How To Make Foam Armor

Due to a few requests, I have decided to make a fairly detailed tutorial for my foam armor. This is my suit create last year from foam, Its my second suit of armor and I am currently working on my third. For the purpose of ease, I will be showing pictures from both suits to help show how a suit of your own might be made. Here is a list of needed materials for foam armor.

Materials:
-A knife (carpenters or hot knife, or even a scroll-saw)
-Computer with printing capabilities
-Hot glue & Glue gun (I prefer one with low/high temperature setting so that you can quickly join parts and avoid burns)
-Paper, pens, ruler etc.
-Plasti-Dip, and spray paint
-A dremel.....very, very, VERY helpful.
-And of course.....the foam! I typically use EVA foam from three retailers which are all a little different in terms of composition. 
Home Depot->   Thinner foam that bends easily, has a diamond pattern on the reverse side.
Lowe's->              Thicker foam that doesn't bend as easily, very durable and has a hatched pattern on the reverse side
Harbor Freight->Thinner foam that bends easily, has a hatched pattern on the reverse side
Now that you have got everything, Lets Begin!

Step 1: File Collection and Printing

All over the internet are 3d models, some in Pepakura form that are craving to be made. If you're not sure what Pepakura is, it is simply a program that takes a 3d model and makes it into a net so that the 2d parts can be printed, and assembled in real life. The viewer program which allows you to also print can be found here: http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/download/viewer.html  The Designer program, which lets you scale the parts to you can be found here: http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/ If you ever need help printing/scaling/anything with Pepakura, simple search the web (There are tons of tutorials for that) or simply ask me and Id love to help. Once you have the model you want to be foam (Keep in mind that you can find these all over the net by searching say "halo armor Pepakura" If you can't find what you're looking for, it most likely hasn't been made into a 3d model yet. 
Ok, once you have the file, open it in the viewer and hit "Print". When all is done, you will have something like a pile of pages filled with polygons. Excellent, these will be your templates to trace on the foam. 

Comments

[amiwa85]

Your Mass Effect Defender Armor look awesome. I've been looking for that Pepakura armor. where can i find pdo file fir that armor?

[c3r3bra1]

what did u wear under the legs part of the armor cause i saw what you wore under the chest part, but what about the legs?

[c3r3bra1]

you can also state everything you wore under the armor so legs chest hands head feet that would be nice thank you! :D

[The Irish Cowboy]

Everything apart from the underarmour top and some track pants I got off of amazon, I wore the umpire pads over the shirt and the gloves I used were these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QT6UBW/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1:D I also got this neck seal later on http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002P51T76/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

[k2iran]

this Armor is something more than awesome!!!!!!!! :O

[tvo6]

where can I find the download for the wip defender armor?

[The Irish Cowboy]

I actually had to rip the file apart for making it, they arn't the prettiest ill admit that. PM me your email and ill send them! :D

[jsabus]

Okay, so I am having major issues downloading stuff to Pepakura via 4shared. Is there any chance you could somehow send the files for some armor pieces on Pepakura to me?

[The Irish Cowboy]

What armor pieces would you like? :D

[jordanmar]

heres a video tut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb6CXGortrQ

[The Irish Cowboy]

Thanks......

[stopityoureatingme]

Hi :) Awesome make, best I've seen. What did you wear under the suit?

[The Irish Cowboy]

Thanks! I searched around for a while, and finally found this:

[rhoult]

Do you have a link for that? the boys down at the 405th have been looking for a good undersuit for the spartan 4 armor and this looks better than anything i've seen

[TheAwesomestDude]

very cool

[austin42]

how much $ for pre made one

[The Irish Cowboy]

This is a tutorial, not an ad. Sorry buddy :)

[stopityoureatingme]

Ah Great Thanks!

[kurtnotkirk]

This is awesome! I just wish they would make a version of pepakura for mac!

[sadben]

YES I CAN FINALLY MAKE MY N7 ARMOUR!!

[ManCaveTutorials]

Good job

[eyebot117]

This is a really cool alternative to fiberglass and resin! If I had access to this material I would totally try to build something from it. How much does this foam material cost and where should I look for it in my local hardware store?

[The Irish Cowboy]

Thanks! The foam sheets cost about 20$ for a pack of four. They are usually in the stores flooring department. Otherwise you can ask, they are really for padding your garage floor.

[airgunguy123]

this is the very best halo armor EVER!! you should make all the halo weapons.

[jrusso2]

Dude, thats sweet. I wish that i had the time to do something like that.

[GorillazMiko]

Awesome job. How about The Flood next? : )

[The Irish Cowboy]

thanks haha. I'm actually planning out my halo 4 suit right now ;)

[Haunted Spider]

very nice. Interesting to see the use of the EVA foam. I like numbers so can you give me a few. What size printer are you using for the pieces? About how many hours are in this project? Looks like a ton. and when are you doing a helmet instructable?

[The Irish Cowboy]

Thanks! I use a standard US letter size paper. If the file was sized to A4 an option will pop up asking if you want to print what fits on a letter size. 9 times out of ten there are no cut off parts. Not so sure on an estimated number of hours, the unpainted chest for my new build probably took me about 6 or 7 hours. As far as a helmet tutorial goes, I won't be able to make a tutorial on that until the spring. The chemicals used don't do so well in the cold and neither do I haha