Grab You Craft Foam, it's Craft/Play Time!

Let's make a quick THOR helmet!

Hey everyone, Avalyn here! Let's have some fun with craft foam!

I've made a couple of new videos for you. The first is how to make a simple helm out of craft foam. You can do your own design, or be Thor, Wonder Woman, or even She-Ra, Princess of Power! It's super simple so kids could do it (with parental supervision!).

Are your kids into watching toy vidoes? My girls just discovered them on YouTube and my oldest is obsessed. Now she wants to make her own. It's actually pretty fun and simple to shoot a video with even just a smart phone. Make a scene with some dolls or action figures! Here's another little video to give you an idea of how to make a backdrop for your scene with just a couple of sheets of colorful craft foam.

If you like my videos, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel! Don't miss out on future fun! I'm already working on more craft and toy videos and unboxings!

Speaking of unboxings, you won't want to miss this one.

Cosplay Prop - Vanilla's Spoon

I absolutely love the anime series Yumeiro Patissiere. It's about Baking desserts, what's not to love about that? (I'm a total foodie).

So this is Vanilla, the main fairy the helps the student out as she learned.  I made the outfit, wings, and spoon prop. 

I found this foam piping  (super flexable) material in the hardware store.  Honesty I dont know what it's suppose to be used for, but that's the magic of aim lessly wandering and finding wonderful material.

I made the M logo of the spoon with sparkle craft foam and coloring the foam pipping with a black marker.

I created a harder back surface for the spoon handle end using the thicker presentation form boards.

Remember using the Iron for the Chi ears?  Well using that technique again.  I'm ironing this foam to help form it into the spoon base.

Need to hold it in it's shape as it cools

Now for the gold coloUring, via spray paint.

I love using old shower curtains.  It can be bunched up so you can get to areas like the underside.

Attach everything to a wooden dowel for a handle and vola.  Now I just need to know how to fly away.

[Staff of Infinite Mysteries]

I finished my staff for my Tier 4 Priest costume from Warcraft and debuted it at PAX Prime 2011!

Here are some pics of the work in progress.

I started with a clear acryllic plastic tube. This is the bottom piece which I made out of Crayola Model Magic, then painted with acryllic paint. I formed the Model Magic around the top of a plastic cranberry juice jug, which fit around the acryllic tube. Oh, I also used purple cellophane wrapping around the tube and then painted black over parts of it.

Above the bottom piece is a piece of metal pipe I had lying around. I bought it when I was making a lightsaber a few years ago. It is rougly painted to blend in with the rest of the staff. It gives some balancing weight to the end of it.

This next piece was made of purple FIMO then painted with a combination of glow blue paint and white acryllic paint. In the game graphic it looks like it glows so I wanted to give that effect with paint since I wasn't going to build LEDs into it. It turned out when I was carrying the staff around all day at PAX I often rested this piece on my hand to supprt the weight of the staff on my shoulder. Worked as if I'd designed it that way.

The large piece here is made of Model Magic, then there is a purple FIMO ring, then a piece of metal pipe. I used thin craft foam inside the pipe in one layer to give it a snug fit against the acryllic tube.

Near the top I cut diamond out of the painted cellophane so the light would shine through brighter, like in the graphic.

The "head" of the staff is made of blue Styrofoam insulation foam. I bought one big sheet of it, had to have the guys at Lowes cut it in half for me so I could fit it in my car.

First I cut the shape out with a hot knife, the sort that has one long thin blade about 4 inches long. Then I sanded it down and shaped the edges with a hotter hot knife, the sort that just has a razor blade on it. Then I gave it one coat of primer (leftover from my furniture-painting projects!) and added on black paint and several layers of purple and white and silver to get the look I wanted.

This post is getting long, so I will talk about the electrical madness in another post!
>> CONTINUE TO PART 2: LET THERE BE LIGHT

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Sleeves 0.5

Time to make the gloves and arm amour.  Ok for warning, this pieces isn't as accurate as the original but I didn't discover a lot of my flaws until I was complete.  sorry didn't feel like going back to fix it

So let’s start with a pair of long black gloves purchased at a costume store (no I am not sewing my own gloves, I’ve tried it and will avoid it if possible).  These spikes on the back of her hand are inspired by the original Lightning costume. 

So I made them like I had for a previous Lightning outfit.  <insert mistake face> Although inspired they aren’t completely the same, which was my mistake.  The gold spikes have been moved on top her knuckles now and should be 4 of them.  Eh whatever.

Anyways I made these out of foam and am attacking them with safety pins.  The picture shows double sided tape, but that ended up being a not as useful with the material of my gloves.

So I replicated what I see on the backside of the armor with foam, nothing special.

Keep in mind that the left arm and the right arm don't look the same.  I had to do some adjustments since I didn't realize this until I was done.

The armor attachment should probably be made out of leather of vinyl, but I made it out of foam (because it was sitting there in front of me and I didn’t feel like going out and spending more money on vinyl).  I made the pattern as I saw on her pictures.  But while wearing it, it would shift because it is slippery and large (due to it having to be able to fit around my wrist). 

So I made Bumpers!  LOL This is the weirdest idea used for this cosplay.  Surprisingly works very well, doesn’t shift because it’s pressed up against your skin.  Because the bumpers are malleable it conforms to your shape, yet soft and comfortable.  

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Armour 0.4

Because these tutorial is already so long I’m skipping the details of obvious steps.

Painting with two colours of metallic grey will give it depth.  Just layer it on top of each other.

I made the basic shape of the front my guessing.  Added the gold embellishments

The collar.  I thought this was going to be hard, to by surprise it’s much easier than real sewing.  I started with a single sheet of foam and cut an ovalish shape out of the center.  Here I’m testing it’s fit.  Similar to a pencil skirt, don’t make the hole as big as you will assume you will need.  Because the material is malleable you can wiggle your way in.  A smaller hole will make it look more fitted.

Started to attach my front and back pieces to my collar base (which will later be painted).  I also made a neck collar which I wrapped around the opening.

I forgot to mention, those studs are just scrapbooking pearls.  I used all weird wild colours, but one spray paint makes them look like rivets.   BoYa!

 Time to attach the shoulder pads.  I use more foam to anchor the armor and the shoulder pads together.  It’s strong enough that it won’t fall apart, soft enough that the ‘heavier’ piece will weigh it down lay and move naturally with your shoulders. 

Ok now to attach this bottom piece (I don’t know what to call these random sections).  When you look at Lightning’s outfit closely you can see that these bars are actually separate pieces.   I wanted to keep that look so I used hot glue (solid and clear) to give structure to it on the backside.  Also notice that (in the picture below) that the foam I used was a lot thicker, also for structural integrity.

Here’s the finished piece.  The red pieces won’t be noticeable because those will be facing my skin.  Although I will need to go through the edges with a silver pen because it’s still weird to have random colours outlining your outfit like a cartoon character (which even Lightning is not).



Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Belt 0.2

So the first thing I focused on for my XIII-2 Lightning cosplay was the belt.  I thought it was a good starting project to test to see if I would have the skills to continue to make the armour. 

Ingrediants

• Craft Foam,
• Round Gems
• Brown Vinyl
• Sewing elastic
• Gold Paint
• Two different coloUrs of metallic GrAy spray paint 

1. I started off by cuting out the shapes out of craft foam; created the curves by heating the pieces with an iron and letting them cool in shape.
2. Then I  glued on these Mini Round Gems for the studs found all over Lightning's armour.

3. Spray paint the pieces with the metallic gray paint.  This will give the armour some depth because of the shadowing.
 
4.  Basically the same thing for the gold pieces for the tails of the belt.

5. I cut some strips of vinyl for the tails and glued everything together with E6000 (super glue).  The clips ensure that the craft foam and the vinyl stay together as the glue dries since the craft foam doesn't lay flat.

6. I glued the front and side panels of the belt together with hot glue, but for the back pieces I attached it with sewing elastic.  This is so I can climb into the belt by stretching it out like stretch pants, but it will shrink back a more slim size.

Here's the finished product so far.

There is still some adjustments I need/should make but will do based on time

• The front will be secured with a hook to the top armour so it will stay up, but the back sags a bit.  I will glue a safety pin so I can secure it to the back of my shirt at a higher level
• I made the side panels too large which made the overall belt too large.  It's not slimming as it should be, but I rather spend my time on finishing the whole cosplay than to fix a piece that most people wouldn't even know was incorrect.  The fix this would just be to resize some pieces.

Tutorial - Chobits Persocom Ears

Persocom(from Chobits) Ears



Ingredient List

1. Pink Craft Foam
2. White Craft Foam
3. Hair Accessory
4. Glue (I’m using hot glue)
5. Iron

Directions
Directions
1)Fold a piece paper and cut out a template of the persocom’s ear from a front view. The crease
should be alone the ‘outside’ edge of the ear
2)Open it up and cut out two pieces from the white craft foam.





3)Iron the craft foam.
4)While it is soft and hot, quickly create the fold and hold it in place until it cools. Once cooled the foam should hold its shape. Pretty neat huh?


Pretty Example





5)Now cut out a pink strip has show here. Cutting the frays will help curve it correctly inside the piece.
6)Trim to size. Doesn’t it kinda look like sushi?




7) Glue
8) Place



9)Cut out circles for their ear embellishments. I use biscuit cutters to create a perfect circle imprint.
10)Glue on the ear embellishments. Even though they don’t have that pink piece that I’ve done here, I think it helps the embellishment stand out more


11)There are many ways to attach the ears using different hair accessories. It’s best to pick which accessory you are most comfortable with wearing for a long period of time.

• HeadBand – most popular because it will always guarantee that it is at the location of the ears. But the hairband is visible, and it’s uncomfortable to be place on top of the ears. If you go this route, use a thick headband (more comfortable on the ears) and cover it with a Lolita headpiece.
• HairClips – gives a more natural because the clips are hidden and can be clipped to the wig for stability. If clipping to fallen hair it won't be as secure.Can you imagine ears that shift several inches when the persocom is running?
• Hair ties - It’s pretty secure but again the shifting depending on the hair style. It also bunches the hair (which is fine for some looks but not all).

12) Yay, done