The Costumer's Manifesto is written by Tara Maginnis, and proudly hosted by William Baker.

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Costume Design & Construction

"Armored" Gloves using Craft Foam Sheets

The Project:  This project will allow you to make a flexible, lightweight "armored" glove suitable for light, short-term use on stage, RPG or for Sci-Fi/Fantasy conventions.

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What you will need:

  • Cheap cloth garden gloves

  • 2-3 12"x18" Craft Foam sheets

  • Hot glue gun and sticks

  • Scissors

  • Metallic Acrylic paint

  • "shadow" color(s) of acrylic paint

  • Gold or silver leaf and leaf size

  • assorted paintbrushes

Choose your paint colors according to the following table:
Google
 

 

 

 
Finished appearance: Foam sheets Shadow Colors Metallic Paints Leaf
Bright steel or silver Black or blue black & bright blue silver aluminum
Dull, dark steel or gunmetal black black and dark blue gunmetal & silver none
Bronze brown black and dark brown bronze & gold none
Bright gold brown, red or yellow dark brown and red or yellow gold artificial gold
Copper brown or rust Brown copper copper
Bright gold with multicolored twinkle brown, red or yellow dark brown and red or yellow gold gold & variegated
Brown leather black brown fabric marker & shoe polish optional "shine" of copper rub on paste none, use clear acrylic glaze for shiny finish
Black leather  black black fabric marker & shoe polish optional "shine" of gunmetal rub on paste none, use clear acrylic glaze for shiny finish

Step 1: Buy or dye cheap cloth garden gloves to more or less match your foam sheet color.

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Step 2: Cut out foam sheet pieces into the overlapping "plates" and gauntlet cuff of the "armor" as shown. 

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Step 3: Hot Glue the "plates" to the fingers of the glove starting from the fingertips and working up to the wrist.

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Costumes and Chemistry: A Comprehensive Guide to Materials and Applications

The Business of Theatrical Design Animatronics: A Guide to Animated Displays 

The Prop Builder's Molding & Casting Handbook
 
The Prop Builder's Mask-Making Handbook

 

Step 4: Cut and glue any raised designs you want on the gauntlet cuff but do not yet apply it to the wrist. PICT0183.JPG (92455 bytes)  PICT0186.JPG (98697 bytes)

Step 5: Outline the design with raised designs of hot glue.  PICT0187.JPG (133799 bytes) PICT0188.JPG (115815 bytes)

Step 6: Add glue outlining to the plates on the fingers of the glove.

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Step 7: Glue the gauntlet cuff to the wrist of the glove as shown.

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NOTE: For a leather look finish follow the instructions on this off site page on the Jedi Elf Queen's great site: Boromir's Vanbraces. For a metallic finish continue with the steps below.

Step 8: Drybrush a thin coating of one of your shadow colors to the whole exterior of the foam. Dry. 

Step 9: Dry brush a thin coating of your metallic paint color over the surface, making an effort to NOT get the paint in all the crevices, and to get the most metallic paint on the raised parts of the foam and glue.  Dry.

Step 10: Using your shadow colors, paint in extra shadow areas where the plates overlap, outside the edges of the raised designs, etc. to give an exaggerated 3-D look.

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Step 11: Dry brush tiny amounts of leaf size to select areas of the raised designs.  Use this sparingly unless you want an excessively shiny surface.  When size is tacky, apply leaf in small bits and gently brush it into the size.  Gently brush away the excess leaf that does not stick.  

Step 12: Using your shadow and metallic paints, paint the palm of the glove in a design to roughly match the appearance of raised foam armor. Dry.

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More info on making craft foam armor can be found at the following sites: 

When they are finished, photograph the gloves and post the photos to your File folder at the class eGroup.  Post a message to the group letting everyone know you have posted these pictures so you can get feedback.

The Costumer's Manifesto is proudly hosted by William Baker.

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This Page is part of The Costumer's Manifesto by Tara Maginnis, Ph.D.  Copyright 1996-2010.   You may print out any of these pages for non-profit educational use such as school papers, teacher handouts, or wall displays.  You may link to any page in my site.