Posted on the RPF while I re-figured out how to post pictures on here.

At the request of my 6-year-old son for Halloween, he requested a Hicks costume. My experience with my prior set of USCM armor made me believe it was doable with EVA foam and "scaled down" components so it would look dimensional once he put it on. Construction of all the parts was done the same as my set of armor. I had no experience with EVA foam prior to this project but found it to be quite enjoyable, forgiving, and a way to creatively problem-solve some of the engineering associated with making this for a much smaller frame. I started with my armor, measured him up for scale, then drew out his templates on card stock. Luckily, other than the back plate, nothing required using anything larger than an 11"x17" piece of card stock. Did a quick mockup, then off to the races with the EVA.

Materials:

2mm, 4mm, 5mm, and 8mm EVA foam
Acrylic paint from Micheals (he doesn't get Humbrols on this, not to mention they wouldn't hold up to the flex of the EVA)
Stove Polish from Amazon
Moltow chrome paint pen
Blind Rivets from Amazon
Various 1" and 1.5" webbing from amazon
1" and 1.5" snap buckles
Gorilla glue (because I don't know how to sew)

Below is the end result, which I'm pretty satisfied with. Last picture is next to my Hudson armor for scale and paint reference. My apologies as I'm a terrible build log person, but I'm happy to answer any of the questions in the process I did if there are questions.

And the last 2 pics.

So dang cool!

Great looking set! Super impressed with the paint job too.

These were the various sets I made for my son as he grew up (and son's hand-me-downs became daughters to be repainted with paw patrol graffiti...)
I think ages 5, 7, and 9. Son has outgrown them all by now though.

Bison,

That's awesome as well! Did you use one of your techniques from your previous thread to build those? I thought about using the plastic trash can idea of yours, but wasn't sure I had the know-how to manipulate that material as you did. I'll post a picture of the paints I used a bit later. They went on super bright, but I wasn't too worried since the Stove Polish treatment knocks everything down considerably.

This was the process I used for this project. I did a test piece to see how this would look and determine if it were suitable:


Plastidip: 2x coats following heat treatment of the EVA foam.

Base Green: Big brush (pictured) and about 6 coats. It's a relatively translucent paint that was frustrating to gauge the coverage over black. There's a subtle blue hue to the green in the humbrol base color. Paint one night, see where the hue was, paint another layer.

Dark Green: 2 coats overlapping. Had to do 2 coats for coverage and contrast.

Brown: 2 coats overlapping. Same reason as dark green.

Burnt Umber: 2 coats. Thick (to highlight the follow on stove polish).

Grey: Mixed black and white for the "squiggly" camo features. Try to outline contrast differences between the dark green and brown...but in the end it doesn't matter with the weathering.

Stove Polish: Used paper towels and rubbed/removed where needed, but over everything. Very liberal in application, the more the better. Wipe away excess and buff with a paper towel.

Moltow Liquid Chrome Pen: Had this from another project, and figured why not to hit some of the high areas to represent wear and tear. After drying is super reflective. After touching and wear, dulls down and still shows the highlights and areas you wanted to show. Ran the pen along key edges.

(not shown) 00000 Steel Wool: Used this to knock down areas too dark by rubbing away where needed. However, on a Humbrol or enamel paint, you can remove more or less with steel wool based upon pressure. So less control with the acrylic base, but it doesn't matter.


This was a fun paint job, trick was keeping it within the scale of someone 1/3 my size.

I did some pink hello kitty EVA armor for my twin girls forever and a day ago. God how time flys.

Sweet! I'm going to use your build as a template. Gonna try and speed build some armor for my kiddo!

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"I'm working on it ... "

Great stuff !