Materials Monday: Foam Board

Alright folks, it's time for me to start putting my new plan into action! So I'm happy to welcome you to the first installment of Materials Monday here at MDC.

And what more appropriate material to start things off with than one of my personal favorites: Foam Board.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while know that I use this stuff all the time. The biggest reasons why are:

• It's lightweight
• It's cheap
• It's easy to cut, sand, finish, etc.
• It has enough volume to easily make 3D projects
• It's sturdy enough as long as you have base or enough layers
• It can be used to make a wide variety of props.

I've made everything from swords to guns to armor out of this stuff, and it has yet to let me down. Here are a few projects that have foam board as a base material:

Truth be told, the vast majority of my props (particularly larger items) use foam board somewhere in their construction.

Working with Foam board

One of the greatest things about making stuff out of foamcore is that it's really easy to work with! All you need is an X-acto knife and you're good to go. Ok, you probably want a few other things (namely a pencil, some paper, and probably a ruler), but you get the idea.

The first thing you want to do with any project is make a pattern. 

Ok yes, you're seeing the pattern with the nearly finished prop, but it's the only photo I could find >_<

When you're working with foamcore, because the foam is covered with paper on either side, it's makes transferring your pattern super easy. Just cut out the pattern piece you want to transfer, and then use a pencil, pen, marker, bloody finger, or whatever else you want, to trace around the outside or your pattern.
Once you have your pattern traced, you can use your X-acto knife to cut out the shapes! Easy-peasy!

Building your prop from your cut pieces is just as simple. All you need to do is stack them and glue them together. I generally use either wood glue or Mod Podge, and paint it on with a wide paintbrush. While it's drying, I generally put a heavy book or other object on top, to essentially "clamp" the pieces together so that they have as much surface area pressing together as possible.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Foamcore is not the most sturdy material in the world.
You pretty much always want a minimum of 3 layers of this stuff. With Mika & Yuu's swords, the blades were  long and narrow and I didn't want them to be overly bulky, so I only used two layers and they were not as sturdy as I would have liked. With wider blades like Ashnard's Gurgurant or Yatsuhashi's giant orange blade, you might be able to get away with just 2 layers, because they're so wide, but I wouldn't recommend it. The other option is to simply build them on a sturdier base. I did that with both of my large blades: they're thin wood at the center, with foam board on either side. That will definitely give you the sturdiness you need without it being super heavy by having the bulk of making the whole thing out of wood.

Beveled Edges

Another great thing about foamcore is that it's much quicker and easier to get a beveled edge than if you're using wood or MDF, particularly if you have a wide bevel.

Auron's katana is a great example of a very wide bevel. I would not want to have to sand that whole surface into this shape with just wood. I'd be spending the rest of my life working on it.

To achieve a beveled edge, start by marking where the bevel will go on your piece of foamcore board. Then, with your Xacto knife, carefully slice through the top layer of paper. You'll end up cutting a little into the foam as well which is fine, but you want to make sure you're not cutting all the way through your board because you want the beveled part to remain attached.
Once you've sliced the paper, you can peel off the part where your bevel is going to be. Depending on how easily the paper comes off, this can be somewhat time-consuming, but you don't have to get every last bit off, because the next step will remove any remaining bits.

Once you've done what you can with the paper, it's time to sand sand sand! You'll want to use a rough-grit sandpaper because that'll get rid of the mass faster, and it doesn't matter if it leaves scratch marks on the foam, because you'll be covering it with spackling paste when you're done anyway.

An alternative to simply sanding the foam into your bevel is you use a knife to cut the foam into the bevel (I generally use a cheap serrated kitchen knife that I got at the thrift store). There are advantages to both methods, and you can even use them in tandem. Generally sanding gives you more control because you're getting rid of the foam a little bit at a time & you're less likely to take too much off or gouge your project as you are with a knife. On the other hand, it's a lot faster to use a knife and if you have a very wide bevel (like with Auron's katana) it can save you a whole lot of time and effort. You choose the method that you're most comfortable with, and just remember that even if something happens to your foam, you're going to be covering it with spackling paste in the next step anyway so you can fix any mistakes at that point.

Spackling

This is the most important part when using foamcore or even regular styrofoam because this is what keeps your project from looking like shit. Whether you have a beveled edge or not, you'll want to spackle all of the raw edges of your foam board. 

I use DAP All-Purpose Spackling Paste. It's inexpensive, sands easily, can generally be found in any hardware store and works well for my purposes. You can also find it on Amazon.

When you spackle your edges, you want to goop it on pretty thick. I usually just spread it on with my finger. Let it sit for a while (I usually leave mine overnight), because if it's not totally dry, you might have big chunks come off when you try to sand it.

Once it's totally dry, now it's time to sand away! I usually start with a rougher-grit sandpaper to file down the spots where it's especially thick or gooped on weirdly, and then a finer grit sandpaper to smooth it out. You may have to repeat this process once or twice if you have weak spots in your spackling, because this is what gives you your surface to paint on, so you want it to look nice, and the spackling is harder than the foam so it'll be sturdier that way.

Once the spackling is done, you'll still want to prime it with mod podge or your sealerof choice, to keep all the insides well protected.

 

WIP (not quite) Wednesday: MOBA Edition

Hello again folks! Mikey here, trying his best to keep to the plan he put forward last week. And we'll be starting things off simple, because I'm going on vacation this week and don't have a ton of time to lollygag around. So this week, I'm bringing you some WIPs from my current collection of commissions! (all of which come from MOBAs, no less!)

First is a set of weapons from the giant lion, Rengar, from League of Legends.

I've been working on both the big, spiky sword, as well as the claw blades on his left arm.

I decided to use MDF for the base on all of it, so I started by patterning out the blades. Once the patterns were transferrred, I used my jigsaw to cut them out.

Here are the patterns for the blades (along with the engine sword I built. You'll get to see that later.

To connect the two small blades, I used a chunk of dowel rod and screwed them on, then wood glued everything to make sure it stayed together.

As you can see here, for the small gauntlet blades, I beveled the MDF directly using my Dremel tool with a sanding bit. Since they were so small it seemed silly to add an extra layer, just to bevel it. For the big sword, however, I added some layers of foam core board, and did the wide bevel on those.

As per usual, all of the exposed foam was spackled & sanded smooth. For the gauntlet part that the arm blades would attach to, I weapped strips of worbla around 2mm craft foam, and shaped it so it would take the approrpiate curve to be worn as a gauntlet. It also has holes so it can be laced up along the bottom. I also attached the blades themselves with a strip of worbla, heated and stretched over the piece of dowel between the two blades, and mushed into the worbla on the gauntlet.

From here, all that was left was to put a bunch of layers of mod podge on everything and then start painting! That's the step I'm currently on, but they should be done pretty soon after I get back from my vacation.

The next weapon I'm working on is one a lot of folks should recognize, considering how popular this game has been.

That's right, I get to make Symmetra's photon projector. Honetly, I'm super pumped about this project because it should look awesome when it's done, and of course it's going to light up! The other nice thing is that Kamui Cosplay made an amazing one of these (but let's be real, all of her props are phenomenal), and has a tutorial of how she made the gun.

While I built the base of the gun a bit differently (namely, mine is hollow), and lit it in a slightly different way, it was super useful to see how she put it together. Also, the arms will end up being built more or less the same, so that'll be helpful ^_^

As always, I started by patterning out the base (which naturally I didn't take a photo of). I cut the base out of cereal boxes and wrapped it in worbla, the result of which you can see here:

The detail over the glowing part is also worbla, wrapped around craft foam. For the blue panels where the light will come through, I took toploader car protectors which I have a ton of because Magic: the Gathering. The blue is actually just blue plastic shopping bags I cut up, wrapped around a card-sized piece of clear plastic, and inserted into the card protector.

I then began to build the barrel of the gun which, in common fashion for me, is made out of trash and scraps of things I have leftover from other projects. I started with the cap from a baby bottle (left over from my Adam Syringe) which I used for the actual end of the barrel because I could make a small disc of the blue translucent setup and screw the top on to keep it in place. The next chunk is part of a wire spool that I had lying around (which I wrapped with a piece of craft foam so it wouldn't glow when the light was on), the thick disc is a piece of MDF that came as some sort of packaging for something and I decided to keep it (because I am a pack rat and  this junk comes in handy sometimes). Lastly, there's a piece of aquarium tubing (left over from my Dr. Who lightsaber) what is attached to the back. I cut slits in the aquarium tubing to snugly hold my light, and because it's transparent, the single light actually makes the front and both side panels glow, all together.

Don't even ask me how I came up with this method because I have no idea what my brain did to come up with it.

Now that I had the lighting mechanism put together, it was time to build the rest of the gun base, which I used more cereal box wrapped in worbla to build.

Here you can see it with the pattern pieces. The aquarium tubing fits through that hole on the front.

You can just barely see in the photo, but there's a large opening on the inside curve here. that lines up with the end of the aquarium tubing so that you can putt the little light out to turn it on/off. When it's finished, there will be a piece of craft foam that covers the hole, and will most likely be attached by velcro.

Here you can see everything with the light inside.

The last part that I've put together is the handle, which it two layers of EVA foam glued together. As you can see I still need to sand it so it's not oddly textured like that, and then that will also be covered in worbla. Then I'll just have to make the arms and paint!

The last project, which I haven't actually started yet as I'm waiting on a few more measurements first, is also an Overwatch commission. This one is for a few armor pieces for Imp Mercy. Specifically I'm making the hip tassets and the leg armor.

I'll be making them using the same method I used for Leo's armor: worbla over craft foam. Also, I get to light the little purple panels on the hip pieces so that'll be fun.

And that's all for this week! I'm working on two new posts for you guys:
First is a tutorial-ish post on how I made my engine sword from FFXV (which I haven't posted anything about it on here, though I did post some progress photos on Twitter/FB). 
Second will be my first installment of "Materials Monday" where I talk about some of my favorite crafting materials, how to use them, what they're good for, etc. The first material on the list is foam board! I'm hoping to have that together for next Monday so stay tuned!

Vroom Vroom (FFXV Engine Sword Tutorial)

Hey guys, welcome back! Today I'm going to be talking about how I made my FFXV engine sword! Lets star by taking a look at this absurd weapon.

So the fun thing with putting this together (besides all of the cool little details) was the relative lack of official references for it. So what I ended up using primarily was photos of props other people had made, to see what the details looked like. I primarily used this beautiful model, from someone who sadly no longer appears to be on deviantArt.

So, let's get down to business! It all started, as I'm sure you all know by now, with a pattern, which you can see here along with the pattern for the Rengar blades I was also working on.

I decided to make the base out of MDF (because I've been enjoying using that lately) and cut out the body, making notches on the end to fit a piece of PVC for the handle.

As you can see here, the PVC fits into the notches and holds itself in place. This makes for a much sturdier connection that simply gluing it on the end.

To solidify the connection with the handle, I plugged up the end of the PVC piece (the part where it attached to the blade) with kleenex bits, and sealed it with hot glue. Then I mixed up some liquid plastic, which I often use for casting, and poured it into the open end of the PVC pipe. The liquid plastic cures solid and strong, and prevents the PVC piece from wiggling around and falling apart.

To get the bevel on the blade, I used a dremel tool with a sanding bit. you can see the bevels in the next photo.

I'm sorry for not having a photo of an in-between  step, but here's the first round of details that were added. The red is a piece of craft foam, which I used a ball point pen to engrave the details. There's a lovely tutorial for how to do that here. As for the round pieces, the large round section is actually the cover for a CD stack, kind of like this. I got it at Big Lots for pretty cheap, and consequently I have a bunch of blank CDs floating around my craft foam now. I cut out the center, leaving about a 1-2cm ring around the outside. I also cut out the center circular part (where the spindle fits in). You can see it slightly better here (with a bunch of other details I'll get to momentarily).

For the smaller circular pieces, they're actually the plastic covers from plumber's seal tape, which you can find at Home Depot for about $.50 each, which is the only way I justified buying 6 rolls to myself... consequently I also had to travel to several Home Depots before I had enough because I wasn't about to spend $3 on the more expensive rolls with the same packaging when I wasn't even going to be using the tape. 

The mesh that I fit into both round structures is something I found at Home Depot as well. It's actually chunks of gutter guards, similar to these ones. I cut the corcular shapes out of the gutter guard, and glued them into the round plastic sections. It worked out really well because both the CD cover and the cover for the seal tape had a lip that I could easily glue in the gutter mesh. Once they were assembles, I glued on the main ones with E-6000. The rest we'll attach later, after we finish a few other details.

**A Note about attaching the CD covers: Because the PVC pipe extends into circular portion of the MDF base, I had to carve out a rounded section from the CD cover so that it fit over the PVC. I used my dremel for that, with the same sanding bit.

Now onto the other details. the three main details left to build are here:

For the red section, I cut the black part out of MDF, and used a small cardboard tube (I believe it was the center of a roll of something but I'm not sure what) and a plastic cap which I had in my stash of junk that just happened to fit perfectly over the end of the cardboard tube.

Next up we have the purple details. For those, I cut out several layers of cardboard for the base, added craft foam details for the ridges on the back, and glued on actual dimes for the little circular parts. I then covered the whole thing with a piece of worbla.

Here you can see the shapes a little better defines in the worbla. I generally use a Popsicle stick for pushing the worbla in to get the detail definition.

Lastly we have the yellow detail, which involved a lot of trial and error to get right. I knew I wanted it to light up, and thankfully I has a tiny keychain flashlight that would work well for the base, and let it light up the way I wanted it to. I had a clear plastic tube that as one point held little glass beads. It was the perfect size & shape, and it was transparent, so that was an easy call for the section that needed to glow. The hard part was figuring out what to fill the tube with such that it would glow blue. I tried mixing up resin and adding blue to it, but the dye never turned out looking right, and in once case the reaction was hot enough that the tube melted out of shape. Finalle I had a stroke of genius. I cut a section of hot glue stick, wrapped it with a section of blue plastic grocery bag, and shoved it into the tube. When I turned the light on it glowed exactly how I wanted it to. VICTORY AT LAST!!

The end cap was actually the cap of the bead tube, so that was easy, and I attached it all to the flashlight with E-600. As for attaching it to the sword itself, I carved out a little channel for it to sit in with my dremel, and then used contact cement to attach it. The reason I used that instead of E-6000 is because it was topheavy, so it would've been difficult to get it to stay in place while the glue dried. With contact cement, you paint a layer on each piece, and then press them together after about 15-20 minutes. It creates an instant bond so there was no worry about the topheaviness messing things up.

As you can see, we're almost done! That just leaves a few details to look at before we can start the sealing and painting process. First off are a few small details you can see in that last photo. Both of them were done with layers of craft foam. Here's a close-up:

As you can see, I've also attached the other round pieces made from the seal tape containers, as well as the other details I'd constructed. All attached with E-6000.

The last detail is a subtle one, but I'll point it out anyway. I added a little cap to the bottom section highlighted in the photo above. I hadn't attached it in that picture yet, but you can see it here:

From here, all that's left are the finishing stuff. I added a bunch of mod podge to everything, and then spray primed it all in black. The main reason I did that was because I wanted the inside of the pieces that had the mesh overlays to be black, which was way easier to spray than to try to shove a paintbrush through the little holes in the mesh.

**IMPORTANT NOTE** Make sure you cover the glowing part before you spray it! I just taped some plastic around it to protect the transparent section.

Here's some of the painting process! I base coated all of the silver parts with a medium grey before painting my metallics on. A few spots were a darker silver so they got gunmetal grey metallic paint instead of the sterling silver.

The last little details to be added were here, which I squeezed out metallic silver dimensional paint to get them.

And with that we have another finished prop, and another happy customer!

Thanks, Alex, for the fun commission, and thanks to all of you for stopping in!
If any of you guys are trying to make your own engine sword, I'd love to see it, especially if this was at all helpful with your construction :-D