I’ve been playing with EVA foam these past two weeks! I’m aware I promised you a finished corset picture – I have ALMOST finished it, (honest) but I’m also sick of it and wanted to play with new things.

I’ve never done any large projects with EVA foam before so this was all new to me. I spent some time (as advised by many cosplay videos and sites) to play with my tools on scrap pieces of foam so I could get used to how they work. This was definitely a good idea. It’s handy to know how much pressure you need to apply to get it to do what you want (or how to get it to do things you definitely DON’T want) and how it behaves. I’m using a rotary tool, a soldering iron and a heat gun for this project.

A word to the wise before I continue – heating and/or melting and/or sanding EVA foam releases toxic fumes or dust – WEAR A MASK! The soldering iron in particular gave off a delightfully carcinogenic gas while it was melting the foam …

I’d already drawn and cut my paper patterns out a while ago, so I could transfer my idea onto the real deal without having to redraw from scratch. Super helpful considering how many times I had to rub out my pencil original! Because my design is quite intricate, I thought rather than cut out many tiny individual pieces, I would make a flat base layer and then cut the same again, cut out the design and glue the second layer on top.

This took me most of the weekend. I’ve still got a couple of bits to go over with the soldering iron, before I patch some minor mistakes with bathroom sealant and pass the heat gun over to melt the ragged edges. Then I need to do the back piece in the same way, stick them together, shape them and then it’s prime time!

I’ll also be posting some hints and tips for working with EVA foam after I’ve done some more of this project. I’m planning on working on a fairly major part of this build this week, so I might have something impressive to share next week …