Cheap and Easy Foam Knight Shield

I made a shield to go along with the helmet that I made for my son a while back. This project was actually incredibly easy. I sketched out a basic shield shape on a piece of poster-board, and folded it in half to cut it out so that the two sides would be symmetrical.

I had my son hold it up to make sure it was the size (he crushed it a bit, which is why there are creases in the picture). I folded it back in half, and traced it onto an EVA foam flooring mat. This is a thicker foam than the craft foam I used for the helmet (10 mm I think), and holds it's shape better for a large simple item like this. This foam can be bought from Lowe's, Harbor Freight, Amazon, etc., and it looks like large puzzle pieces.

Once I had the half-shape traced onto the foam, I sketched a curved line outside the original straight line, and used this piece as the template for the second foam piece. The convex curve in the middle will cause the final shield to bow outward when the pieces are glued together, giving it a more realistic look than a flat piece of foam would.

I used contact cement to fuse the two pieces together, coating each inner surface with the glue, and waiting 5 - 10 minutes before pressing the two pieces together. You will want to press them firmly, but be careful to align it carefully because this stuff sticks pretty much immediately and is difficult to adjust after the fact.

I traced the outer shape of the shield onto some thin (3 mm?) craft foam and cut out a border for it, gluing it on with more contact cement. I used some more of the craft store brads that were used on the helmet to accent the border of the shield.

I cut out two strips of the 3mm craft foam and glued them in loops on the back of the shield using more of the contact cement to make arm straps.

On to the paint! I gave the shield quite a few coats of plasti-dip to seal the foam, and then hit it with the same hammered steel paint that I used for the helmet.

I did some weathering with black acrylic and silver Rub'N'Buff. I printed out a picture of a dragon that looked kind of cool and cut it out to make a stencil, painting it on with red acrylic.

Quick, easy, and it made my three year old happy. Works for me. Matched up pretty well with the helmet too.