How to Make a Custom Foam "Leather" Pouch for your Personal Objects That Matches Your Cosplay

hey guys steve here at sks props today we’re making a functional pouch out of hd foam welcome to the shop have you ever had an authentic looking costume and you’ve wanted to have your phone or other personal items on you and you didn’t know how to incorporate it into your build well in today’s video i’m going to show you how i use some two millimeter and six millimeter hd foam which you of course can find over at blick art materials to make a functional pouch for my phone this even has a belt loop on the back of it now this isn’t something that i’m new to in fact the very first foam armor i ever built had a functional pouch for my phone at that time and this was seven years ago so i want to show you guys the steps that it takes to put this together and give you some ideas to make your own functional pouches for your costumes we got a lot to do so let’s go ahead and get started the first thing i’m going to do is take the item that i want to make the pouch for and trace around that on a piece of bristol board a couple of things to remember while you’re making your paper template is that not only are you having to measure out your width and your height but you also have to take into consideration the depth of the object you’re wanting to make the pouch for this comes into play because the foam you’re going to be using is going to be thicker than this paper so make sure that you take that in consideration after i’ve measured for the width and the height and i’ve thought about the depth of the walls that i’m going to use i then start to work on the flaps that will envelop the object in the pouch once i’m sure everything has been measured out i then use a utility knife to cut out my paper template this gives me the opportunity to fold in all the flaps and give me that 3d image so i can verify that this works this is also where i’ll start to think about the overall design that i want this pouch to have for instance right here i can measure just how far i want this top flap to come down i take the object that the pouch was designed for just to make sure that everything fits and then i traced this template onto my six millimeter hd foam notice i fold back each line of the template and also trace that onto the foam these lines are where the foam will eventually crease to give it that rounded look once i have it all traced on i cut out my base pattern using a utility knife i went over all my lines with a pin just so they would show up really well for the camera here’s where i’m going to use a small rotary tool drum on my dremel to carve out these lines because of the way that the drum spins you want to start off at one end and pull to the right these small grooves are going to be what allows the foam to fold in on itself after i’m done carving i lightly hit it with a heat gun to make the foam a little more malleable now you’ll notice there’s a gap between the two front flaps that is by design the top flap will have a magnet inserted into it and will fold over into a piece that we attach so before i do that the side and bottom flaps are attached together using super glue and i use the phone to check for fit then a strip of six millimeter hd foam is cut for the front of the pouch to keep the pouch closed i’m going to be using some rare earth magnets you can pick these up at just about any hardware store a small forstner bit is used to drill a hole through the top flap where the magnet will be inserted the front strip is then put into place and marked with a pencil where the other magnet will go now for this piece the forstner bit is used again but i’m not drilling all the way through the foam the depression is just deep enough for the magnet to be inserted now the thing to check here is that the foam is thin enough for it to still have a magnetic connection once i’m set with that i glue the front strip on and i test that the top flap will magnetically adhere to the front strip the excess foam from the strip will wrap around this will be part of the belt loop on the back another six millimeter foam strip is cut for the front this is aesthetic it will cover the magnet but also be part of that belt loop on the back now when you’re gluing this down you want to make sure that the flap is closed so the foam has enough material to wrap around the top and because this is a stress point i’m using a combination of contact cement and super glue i’m still checking that the pouch closes properly before i move on to the belt loop on the back here i’m just taking the foam pulling it away from the back a little bit and then putting these pieces together using contact cement once it’s all together i insert the phone just to make sure that everything’s working the way it should now i can start moving on to some of the details and for this step i’m going to be cutting three strips of two millimeter hd foam i’m going to twist tie these strips together to make a simple braid that’s going to be a really nice detail for the front of this pouch this isn’t super elaborate but you can tell this two millimeter hd foam works great for braiding once i have my braid complete i glue the ends so it doesn’t unravel and then i start to attach it to the front of the pouch using super glue the foam is still very flexible so it easily wraps around the front and sides of the pouch to make it easier to pull the phone out i’m going to cut a small notch into the front of the pouch this is rough cut with scissors but then cleaned up using my dremel rotary tool this will make the phone easier to grab and once i have that i shave off the rest of the foam where the pouch curves i’m going to add an additional two millimeter strip to the front of this this is purely aesthetic it doesn’t have anything to do with the overall design structure it’s really all about adding layers and in this case i’m going to add some more two millimeter hd foam strips to make it look like they’re stitched throughout the pouch i start off by drilling a couple pilot holes through the six millimeter foam this will give me an anchor point to push two millimeter foam strips through these holes super glue is added to one end and then pressed into the hole and then more adhesive is added wrapped around the front and then pressed through the other side this really gives the impression of additional fake leather being threaded through this pouch this is a really cool detail step and you could add as many or as few of these as you want last fabrication step i cut off the sharp end of a furniture tack and glue that into place now for this pouch i didn’t do any additional sealing method i just sprayed some krylon rust red primer directly to the surface this will give it more of a matte appearance which will be great for the faux leather look that we’re trying to go for utrecht brand mars black is heavily thinned down with water and brushed over the entire surface after that a damp paper towel is used to mop up a lot of the paint and then a hair dryer is used to lock it all into place additional mars black is then painted to all of the deepest crevices this is going to give it a shaded look i then use a watered-down filbert brush to feather this black out and with just a couple simple washes our fake leather is already starting to look worn to give this leather a warmer look utrecht brand burnt sienna is then painted onto most of the surface making note not to paint it onto the shadowed areas that are already there the burnt sienna is then mixed with some of the mars black to make our detailed strips a little bit darker this will give the different parts of the pouch a very nice contrast to make our stitches pop raw sienna is dry brushed onto the surface and a wet paper towel is used to wipe off a lot of the excess this same dry brush technique is also applied to the braids that wrap around the front and the sides for our last step golden brand iridescent bronze is painted onto the head of the furniture tack with a small filbert brush so you can see some of the basic steps it takes to put together your own hd foam custom pouch to hold your personal items but still have it look authentic for your costume now hopefully you guys are learning stuff from these videos and if you’re enjoying them be sure to give them a thumbs up and share them with your friends and family and remember if you’re building any of my builds or using hd phone be sure to tag sksprops and blick on twitter and instagram because we love seeing your progress until next time thanks for stopping by .