First helmet.

[spartangirlz]

I'm making mark Vii armor and the helmet is giving me a ton of gip with the seams and the angles its all sitting at. Anyone got any advice for it?

 

[PlanetAlexander]

Are you working with foam? Before you glue any rounded pieces together, heat form them first. This means taking a heat gun and warming the foam pieces up, then with your hands (or some sort of "foam anvil"), maniuplating them to be more rounded. This means when you glue them together (I recommend using contact cement), there's less stress on them being pulled apart.

Another thing I learnt the other day is to actually do curved surfaces inside out. Take a look at this post by R31 Studios for more info:

R31STUDIOS Foamsmith, Propmaker & Cosplay on Instagram: "3 tips on keeping your seems shut! There are many more things to consider, but here are some top three that I use a lot. Drop your tips the comments below! 1. Let it cure. This is one of the

499 likes, 12 comments - r31studios on August 2, 2022: "3 tips on keeping your seems shut! There are many more things to consider, but here are some top three that I use a lot. Drop your tips ..."

www.instagram.com

 

[spartangirlz]

Are you working with foam? Before you glue any rounded pieces together, heat form them first. This means taking a heat gun and warming the foam pieces up, then with your hands (or some sort of "foam anvil"), maniuplating them to be more rounded. This means when you glue them together (I recommend using contact cement), there's less stress on them being pulled apart.

Another thing I learnt the other day is to actually do curved surfaces inside out. Take a look at this post by R31 Studios for more info:

R31STUDIOS Foamsmith, Propmaker & Cosplay on Instagram: "3 tips on keeping your seems shut! There are many more things to consider, but here are some top three that I use a lot. Drop your tips the comments below! 1. Let it cure. This is one of the

499 likes, 12 comments - r31studios on August 2, 2022: "3 tips on keeping your seems shut! There are many more things to consider, but here are some top three that I use a lot. Drop your tips ..."

www.instagram.com

Do you have advice for working with smaller/thinner parts? especially when it comes to making angled cuts/sanding the angled bevels.

 

[PlanetAlexander]

If the smaller piece is for details, I like using 3mm foam, or 1mm for tiny details. For thin foam I use a scalpel/X-acto knife, and for thick foam, a utility knife. When cutting your bevels, make sure you've got a really sharp blade. If you're doing a straight line, a metal ruler might be handy as a guide to rest the blade on when cutting on an angle.

 

[PerniciousDuke]

Yeah, you've got to keep your knives super sharp to cut smooth lines. For sanding you can use a belt sander or dremel. For gap filling you can use Kwik Seal.

If you show us what you're working with we can give more specific advice.

 

[Reclaimara]

Also if pieces connect at angles be sure to make bevels in both pieces so after gluing they sit together nicely and the foam isn't pushing itself apart - I found dremel is a godly tool to work with foam to either do bevels or smooth down edges, etc.
And yeah can always do raised details with thinner foam (depending which sizes you have - in Europe 2mm is available) or 5mm depending on how much they stand out (can even glue foam pieces together if you want smaller/higher raised). Also potentially can cover up seams with thin 2mm foam gluing as additional layer on top.