The Entire build of this costume follows the same basic steps and structure. I figured it would be easier to describe, and for others to understand, by giving these instructions first and then elaborating slightly on the rest of the costume. I will also post the process pictures in the other steps!

The first thing I did was make a cast of my body. This is usually done with paper mache or some other form of hard casting, but that would take way too long, so I simply wore an old shirt and had my girlfriend duck tape my body! Stuff it with newspaper and you are good to go.

Next make sure you have GREAT references! My girlfriend was sweet enough to buy me a giant full scale model of my transformer and honestly it saved me from making horrible designs. I also brought up tons of photos from the internet so I would have multiple examples and ideas to go off of. Again, everything is handmade, even the templates, so you need a good reference point in order to make it look legit!

MOST IMPORTANTLY! Remember to have fun, as you can see me playing around with a foam mustache I made out of random pieces! Really, you will need those fun moments to get through it all. and music! lots and lots of good music! And secondly, watch out for cats! :) I have two cats who were constantly into any and everything I was doing! Just make sure you keep your cats or other animals, and your costume safe!

In order to build basically every single piece of this costume you need EVA foam mats/rolls. The mats are thicker and usually come in a pack of 4 to 6 puzzle pieces. I use those for the base of the armor, such as the chest, to give it more durability. Whereas the detailed armor such as front abdomen armor and shoulder armor are all made of thin EVA foam rolls. These are way easier to use for details as the thinner the foam, the easier to cut, glue, heat etc.

Starting off with the references, I made a template of how I wanted each piece of armor to look, and literally built the armor out of poster board! This is such an important step is it helps cut down on trial and error with real foam, which would be expensive, whereas poster board is cheap and okay to destroy and start over! After building and rebuilding, making sure the armor looked good and functioned (the hardest part) I would then trace it onto the thick or thin foam mats and cut it with an exacto knife. MAKE SURE the exacto blade is sharp, or you will cut into the foam and it will be rough and jagged and almost impossible to fix! I went through several blades throughout this project. Once you have your forms cut out, take a heat gun and evenly heat both the front and back sides of the foam. You will see the difference when the foam is heated because it will have a shiny darker texture. Once evenly heated it is ready for forming!

Take your pieces and from the back of the foam heat the piece until the foam is really hot but NOT burnt. If you burn foam it smells and turns deep black and is not as easy to form, or pretty! SO catch it right before that point. Once hot enough bend and shape your foam to the desired form and hold it there until it has cooled down. You may have to do this several times to get the shape just right.

Remember! It takes a lot of practice to make really good molds, and it took me almost the entire costume to feel fully comfortable making each piece! Practice makes perfect, and the more you do the more you will know. :) Also remember that poster board is a life saver when it comes to learning how to make the forms, instead of using up all your foam and burning holes in your wallet!!

Once you have the molded shapes you want, go ahead and take a soldering iron and burn out some of the foam material where you want shapes to round out a lot or even curve/bend and create angles. Then heat the foam again and bend to the desired point, and let cool. This will give you better shapes than just bending the foam without burning it because you have less material in that area for shaping.

Next step is to take those pieces you cut and molded and hot glue them together. You can use other glues that are a lot stronger but take a lot longer to stick together and need to be used in a ventilated area. I prefer hot glue because I am equipped to using it and find it easier. I learned the hard way though, that you definitely need a PRO series glue gun, as it heats faster and is way better to use for projects that take a LOT of glue, which is definitely the case here. I went through almost 50 glue sticks by the time I was done! Use a high temp glue gun with high or multi temp glue sticks because the higher temperature gives them better bondage.

Once everything is glued, go back with the hot edge of your glue gun tip and flatten out any glued seams that are really rough or lumpy looking. This is NECESSARY if you want a more flawless costume, without huge ugly seams that make the costume look less realistic and more sloppy. This is also where your dremel tool comes in! Anything I could not fix with the hot glue gun tip, I used a dremel to sand down those edges. After all of your pieces are glued and seams are flattened out, the last step to building the entire costume is going to be finishing the seams with latex caulk, but we will get to that in the last steps!

Lets move onto each armor section, and any small details and required for those builds!