My Cosplay Journey: Foam Fabrication

By starrymag | March 25, 2017

By: AJ Mullican

It’s that time of year again: Con Season. Also known to cosplayers as “oh-my-God-I’m-never-going-to-finish-this-cosplay-in-time” season. For me, that’s especially true because I somehow ended up with a broken right foot and was out of commission, sewing-wise, for three and a half weeks. I suppose that’s my own fault though for procrastinating in the first place. “I have plenty of time,” I thought six months ago when I cut the fabric for my husband’s steampunk Cyclops cosplay. “What’s the hurry?”

 

On the plus side, I managed to get a lot of fabrication (prop and non-sewing work) done for my steampunk Dark Phoenix during those six months. In that interim, I learned a lot about foam crafting. How does one learn about these things, you may ask? Well, for the foam, I started off with a panel at last year’s Phoenix Comicon. Actually, a few panels—foam armor is a big thing in the cosplay world. Even panels that weren’t about foam mentioned foam crafting. All that shiny, metal-looking stuff you see? Foam. Soft, malleable foam becomes harder when heat sealed, and there are products like Plasti-Dip and Modge Podge that can make it even tougher.

 

**Disclaimer** If you’re a minor, I strongly recommend adult supervision. No, I insist on it. I’m an adult, and even I could potentially derp myself into bad burns, respiratory problems, cuts, or any number of careless injuries.

 

One big thing to learn about foam crafting (or any crafting, really) is safety, safety, safety! Find a well-ventilated area. Get a respirator or some kind of mask from a home improvement store. Actually, get a discount card at a home improvement store. Trust me; if you’re going to do any fabrication, hardware stores are your friend. Heat-resistant gloves are a plus, as well as safety goggles. Protect those eyes!

 

Why the heat protection and ventilation, you ask? Because in order to seal the foam, shape it, and prep it for paint, you need heat. Flames are bad, because fire. But with a heat gun—used according to the directions and with great care—you can accomplish great things with your foam props and armor. The heat sealing does create fumes, though, hence the respirator and ventilation. I’m not an expert by any means (noob-level fabrication here), but I listened carefully to the panel moderators when it came to the safety portion of the discussion/demonstration.

 

In addition to a heat gun, you’re going to need knives, scissors, contact cement, maybe a Dremel-type tool, sandpaper and, of course, foam! Don’t know what you need and don’t have any panels you can go to? DeviantArt, Pinterest and YouTube are great resources for cosplay knowledge. Tutorials can be found in all corners of the Internet for all levels of experience. My favorite venue is Pinterest, but that’s a personal preference. Also, make use of the wisdom of others so if you know someone who knows crafting, ask advice! I have a friend who has years and years of cosplay experience under her belt (in addition to being an artistic/crafty person in general) so I ask for help all the time. There’s no shame in asking for help; you’re learning, after all.

 

Once I thought I was sufficiently tutored, I started with a design concept because you have to know what you’re going to do before you start cutting your materials—otherwise you’ll waste a lot of foam. Pinterest and Google have lots of patterns and templates for existing foam builds—there are more resources, but I’m not trying to get too technical here. I knew I was doing my own version of Dark Phoenix so I decided on a phoenix-shaped “breastplate” of sorts. I sketched up something on the computer first to get myself a rough draft of what I wanted to do. Then, I did a more careful, less messy sketch on some paper. Whether you’re sewing or fabricating, mock-ups are your friend. I played around with the paper and some tape until I had a decent shape formed, one that I could replicate on the EVA foam.

 

What the heck is EVA foam? EVA foam is also known as “those flooring foam squares that look like puzzle pieces.” You’ll see “EVA” listed all over the place in your search of knowledge, but if you go to a hardware store and ask for EVA foam they might look at you sideways. They know what the flooring foam squares are so that’s what I ask for if I can’t find it myself. Anyway, once I had my mockup I was able to cut out the base shape for my armor chest piece. It looked nothing like a phoenix. Okay, maybe a little. Roughly. The basic outline was there, but I wanted something that actually looked phoenix-y, with pretty curves and flames (especially since it’s a breastplate for me and not a dude). Now, you may be wondering why I cut notches into the wings. This, dear reader, is where the tutorials come in. Most people like YouTube videos, but I prefer pictorials on Pinterest. Basically, if you cut a notch, you’ll get a roundish shape when you glue the edges together. You can also use a bowl or something when you’re heat sealing, but being a newbie I can’t really recommend any particular method. The notching worked for me, but some people form-shape by stretching the foam over an item while heat sealing. Again, research and tutorials will let you decide which method is best for you. And—I can’t stress this enough—safety, safety, safety. So, I used contact cement to close the notches, thus creating a rounded, cup-like shape. A little bit of blasting with the heat gun and it was “sealed.”

 

Next up, I wanted to put the pretty curves and flames on it. I didn’t want to use the half-inch-thick EVA foam for that though; I wanted something thinner and lighter. Enter the craft foam, which was like a couple millimeters thick and quite flexible and easy to cut with plain ol’ scissors. I used bright yellow craft foam, but since I planned on coating the piece with Plasti-Dip and spray painting it, the color really didn’t matter. I could’ve used bright green or multiple colors and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Again, I referenced my mockup, which was just for the EVA foam but would help with the layers. I cut the first layer to extend beyond the borders of the EVA foam (thus covering the thicker, not-as-pretty part of the build) and heat sealed the craft foam. A miraculous thing occurred, which was in no way mentioned in any tutorial that I saw, but was totally beneficial for my purposes: the craft foam curled when heated, creating an even cooler flame effect than just the shapes I had cut. Bonus! On to the contact cement to put all the pieces together! Yet again, I mention safety as this stuff is potent and if you’re not wearing a respirator in a well-ventilated area, you’re going to have a bad time. It doesn’t take much, but since I had a lot of stuff to glue to stuff I ended up using quite a bit.

 

Gluing completed, I moved on to the Plasti-Dip. This required—you guessed it—a respirator in a well-ventilated area. Since you’re spraying a coating, I also recommend a drop cloth of some kind or a large piece of cardboard to keep the excess spray from getting on the area around where you’re working. Wear old clothes that you don’t mind getting stained and gloves can help keep your hands from getting Plasti-Dipped. Then, you can kind of go wild. I sprayed the ever-living heck out of that thing. The brightly colored foam kind of helped me to see that I was getting most of everything because I was using black Plasti-Dip and, thus, could see the coverage very well.

 

When the Plasti-Dip was dry, I started spray painting. Again, the black Plasti-Dip provided a nice contrast to the gold spray paint, thus allowing me to see how well I was covering it with the added bonus of providing some depth to the piece. In areas where the gold wasn’t quite as thick the black made it seem like it was a darker gold, giving a shaded effect. Perfect.

 

The breastplate turned out amazing for a first attempt. If your first attempt doesn’t look quite “right,” don’t be discouraged—that’s what learning is all about! I got lucky that my experiment turned out on the first try, but that doesn’t mean my future attempts at foam armor crafting will have the same results. Now, this breastplate has to be worn somehow, right? Otherwise it’s just a pretty foam…thingie. Not even a paperweight because it’s foam and not heavy enough to weigh down papers.

 

This next part is still in the experimental stage and probably won’t be properly tested until Phoenix Comicon, when I “debut” the cosplay. I decided to make a harness for the breastplate. A bra, if you will, intended to be worn over the outfit I’m going to sew sometime in the next T-minus 9 ½ weeks. I decided on leather for the harness (Because I didn’t have enough to teach myself, right?), but I won’t go into the details of that in this post. Leatherworking is worthy of a post of its own and I did more leather work than just the harness.

 

At this point, I’m finally finished! What do you think? I’m personally quite proud of the result, but then again I’m a little biased. I mean, this is my piece de resistance, as it were—what will be the highlight of the finished costume. I hope! Well, there you have it – my firsthand experience with learning foam crafting from scratch. I hope you enjoyed it and look for my upcoming post on leatherworking on Starry Constellation Magazine!