Batman Begins Utility Belt

1 (Medium) (Small)

The Begins belt was one of the first belts I ever made. I first tried spray painting the foam directly but it came out very textured and dull instead of metallic as I did not yet know how to smooth the foam first with a primer coat. I also experimented with making the pieces out of rubber sheeting instead of foam. Rubber initially looks great after painting, but it starts to crack and chip off once bent, and I quickly found out that there is apparently no glue known to man that will adhere smooth rubber to itself. I eventually settled on the method of gluing a layer of card-stock on top of the foam pieces and spray painting that.  I used a paint pen and masking tape to draw on the silver striping, a hole punch to cut the holes, and pieces of metallic silver gift wrapping ribbon sandwiched between the top pieces and the back layer of black foam to show through behind the holes.  Everything was glued to a length of nylon webbing and velcro was glued onto the back for fastening.

1 (Small)
10 (Small)
IMG_0696 (Small)

13 (Large) (Small)
11 (Small)
14 (Large) (Small)

6 (Small) (2)
16 (Large) (Small)
5 (Small)

15 (Large) (Small)

The template is available here.

Batman Beyond Utility Belt

1.6 (Medium)edit (Small)

The Beyond belt was made of 5mm and 3mm foam. The pouches are long strips of 5mm foam that fold around the side pieces and meet at the back; the lines at the top and bottom of each pouch were made by scoring the foam with an xacto knife. It was painted with black and metallic silver acrylic, glued together with super glue and then mounted on a length of nylon webbing. Velcro was added at the back to secure the belt.

IMG_3243 (Small)
IMG_3441 (Small)

5 (Small)
IMG_3501 (Small)

2 (Medium) (Small)

The template is available here.

New 52 Batman Utility Belt version 2

new 1e (Medium) (Small)

I was commissioned to make a more three-dimensional version of my older 52 bat belt, so I created some more realistic looking pouches and placed a small scrap piece of foam inside them before gluing them closed in order to give them some depth and curvature; as if there were something inside them. I also found a cool square punch tool (ebay link) that made cutting out the little squares on the pouches super easy. All the pieces of the buckle were cut out separately from 5mm foam and then glued together. The pouches and buckle were glued directly onto a length of nylon webbing using super glue and velcro was added at the back to fasten the belt.

IMG_3014 (Small)
IMG_3039 (Small)

IMG_3371 (Small)
IMG_4229 (Small)

IMG_4237 (Small)
IMG_3097 (Small)

I wanted to see how it would look in different colors so I made a photoshop mock-up:

Final color swatches (Medium) (Small)

The template is available here.

Batman Arkham Origins Shin Guards

1 (Large) (Medium) (Small)

To make my Origins shins I designed a template and assembled it first with paper to check the size and look.

IMG_2775 (Medium) (Small)
IMG_2773 (Medium) (Small)

Then all the shapes were cut out of 3mm and 5mm foam. To get them to retain a curved shape, I held them in a bent position while gluing the layers together. Velcro was then added along with some connector pieces and an elastic strap for the back of the knee.

IMG_2849 (Small)
IMG_2852 (Small)
IMG_2823 (Small)

IMG_2856 (Small)

The template is available here.

Batman Arkham City Utility Belt

1e-Small

For my Arkham City belt I used an entirely pre-made belt (amazon link) and simply built a foam buckle over the existing plastic buckle and added decorative foam pieces to the pouches. It was all then hand painted with acrylic paint.

41Iqk2V-MoL
IMG_1430 (Small)
IMG_1432 (Small)

2 (Small)
IMG_1584 (Small)
IMG_1587 (Small)

Here’s the template I made for the buckle. It may need some resizing.

 

Harley Quinn Themed AC Gauntlets

IMG_1532edit (Large) (Small)

I was commissioned to make a Harley Quinn themed pair of Arkham City Batman gauntlets. I painted the pieces of different colors seperately before gluing them together to avoid having to mask it all later. Since painted pieces don’t stick as well together as raw foam pieces, it helps if you first use an xacto knife to scratch off a bit of the paint in the area they will be glued together. A tutorial for the gauntlets is available on the tutorial page.

1 (Large) (Small)
2 (Small)
4 (Small)
3 (Small)