Shields up! The Krafting Nerd Makes Cosplay Shields, part 2

 Once I had the foam glued to the core, I had what people call a blank.  It was shield shaped, but had no character.  Eventually, Rosie's shield would get flowers painted on it and the cleric shield will get they symbol of Moradin painted on it, but first I had to give them some texture.

The cool thing about foam is that it can be cut, carved and burned by enterprising nerds to mimic all sorts of materials.  In this case, I was going for wood planks.

Using a 2x4 as guide, I scored lines in the foam with an exacto knife.  Then, using a Sharpie, I drew lines to simulate wood grain.  I took a soldering iron and traced the score marks and lines.  This melts the foam abit to make them pop out.

Now that I had texture, I needed to figure out how to attach a handle and arm strap.  On a real shield, the strap and handle would be riveted or bolted in place.  Since this is a cosplay shield, I wasn't going to do that, but I could mimic it in foam.  

What I did was drill a small hole through the shield in the places I wanted the handle and strap to be, then I drilled another hole, slightly larger, in the same place, stopping before I went through the core of the shield.

I took some paracord and tied a knot in one end and fed that through the hole, so it came out of the back of the shield.  Then I filled the hole in the front of the shield with hot glue and covered it with a foam rivet head.  

Then I had four paracord laces sticking out of the back of the shield.

Then both shields were sprayed with PlastiDip before painting with acrylic paint.  The PlastiDip seals the foam so the paint doesn't sucked up into the foam, since it's basically a sponge. 

The face and back of the shield was painted burnt umber, which is one of those colors that a crafter needs to have on hand.  The rim and brackets were painted with Krylon Dark Metallic to simulate wrought steel.

I used an old belt to make a strap and a handle.  The handle was made by cutting the belt in half and sewing the halves together with nylon sinew.  

To make a good fit, I glued sheepskin under the handle and strap.  

One disadvantage of the Harbor Freight floormats is that they only come in one size, so you have to glue together smaller pieces to make a large one, which will leave a seam.  I had that issue with the teardrop shield.  To cover the ugly seam, I made a mock riveted steel band out of cardboard from a cereal box.  The rivets are just drops of hot glue.

I hope this post inspires you to make your own cool nerdy shields for cosplay, LARP or just because.