I need foam smithing advice please

[LegacyAlloy227]

I'm starting a new ODST suit, and my idea is to use foam for soft parts, and 3d print the hard pieces. I looked at photos of the Reach ODST's, and they seem to share a lot of equipment with the rest of the UNSC military in Reach. I'm thinking of making a vest/cuirass out of foam and wrapping it with fabric, and then I can strap 3d printed equipment to the cuirass. I've done foam smithing before on small scale props, but never made a custom suit out of foam. Does anybody have a design process they could please share with me?

 

[pipninja]

Can you be more specific in what you need help with? I have a tutorial on my undersuit where I wrap foam in fabric if that helps!

 

[LegacyAlloy227]

That's actually exactly what I'm looking for! I'm mostly confused about the first steps with printing the templates after sizing them in armorsmith. Is there a type of software I would need for printing my templates?

 

[Cadet]

We have several tutorials outlining the basics of Foam Smithing:

Tutorial Index

Tutorial Index Who can make a Tutorial? A: Anyone How do I make a tutorial? A: Create a thread in any part of the forum you think your tutorial pertains to such as Costume, Props, Soft Parts etc. How do I get the tutorial in the Tutorial Section? A: start a conversation with me...

www.405th.com

As for software, most of our Foamsmiths will use the Foam Optimized .PDO files, many of which can be found in the Armory as those files labeled "FOAM", and print them with either the free or paid License version of Pepakura.

 

[LegacyAlloy227]

Thanks! I'm excited to learn this process.

 

[pipninja]

That's actually exactly what I'm looking for! I'm mostly confused about the first steps with printing the templates after sizing them in armorsmith. Is there a type of software I would need for printing my templates?

It really just depends on what you are trying to do. You can directly print them from armor Smith, or you can export them as a dxf per page, and open those in something like illustrator if you want to clean them up for Lazer cutting or cricut cutting of patterns

 

[N8TEBB]

PaiganBoi has a phenomenal foam ODST. It might be worth checking out his build thread and/or asking him some questions

Edit: NewBrody also has a foam/3D printed Romeo that would be worth taking a look at!

 

[LegacyAlloy227]

Will def take a look. Foam smithing is way foreign to me since I started 3d printing three years ago, and the more experts I can learn from, the better!