.

A Riveting Discussion

Preparing for attaching the “rivets”. I measured the sections and marked off rivet points at even intervals.

The rivets were simulated with Half-Round White Beads from Michael’s. I liked the rounded look better than googly eyes. The gaps were filled with EVA foam after wetting them down with water. I tried making the vertical pieces on the brim from Foam Clay, but they fell apart during sanding so Tom added strips of foam instead.

Post-paint photo. Tom did an awesome job with the coloring on this onen

Styrene Plastic sheets were used to create the diamon shapes for the helmet. I know I could have done some parts better here, but I’m still proud of the work.

The Finished Helmet

This is the completed helmet. Excuse the mess behind it. While there are some things I could have done differently with this build, I think it turned out fairly well.