Independent Study: Costume Crafts

Southeast Missouri State University Conservatory of Theater and Dance

Instructor: Deana M. Luetkenhaus

This course was aimed to teach me various costume crafting projects and techniques so that I may utilize them in my future.

Foam Head

This project was aimed to teach me how to create a foam head for mascots or abstract costumes. The idea behind it is to build it from mattress padding foam, and carve and shape it to the form I wanted.

I wanted to recreate the Mayor's head from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

Foam Armor

I designed a set of pauldrons, and used 2 mm craft foam.

Armor making is a very tedious process and there's a series of prepping that must take place before any construction.

The first step after creating the pattern is to take a heat gun and seal the surface of both sides of the foam. Foam is porous and before you add any paint or primer you must close the pores up to create a more vibrant coating. The pores shrink with heat. Next is sanding the edges. Foam can sometimes tear at the edges, or depending on the foam, not adhere to each other once glue is added. Therefore, you must sand the edges to where they are smooth. Next is to prime it.

Once sanded you can glue your foam pierces together. You can use either E6000, gorilla glue, tacky glue, or barge. I usually use barge because of the strength. But glue is personal preference. Just be sure you're in a well ventilated area and have a mask ready.

Once glued you need to consider your edges and seams. The idea behind foam armor is that once its all glued and assembled you should not be able to see any seams to make it look as a choseive piece of metal. Depending on the seam and area its located you can use either flexseal or silicon caulk. I commonly use silicon caulk. Just be sure to smooth over the seam with a flat edge or your finger to blend the caulk into the seam as much as possible. Next is to sand your seams down to make it sooth and invisble. It's also not a bad idea to sand out any irregular bumps or edges you don't want. This is the last part you can really get into your foam to make it look pretty and cohesive before priming and painting.

Once you've sanded and blended your seams you can prime your foam. You want to prime your foam because even though you've shrank your pores, foam is still very absorbent and will continuously absorb your paint. While it's possible to get a nice color it will take several coats to get a nice vibrant color compared to priming which can get pricy. If your seams aren't as blended as you'd like you can prime your foam with flex seal to ensure it's fully blended. However, I typically use plastidip. It create a nice rubber coating that takes paint very well. You can prime your foam with glue, modge podge, flex seal, plastidip. When chosing your primer you need to consider the strain and movement of the armor. The foam will wrinkle depending on what primer you use to prep the foam with. Plastidip gurantees the least amount of wrinkles. Seeing as how this foam was being used at a part of the body with high amounts of movement I neeeded a primer that was strong and used less wrinklage.

Next is to paint and seal. For this project I wanted a nice galvonized and tarnished look. The black plastidip helped create a nicer undertone of black into the metal to create my desired effect. To create the galvonized looks I use a sponge and metallic silver and stipple layers of paint.

Once painted you need to make sure it's properly sealed. The sealer you select will depend on what finished look you want. It's painted yes but adding a sealer will add a coat over your paint. So you need to consider how that final look is gonna appear. Do you want it matte or shiny? Do you want it vibrant or dull? You could use modge podge, diluted glue, varnish, or spray sealers.

For this project I wanted a bit of a shine to it to further enforce the appearance of metal. I used a gloss spray sealer. Using a spray sealer is nice because it eliminates nasty brush strokes in the finished look. When using any sealer from a tube or can that is not spray-able you can dilute it into a 4:1 ratio in a spray bottle. This will eliminate your brush stokes. But you will need to do more coats.

Once sealed I rigged it with an old belt that I cut up.

The rivets were made from googly eyes, that were glued on before priming.