Creating a body padding

[TTailor]

It has been slow progress this week, people out sick and pushing to be ready for fittings on another show while the designer is available.

I started with building a bit of a belly out of four graded layers of 1/4" airconditioning (reticulated) foam.
It does not hold moisture, and it gives a firm base for the susequent padding. These were glued together, The upper layers darted to shape over the under layers.
We are going to sew a strip of power net to the perimeter of the foam, and use it to zig it in place on the padding.

[Henry Hall]

It looks like an authentic beer-belly. Pretty excellent. It no doubt takes great skill to build a form like this; seeing the shape before you create it, very much like a sculptor.

I might order one from you when I do a bank job. Using a false name of course.

[TTailor]

Something interesting I noticed. I made one three years ago and it was a real process of "creation" now that I have to do another, I seem to want to follow what I did before rather then "create" from scratch.

[TTailor]

One memory foam mattress sliced up.
We bought a 1 1/2" thick mattress topper, and Eric from the props department cut it up into 15" widths, then ran it through the bandsaw to give me 1/2" or 5/8"  slices.
He had to make a special fence for the saw to do this.
I used memory foam last time as it is softer and squishable like flesh, and I was trying to make something that had realistic qualities.
The down side of memory foam is it will absorb water/sweat, but we will try to mitigate that problem a bit by perforating it.

I wish the foam came in a better colour but its what we have to work with.

[Schneiderfrei]

Wow, how exciting and what an engineering project.

Naturally you would follow a tried and true method, but I know what you mean, I love the creative process.

G

[Henry Hall]

Something interesting I noticed. I made one three years ago and it was a real process of "creation" now that I have to do another, I seem to want to follow what I did before rather then "create" from scratch.

Like a proper tailor rather than fashion designer. It's in your blood!

[theresa in tucson]

Terri, I'm following this thread with interest.  The spouse plays Santa for our son's former school every December and I would really like to have a better "belly" than the one that comes with the costume.  He has the white beard and attitude, just not the belly.

[TTailor]

Next steps.
I started some foam shapes.

[TTailor]

We are perforating the layers that will lay closest to the body, to help with keeping the actor comfortable.
The sections of the foam will be sewn into "pockets" made of a stretch net. Again, trying to keep some air circulation possible.
I am doing this in sections in an attempt to be a bit more realistic (as much as one can get in 1/2 inch memory foam!) and not just a solid unmoving padding, if that makes sense.

[Schneiderfrei]

Perfectly sensible terri.

[Greger]

Wow! That is interesting. Hope it works well. All those holes must help prevent over heating.

[TTailor]

I think the holes help, it does look odd though!
We will also need to have interior pockets for ice packs.

[Greger]

Didn't think of ice packs. That would certainly be a blessing.

[spookietoo]

I was about to ask if you used ice packs, just thinking about all those layers of foam makes me sweat. A basic single layer power net girdle can get steamy.

Thanks for posting all of this. You have such a cool job!

[TTailor]

It’s a start.....

Upper body getting close.
I am getting all the pieces prepped and pinned to the body suit for a fitting.
I still need to make a buttock section and cover the leg.
Unfortunately our hanging stand has very little space between the thighs so I will have to make a best guess as to the shape for that piece and just fit it on the actor in the fitting.
It looks a bit rough but it is all just basted together. The stretch pouches need to be tighter. I need to reglue a few bits of foam.

One of the challenges with glueing the foam together is sweat and moisture. The most successful glue we have tried is water resistant, but it takes 24 hours to set. That extends our process time and also makes it difficult to glue darts in the foam together. So we found that heavy duty double sided rubber cement tape holds the foam and seems to be water resistant so far.
We tried contact cement, but strangely enough it was not as durable as the water resistant white glue.

We did get a fitting this week, so we are on the right track.
Now it comes apart, modified where needed, and the pouches sewn properly and then reassembled on the body suit.