Cosplay For Hippos Ishoo Wun: Orc Princess Shield

Lately my day job as a media teacher and my hobby have been running into one another and melting into a lovely, gooey mess of prop and costume crafting. Since no terrain is being made, and since the blog is not getting updated as a result, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce another article series to the blog, looking at how to make props and costumes. Instead of separate series for both, making just one under the catchall category of 'Cosplay For Hippos' seemed fitting, although there will almost certainly never be anything which is not an original design, and a lot of it is intended for film making...
Look, just go with it okay?
Anyway, in this first ishoo we'll be looking at making a shield. Because my esteemed flute-riddled opponent, Juzzy has a five year old orc-obsessed daughter, it'll be an orc princess shield. It will sort of match some armour that I crafted with her a week or so back.
And yes, my esteemed flute riddled opponent's daughter is a five year old princess with orc armour. It's nice when your kids and hobby align, eh?
Anyway, here's Grot to show us how to make the shield... and he's in pink. But that's okay. Real men wear pink.

And there you have it, hippo fans!
I don't have access to an orc princess to model the shield right now, so you'll just have to imagine how it looks.
The foam used for the main shield is EVA foam in the form of an inter-locking floor tile. You can get them at places like Bunnings for putting on shed floors, but they also come from places like K-Mart and Big W was yoga/exercise floor mat things. One side is textured, the other smooth. It's about 20mm thick, and responds well to heat-and-bend techniques. The thinner foam came from a craft shop, and is available in a range of colours. It's about 1-2mm thick. The blue foam is also from a craft shop, and about 10mm thick.
Naturally, you could paint the whole shield, but since I wanted those colours anyway for the design, I decided not to. Buying black foam would remove the need to undercoat the blue foam too, but my local dealer was out.
More exciting and bizarre things coming in future hippo fans - I'm working on some costume and prop elements for the RPG session Gippsland Gamers is running at Little Wars, and also some more SBH terrain...
And Grot is working on getting me back for making him wear pink, even if it WAS manly Orc pink.

The Campaigner Issue Eleven out now.

Issue Eleven of the The Campaigner is out, and includes part one of 'A Song of Blades and Scenery', a two-part series of articles in which I prepare a complete, themed terrain set for Little Wars 2015.
Go and download it here! Better yet, order a print copy so we can earn actual money!