Macbeth's Crown

This is a crown I made for a production of Macbeth. I started out by designing my crown template in photoshop, through research I found that  flor de lis were a very popular royal decoration for the Scottish and English royals during the time when Macbeth is set. I also found that the velvet red cap that is used on the current crown jewels of Scotland was not used until 1540. 

I then cut out my design and transfered it to foamed pvc, I then cut it out using a scalpel. I then sanded,the whole thing, working my way down form

150 to 300 grit sandpaper.

I wanted the crown to have a hammered metal look, so I used the rounded end of a pencil to hammer

in some pock marks. I painted the crown with a base coat of yellow acrylic paint then went over this with 4 coats of gold paint. I then used techniques such as dry brushing and thin washes to create the weathered look.  

Eva Foam Armour!

So this is my first foray into using eva foam as a construction material. I learnt so much about how to work with eva foam and have documented my process below.

 I started out by making a dummy, the armour doesn't need to fit 

anyone in particular so I made my dummy quite small so It would

minimise the amount of foam I would need to use for the armour.

I used an old T-shirt and stuffed it with newspaper, I then

covered this with gaffer tape to secure the shape 

(I had to start using packing tape halfway though

as I ran out of gaffer) 

I first used paper to design my pattern pieces, once I had the

 correct shape I transferred the designs onto foam.

Once I had all my pieces cut out
I beveled all the edges with my
rotary tool and sandpaper. I then
went over all the edges with my
hairdryer to seal all the open
pores that had been created
during sanding.

I formed the pieces into shape with a  hairdryer first, then stuck them  together with contact cement. 

After the pieces we stuck together I then went back with the hairdryer to form them into their final shape. I wanted to make the armour easy to get on and off so I cut the armour open at the back, I then attached velcro with thin sheets of eva foam to the inside of the armour. 

I wanted the back and front of the armour to look like they have been attached  together with metal strips and rivets. I used a hole punch to create the circular rivets from eva foam and also used 2mm eva foam to create the strips. These details were glued on with superglue gel. I also had to cover the seam at the back, I used the same technique as above, but only glued the strip to one side of 

the armour so the two halves could still come apart.

I then sealed the foam with 3 coats of pva glue so the foam won’t absorb the paint. Once this had

dried I  covered the foam with 4 coats of PlastiKote metallic spray paint.  I then began to weather

the armour with acrylic paint.