Thermoplastic Experiments!

My boyfriend and I acquired some Worbla and some Wonderflex a while ago.  We only recently had time to start working with them.  We started out with some Worbla samples that Kamui gave out at her panel at Montreal Comic Con.  I wanted to make Sheeta's belt buckle out of a thermoplastic.  I figured that something that small could be made out of minimal material and it would be easy to shape.  At first we thought the buckle was flat but after looking at many reference picture we determined that it was rounded.

I cut out a circle of craft foam and trimmed it to fit within the small rectangular samples.  My boyfriend heated the plastic and sandwiched the craft  foam in between.  Once it was hard again I attempted cutting it out.  I accidentally cut too close to the edge so we had to reheat the Worbla, reattach the cut off part and then cut it out again.  We then molded it into a hemisphere by heating it up and shaping it around a tennis ball.

Re-molded Worbla

As my boyfriend cosplayed the Shredder in the past I figured that we should upgrade his armour.  I drafted the pattern for the arm guards and the spikes.  The patterns were traced onto the craft foam and then cut out.  The Wonderflex was really curled when I took it out of the box so I had to use some heavy items to hold it down while I worked with it.  The craft foam was placed on the Wonderflex and I cut two pieces leaving some working space around the shape.

As the pieces were still curved, I had to use the heat gun to flatten them out first.  Once they had
cooled I sandwiched the craft foam between the pieces and molded them together with the heat gun.  The first time I did this I got air bubbles!  I tried to re-mold it but I ruined the Wonderflex.  I had used the wrong sides to heat together so it just tore apart.  Needless to say that I learned from that mistake and the second time around I had no trouble at all :)

Cut out arm guard base

Now I just have to figure out how to attach the spikes to the arm guards, among many other things :P