I work for a costume company out of Austin (in addition to my day job). We had an issue with our cosplay armor guy who delivered a not-so-desirable product for one of our characters. So I said, pretty sure I can make the base pieces on the GF (and do all the other painting/casting/etc). This is mixed media and everything was handmade. EVA craft foam used for the armor which was all cut on the GF using patterns I drew out in Adobe Illustrator. Talk about saving me a TON of time! If you want to see the original prototype I had to match, see that here [https://darkcreationsatx.com/product/buzzkill-clown-killer/] Here are the finished versions of all pieces…
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Nice job! It looks like it was a lot of fun to work on. 
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Lots of trial and error but super fun and quite rewarding!
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Great job turning a disappointment into a win! Your pieces look amazing.
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You did an amazing job matching the costume. You got skillz.
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I have SO many cosplayers in my area that want cut foam. Its super high on my list of things to do when I get my glowforge. I REALLY want to make myself a set of ring wraith gauntlets out of Worbla for my own cosplays!
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The GF is great for EVA foam cuts. Just allow for about 1/16" of shrinkage around the edge due to the heat from the laser. Other than that, it’s awesome. I did cut Worbla too which works well! I’ll be using that on an upcoming costume.
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Very cool! 
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Where did you get the foam, and did you have to use a surface treatment before painting?
Looks great!
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I’m really looking forward to it.
Have you attempted any engraves with EVA foam? It would be interesting to see what would happen with a super low power engrave pass
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Looks just like the originals if not better. 
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Nice work! good reminder I have some EVA foam sitting around I’ve been meaning to play with!
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I got the foam from a vendor on Ebay. I did my test cuts using the cheap floor mat and the final product on the higher quality more dense EVA.
Seal in the EVA foam with a heat gun prior to painting by just passing over it. Paint is a real experiment to get it to stick and not crack. There are tons of videos on Youtube for that. You have to seal the paint in with an acrylic varnish after.
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I have not tried engraves yet because (like you said) I suspect that the power would need to be set VERY low . The foam shrinks from heat so I think what you could engrave would be quite limited. Details would get lost. I am going to try it though using different techniques. 1 - putting the foam straight in the GF. 2 - heat sealing the foam first. 3 - heat sealing and possibly some sort of pre-treatment. What that is, I’m not sure yet.
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I wonder if you could make super quick lines and then open them up with a heat gun. Could be a nice way to do some fun effects. I can’t wait to try on my own glowforge
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I assume you have seen the Tested build video:
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Yep I’m sure that would be easy to do. Definitely have to use a solid black and white image with no shades of grays to get it right. But that’s all you’d really need. I also have a prop I’m about to do an engraving on that is ran in Flex Foam (just to need to double check that it’s safe first).
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The company in Austin I do work for is a costume company. We are very big (the best in distressed/weathered costumes) in the Halloween/haunt industry and I already have new character designs in the works that are much more intricate. I’d rather spend time on the distressing/weathering so the GF is affording me the luxury of time and precision!
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