rubber foam, foamy: how I made Harry Potter (english post)

 

Hi everyone, 

I'm back, I come back to foamy or foam rubber, musgummi, I don't know right way to call in english, anyway let's try to make a Harry Potter with this material. I'm planning to make several characters, this is a request from a follower, but very soon I'll make another very famous character, I won't tell you now who it will be.

Last time I made a single post in Italian and in English but things to say are too much I decided to make two different posts.

I start with list of material we need:

• skin color
• black
• grey
• white
• sunflower yellow

I also added a base later with printed foam rubber, some characters, like this, have more weight on their shoulders (coat/cape), and the eggs where we are going to fix the leg is thinner, not he can stand up, a lot depends on the characters, for Conan and Arale and for other characters this problem doesn't exist but for others I necessarily had to add a base, after all even the action figures of the characters have a base... I tried to put some heels on it and I have to say that the idea works, but was still unstable, so a base is the fastest and most effective solution. An option could be to use either two spheres, one larger and one smaller, cut a small part of the dome and then cut more than half so that it has more weight and we will have a more chubby foot or use half a wooden egg to give base weight.

you also need :

• hot glue
• iron or hair straightener
• cutter
• scissors big and small
• fine tip markers (black and red)
• acrylic paint 
• awl or skewer pick
• wire
• nippers and pliers
• marker with large barrel (we need  it only to shape trousers
• sphere of 5cm in diameter (1" 7/8) 
• sphere of 3cm in diameter (1" 1/8)
• 2 eggs 3x5cm (1" 1/8 x 1" 7/8)
• pattern

Every time I create a new character, I need to make a sample,  often people ask me for models that could gradually be created on their own, starting from a previous model, foam rubber as opposed to paper can be modeled more easily but for this reason it is less perfect than it, in fact every creation is absolutely original even if it realizes the same subject, the pattern or rather the cut must be arranged according to the situation.

 

In video you can see that I have a moment of difficulty fixing the legs on the sphere, as the piece of the trousers has the corners cut, in the pattern I have modified although you can see the corners of how it was before, I advise you to glue until the point where I cut the triangle and after fixing the legs glue the pelvis.

I forgot to write on the hat, piece that looks like a crown, that is the hat seen upside down, the body/neck and legs pieces go rolled up i put the "h" to indicate the height so it goes rolled up like see to the left of the pattern piece.

I always start from the feet, maybe for someone else it's better to start from the face or somewhere else, for me it's more comfortable to start from the feet and build my character. I use to cut in half egg but you can use 2 eggs and cut more than half, or 2 differnt size of balls to create feet.

Anyway it's better if you have 2 eggs, one you can cut in half and other to use ast stamp,  because when you termoform egg at the base will ruin a bit.

note about handmade mold:

I use thick card stock, the same one I use for scrapbooking album covers. I think they can make it easier for people who don't have mold, or people who never create characters who may find it a bit difficult without them. 

I noticed that each brand has some millimetres of differnt so 4cms of a brand are 4.2 for another one, so handmade moldes must be adapted or make a new one, anyway after some times you use them you must make a new one because they ruin.

Another thing I use to do when I make a character is to mark and cut all parts of our puppet. I got into this habit ("habit" or "use"?) probably because I always use the molds and try to turn on the iron as little time as possible, so when I turn on I thermoform most of the pieces that need to be thermoformed.

I never leave the iron on too much because I'm quite clumsy and between it and the hot glue it seems that they are competing to see who burns me the most, so I turn off iron for this reason and to save energy too.

i usually make trousers snipping 2 corners up as you can see in the picture here, I think is more confortable in this case make a rectangular square without snips, because later we should add a ball to fix legs to the rest of the body, so we glue legs on sphere than we glue trousers at the high part, so leave unglued about 2cms for this reason, we'll glue them after glued legs.

I start termoforming feet, if your work is precise you can leave as it it, if there is an imperfection I usually add a little strip (0.5mm high) all around foot.

Then create the legs, rolling up as I told you before.

Cut some 11 cm pieces of wire, it must be a couple of cm more than the leg itself as one cm goes into the shoe and one or so more into the pelvis.

Smart tip: don't put the glue right at the end of the roll but 5-6mm further inside, by squeezing you won't have any glue coming out.

  For characters like this who still has his leg completely covered you can also use a different color of foam rubber, you won't see it anyway.

The moment I went to stick the leg on the foot, the roll didn't rest entirely on the foot so I cut a little diagonally, not for the version with the molds because that one has an ankle, not with the egg.

this should be the situation, here there is no snip on the leg, because this picture is about the one made first, using moldes, in the one with egg shape I had to cut diagonally.

About how make trousers:

Heat foam on iron, when it became soft model it, I use a large barrel marker, and try to to wrinkle it a bit to give a wearing look like.

For the first Harry, the one made with the molds I didn't put the sphere at the height of the pelvis but I made a modification to the neck/body pattern, but then I said, perhaps with a sphere besides being simpler, it has more consistency , even if on the hips, up to the head then in addition to the roll of eva rubber there is nothing so the neck then swings a bit it doesn't bother me, but alternatively inside you could add a cone or polystyrene or a cardboard cone, which does not come out of the neck. As I told before it should be better if you cut streight because is more confortable than to glue together legs, and I think also could change stability of the character at the end, anyway I glued on a base to be sure (after I end all work)

In the first attempt the collar of the shirt was a little big so in the pattern and in the video you will see the right one. The tie, so I heated the piece of the tie on the iron and with tweezers or a flat awl, I created a sort of hollow to give the idea of a knot, in the part of the knot with the heat of the iron it slightly curved.  I painted the red stripes with a brush.

I stopped the shirt in the pants with two 3 points of glue.

I have always drawn the lines on the bottom of the sweater and on the V of the neckline for the sweater, forgive the unsteady hand, they will surely be more precise for you.

Naturally I always paint afterwards, to model the sweater I used a polystyrene cone but you can do without it, as I said later I painted and closed on the back and then put it on, in my opinion it is easier this way than directly on it, you risk to mess with glue. Then on the front and back I gave a dot of glue to stop the sweater from moving.

Fixed at the back of the neck, we can move on to the coat.

I didn't take any more photos, maybe I'll take some screenshots from the video, but I wanted to say that you learn about foam rubber as you create it, and that you practice, a bit like all techniques, actually. Why do I say this? Because the first one I put on the hat first and then the arms, and it's tight at the shoulders and I dirty the work, instead I modeled the sleeves a little on the shoulder part (where it will be attached) and then I attached the hat.

For the sleeves I left them puffy, in fact compared to all the other sleeve patterns they are double, for the hat I made the part of the lining (red) which I would define as optional, I heated the red part, and I enlarged it, same thing with the hat, and I gave the wrinkled effect which I must say I really like, also to the cape and then we glue the cape then the arms and then the hat.

The head, the head I inserted some strands in the pattern but you can cut many shapes of elongated leaves and proceed from the bottom to the other, a little lower than the ears (previously heated to make them rounder) and from there going up front starting from the bangs and going up behind I put different strands to hide "the meeting point" between the front and back of the hair, I made the scar only on the first, for the eyebrows I used a brown marker, for paint the eyes in white and green acrylic, for the contours of the eyes and for the mouth I used red and black indelible pens.

As soon as I edit video and I'll upload in Youtube I will add it here, I hope I didn't make too much mistake with my english, 

and I hope you enjoyed this project.

Lot of love

Betty.