Foam Building Questons

[cybris]

Hi, I have several questions and concerns about doing a foam build. I originally would build a helmet with pepakura,paper,harden with fiberglass and bondo...etc, but from what I can see it looks easier to build especially body pieces with foam. Here are my questions:

-What kind of foam do I use?
-Will the foam be strong enough, would I coat any of it in fiberglass resin?
-When it comes to making helmets, does foam or paper produce a better result?
-If I want to make a mold of it, can I? and how would I go about doing that?

Sorry for so many questions Xd

 

[Ravarkian]

Hey Cybris, always glad to see more people looking into foam builds. Looks like you've got a few questions so let's get to it!

-EVA foam, they usually come in the form of anti-fatigue floor mats of some kind that are sold in packs of 4 tiles or so. They're not too hard to find, and inexpensive if you know where to look, I would suggest looking at Harbor Freight if there are any near you (They'll often have sales on a ton of stuff.)

-The EVA foam is quite sturdy once a given piece is finished. Except for some awkwardly shaped costume parts, but then again you could just add some support foam parts inside to help make it stronger if you want, but it's usually not necessary. I'm not 100% on this, but I think fiberglass resin is very destructive when used with foam, either that or more of a mess than anything else. But when you coat foam in something, it's usually a sealant to protect it. Most people use Plastidip which is a spray/paint on rubber product that's somewhat flexible and can act as a primer for painting.

-The helmet just depends on what you want to try tackling. A foam helmet isn't all that much more difficult than other foam builds, just maybe a bit tricky because of the thickness of the foam. I'm not totally sure about which is better because I've only ever used foam, it's probably just preference.

-I have no idea about molding though, I have thought about that route, but have no clue about it.

Hope this helps! And don't worry about asking too many questions, the more you ask the more you'll know.

-Ravarkian

 

[cybris]

Thanks for the quick reply! I think I'll stick to paper for starting helmets, but definately do foam for everything else.

 

[Ravarkian]

If you don't want to mess with resin and bondo, you could start out building the helmet pepakura file from cardstock and use that to get a better idea on how to go about building it with foam. Plus you get a chance to figure out the scale. Just thought I'd leave a quick tip! Also, craft foam will be your bestfriend in most foam builds!

 

[edwardjlw]

Personally I prefer pepping the helmet out of cardstock, but in the end all it comes down to is preference. Despite me not really enjoying pepping, I feel like it gives me a cleaner result in the end with an accurate shape and detailing. I also like having a solid helmet which I can further detail with body filler, and which feels like a solid, hard helmet. As for the rest of the body pieces I like scratch building better as I feel it's a more creative and enjoyable way of approaching it.

Again, everybody has their own preference, so if I were you I'd experiment with the various methods and see which works best for you. Good luck

 

[cybris]

Thanks for the suggestion! I also see you are making you're halo 4 MC build with carboard, how difficult is that compared to foam for the armor pieces do you think?

 

[CLOTHAR]

You can also look into coating the foam in PVA (white glue) and/or resin. You can get a more rigid finish, but it is not a requirement. You can make molds from the pieces, but you need to seal the foam first. PVA works well for this. I haven't molded anything that was coated in plastidip.