Tutorial: Fabric Covered Foam Armor
How to Make Fabric Covered Armor
When I was planning my Saber cosplay, I decided to try a new technique I had heard about for her armor. I would make the armor out of foam, but I wouldn’t paint it. Instead, I would cover it with silver spandex to make it look like metal. This technique sounded like something I had to try at least once and I decided Saber would be a good to try it out. I’m really happy with how it came out and I’ll show you how I did it. This is more of a general tutorial on the technique, but keep an eye on the blog for tutorials on specific armor pieces from my Saber cosplay.
Why use fabric?
Using this method and painting your armor will get you very different results. Which one you pick depends on what you feel most comfortable doing, how much time you have to dedicate to the cosplay, and what you want the finished product to look like. One of the biggest advantages of using this method is that you don’t have to go through all the layers that come with painting foam armor. You don’t have to do several coats of primer and paint with dry times in between each coat. However, you might spend a little more on the fabric than you would on paint and your armor will look different. Using metallic spandex makes your armor really shiny and it looks a lot like metal, but you can’t really weather it the way you would paint. They’re both good techniques, they just give a different look and feel to your cosplay.
What You’ll Need
For this tutorial, I’m just showing you the technique for covering you foam armor with the fabric, so you’ll need your foam armor pieces already made at this stage. You’ll also need spandex or another 4 way stretch fabric in whatever color you want. Having the fabric stretch is important so that it covers the pieces well. You also need a spray adhesive and another glue. I used hot glue but you could use another type if you prefer.
Covering Your Pieces
Now that you’ve decided this method is the one you want to use and got your materials, let’s get started.
This method will pick up any textural details on your pieces, so make sure you’ve added those details before getting started.
I’m going to be using the armored skirt panels from my Saber cosplay to demonstrate this technique. The first thing I did was attach the fabric to the back of the piece with the spray adhesive and trim the fabric right to the edge of the foam. I skipped this step on some of the other armor pieces for Saber because they were being attached to a backing of some kind (like gloves or shoe covers) so I didn’t need to worry about covering the back.
Next, I attached more fabric to the front of the piece with spray adhesive. I’m using the spray adhesive here because it form any visible clumps underneath the fabric. At this stage, make sure the fabric is nice and smooth with no bubbles. If you have any texture details on your piece go over them to make sure the fabric contours to the details.
Trim the fabric you just attached to the front but leave enough extra on all the sides to wrap onto the back. Exactly how much extra you need will depend on the thickness of your foam. You’ll also want to clip your corners so that your fabric will wrap around the edges smoothly.
At this point I switched to using hot glue. I folded the edges of the front fabric piece over and glued them down onto the back, making sure everything stayed smooth on the front.
That’s pretty much it. Your fabric is now attached to your foam armor. After this, I added some details to my pieces with fabric paint and attached the straps so I can wear them.
