About 4+ years ago I was dabbling in armor making. I used those foam 2x2 sheets for working out and cut them and shaped them with a heat gun. I wish I had more pictures of it but this is the best I got. The armor was supposed to be from Skyrim. Specifically the Nordic Carved Armor thats found in the Dragonborn Expansion. On the isle of Solsthiem there are many nordic people with this beautiful carved armor.
So I started off by cutting the basic outline of the foam and molding it together. I attached the pieces of the armor with crazy glue and tape.
*I don't recommend this because it's actually too strong. It burned small holes in the armor, I would use a contact cement glue next time.
I then used thin sheets of crafting foam to add the details later as you can see in the next photo... Attached them with modpodge.
I used an old large belt at Good will to attach the leg and front pieces on, again just using glue to secure it. If I could do something different about this build I would have secured the pieces to the belt with some sort of physical connection, and not glue. For the claw marks on the side I just slit them with a thin knife and used a heat gun to make them expand so it looked like it had some real depth, you can actually see in this photo that I burned a little bit of the foam on the middle one, but in post, it covered up nicely.
After Painting the Armor chrome, I went over it with an old rag and mixed black and brown paint to dab it on. I watered the paint so it would seep into the cracks of the armor and look like old patina. This method worked very well, I do think I used a little too much though looking back on it because I wanted it to be shiny, but the effect looks really good either way.
It is a little hard to make out all the small details but I ended up using a red/brown paint (watered down) and dabbed along edges that I thought would accumulate a little rust. Then dried them off, I didn't want to over-due this at all because one thing that really makes me like the armor so much in the game was the fact that it was very shiny and nice looking. For this particular build I wanted to give the effect that this soldier just came out of Battle recently. So a little dirt, a some scratches on the front (I used a sharp knife and literally just sliced it like a sword hit it and dragged across the chest) You can actually see that very clearly here.
This full build took me 3 days to complete, mostly because of drying times for glue and paint. For the rest of the outfit, unfortunately I don't a have good picture of that but I remember I went to Goodwill and got a scarf that looked like feathers to wrap around the neck, and the garb underneath this is pretty simple. Just textured brown pants, and a textured brown shirt.
Ask me any questions below If you'd like! I am not a professional but I think this was my best creation to date, I wouldn't mind getting back into builds as a hobby!
Nice!