How to Make a Viking Shield out of EVA Foam Perfect for your Assassins Creed Valhalla Cosplay

hey guys steve here at sks props today we’re making a cosplay safe viking shield welcome to the shop in today’s build video we’re going to be foam fabricating a viking shield now this of course is made all out of my hd foam which you guys can find over at blick art materials online and in select stores because it is a foam fabrication two important parts to that number one it’s extremely light number two it is completely con safe now i’ve got free templates that you guys can download to build your own viking shield now the video we’re gonna do today is based off of a 24 inch shield but you guys can scale the pdf to whatever size you would like i’m going to show you guys the steps that it takes to put this together we got a lot to do so let’s get started now because my foam is 24 inches wide i decided to forgo the template and just cut out a 24 inch square once the hd foam had been cut to size i went ahead and measured in 12 inches from the side and the top to get the exact middle of the square after the middle had been marked i made myself a makeshift compass to make a perfect circle on the foam i then use the t-square to mark the boards that are going to make up the shield the circle was cut out of the hd foam freehand using a blick utility knife and then i used a metal straight edge to cut the boards individually now don’t worry you don’t have to be perfect with this process because we want this to have an organic look now we can start to apply the wood grain texture to the foam to achieve this we’re going to use a medium grit sanding drum you want to pull the drum up a little bit so that it is away from the barrel and you’re going to use the very edge of the drum to carve into the foam because of the way the rotary tool drum spins you want to start on one side and then pull it to the right making sure to vary your lines to give it that organic look then flip the piece over and repeat that process you can also tell to get rid of the uniform surface of the foam by varying the pressure that i press the drum into the material as well the face of our shield is coming together really well so now it’s time to work on the back to make sure i don’t get mixed up where the boards go i take a black sharpie and mark the top of all the pieces this process does produce a lot of foam dust so i took everything over the sanding station to work on the back and once again i’m trying to vary the lines and the pressure to make sure that none of these boards look the same after quite some time the wood texture for the front and back of our viking shield is complete pulling out some craft paper to protect my cutting surface it’s time to start gluing all these boards together and to do that i’m going to be using contact cement always remember when using contact cement to work in a well ventilated area and have your respirator contact cement is being used because i need a good bond of adhesion since there’s not a lot of surface area to connect these boards together glue is applied to the hd foam using a scrap piece of material i’m also doing my double adhesive method by putting a little bit of super glue along with the contact cement now you can see where the sharpie marks on the back help me align all the pieces all of the boards have been glued together and now it’s time to cut and attach the strip that will go along the perimeter of the shield to fabricate this piece i’m using a strip of two inch two millimeter hd foam to make sure that this piece has the best adhesion possible and once again using contact cement i roll the shield onto the strip making sure that i have proper spacing since it has to wrap around both sides i decided to only wrap half of the shield at a time that way i’m not having to deal with too much material additional contact cement is placed onto the face of the shield and the interior of the strip after this is dry the two millimeter foam is pressed into place the shield is then flipped over and the process is repeated on the back now don’t worry the two millimeter foam will stretch a little bit and conform to the shape the second strip is applied just like the first and i do add a little bit of super glue to the piece that overlaps i cut down a 5 gallon paint stir stick on my band saw this will act as the hand guard and give the shield a little more stability using my makeshift compass again i cut out a small circle in the very center of the shield the handle and two support strips are marked on the back of the shield with a pencil the two smaller strips are then glued into place using some contact cement the handle has its edges sanded down just a little bit to make the grip more comfortable and it’s also glued into place using contact cement to simulate the leather wrap on the handle i cut a one and a half inch strip of two millimeter hd foam and glue that into place using super glue to give the shield a more authentic look because i just don’t want the wood strips on the sides being exposed i cut some strips of 10 millimeter hd foam to act as metal bracers contact cement was also applied to these pieces and once the glue had dried they were pressed into place i again use my makeshift compass technique to make a six inch circle this will be the base for the boss or the hand guard in the center of the shield this piece is initially cut by hand using a utility knife then cleaned up using a rotary tool to make the dome section for the boss i find a bowl that is approximately the right size and shape heating up the 10 millimeter hd foam and pressing it firmly into the bowl gives me a compound curve that is seamless now i made sure to have more material than i needed so i cut off the excess using some shears and cleaned up the remainder of it using a rotary tool this dome section now flush is glued to the circle that i cut previously i then take it to the belt sander to even out the spacing all the way around using an extremely smooth sanding drum i start to give the boss a hammered metal texture this is achieved by lightly pressing the sanding drum at different angles once complete it’s glued to the center of the shield this hammered metal texture is also applied to the 10 millimeter metal support structures on the back of the shield to simulate some tack heads for the leather around the perimeter of the shield i use a leather hole punch on some two millimeter hd foam these tack heads are then spaced out approximately two inches apart utilizing some glue and tweezers these tack heads are then applied all around the perimeter of the shield and the boss continuing the leather wrapped look on the back of the shield contact cement is applied to the five gallon paint stir stick and strips of two millimeter hd foam are pressed on top more of the faux tac heads are applied to this portion as well to simulate larger rivets i cut sections of 10 mm hd foam round dowels these are glued into place and then shaped using a rotary tool to give it a hammered metal appearance this process is applied to the support strips on the back and then more pieces are cut to simulate that they go all the way through to the front after a rotary tool has been used to knock these pieces down a heat gun is used to finish them off of course battle damage is needed for such a prop and after that i use a heat gun to give it a final heat treatment all right so you guys can see that we’re done with the fabrication side of the viking shield and i’m pretty happy with how the wood texture came out on this one so we’re going to move on to sealing and painting and to seal this one off we’re going to be using plasti dip and i’m going to be doing two light coats remember when spraying plasti dip to always wear your respirator two light coats of plastic dip are applied approximately four to five inches away from the surface you want to make sure to move in a continuous motion to avoid pooling or running to give this shield a little bit more strength i’m also going to be using a layer of flex bond on top of the plasti dip utrecht brand burnt sienna is mixed in with the flexbond and applied directly to the surface using a mop brush you want to make sure that the paint mixture covers the entire surface including all the different textures and gouges that we’ve made but if it’s starting to pool or build up too much be sure to take a wet paper towel and wipe off any of the additional excess a hair dryer definitely helps speed up the drying process on the front of the shield which allows me to go ahead and work on the back and make sure to get paint on the sides after the paint on the front and the back of the shield has fully cured it’s time to move on to our wash for the wash on this shield i’m going to be using utrecht brand mars black and a ton of water we want to make sure to get all that paint down into all the details that we’ve previously made wipe off any additional paint with a paper towel and once again use a hair dryer to lock it all in i paint the boss using a very minimal amount of water i want a lot of pigment on this and then i go in with a flathead brush and start to separate all the panels for the trim around the outside i use a filbert brush to paint along the perimeter and then feather it in the same wash is applied to the back of the shield making sure to fully paint the bracers and the leather wrapped handle using utrecht brand raw sienna and absolutely no water i go in with a mop brush grabbing a bunch of pigment and dry brush that directly onto the surface making sure to hit all of the highlights it is important not to use any water in this step because you don’t want any of that paint to flow down into the textures that you’ve created now notice that i’m not painting the entire surface at the same opacity i’m picking certain spots to make it more visually interesting i want the leather wrap around the outside of the shield to have a little bit of a contrast to the wood so going back with some burnt sienna and a filbert brush i start applying the pigment once again adding zero water burnt sienna is also applied to the leather wraps on the handle i want the decorative paint on the front of the shield to be pretty vibrant so in this case i’m going to be using liquitex heavy body brilliant blue this is applied in the same fashion as the raw sienna just dry brushed over the surface to go with our contrasting color i’ll be using liquitex heavy body parchment this is of course a very simple way to finish this off you of course could do something very intricate and make some really beautiful designs to highlight and cover up some of my over overpaint and make a mixture of raw sienna and burnt cena and paint that directly onto the leather perimeter utrecht brand mars black is used to touch up the boss and to paint the tops of all the tack heads as a final pass a little bit of pure raw sienna is used to highlight the leather perimeter using liquitex heavy body iridescent rich silver i start to apply the metallic highlights to the boss using a filbert brush using a detail brush each tack head was carefully painted to give the metallic sections a slight rusty appearance raw sienna was dry brushed onto the surface the last step was to paint in all the battle damage using a liner brush and utrecht brand mars black so you guys can see the steps that it takes to put together a foam fabricated viking shield that is perfect for cosplay now if you guys are building any of my builds or using hd phone be sure to tag blick and sks props on twitter and instagram because we love seeing your progress in the next video we’re going to be making an axe to go along with our shield this is also completely cosplay and con safe made entirely out of my hd phone now hopefully you guys learned something from this video and if you did go ahead and give it a thumbs up and share these with your friends and family and be sure to come back by again for more tips and tutorials until next time thanks for stopping by .