Aspis of Spartan Fury
A Step-by-Step Look at Building a Foam Cosplay Prop
Panda Lilly
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This weapon is based on the Aspis of Spartan Fury Shield that is awarded to Kratos on the hardest difficulty of the game, God of War, upon completion of a certain achievement. Although the design is intricate, not too many materials went into this creation and it was fun and easy to make!
The shield design is simple because it is an even circle with two panels on each end. This shield is 3D so an inner circle needs to be put in the middle to later carve out a groove and stack the foam. A 2in slab of XPS foam was used to create this shield.
My trusty Industrial 6??? Hot Knife helped me get this shield design out so that I may get to work on the best art: carving, shaping and adding dimension!
Two circles were cut out of more XPS foam, one was 7??? and the other was 9???. The 7??? circle was domed and plugged into the 9??? circle that was hollowed out. Lastly a 2 in circle was placed at the top of the dome for that last bit of dimension.
Back to the shield! The circle in the center of the shield needs to be carved down so that the middle dome lines up with the prongs in the middle so it looks like a continuous piece. Inset the dome about ½ in-1in, do not glue down, because the carving is not over!
Here you can see the comparison of both sides. I used a box cutter to get rid of the bulk of the foam and sanded the rest down. You see the dimension added and the two middle prongs have been left untouched to emphasize the “fan??? effect. Kratos’s shield is a small metal circle on his arm, the prongs expand and the shield fans out, to create a complete circle and a dangerous degree of protection. Tip: if you may have carved too much off or need to seamlessly hide your sins and seams, the All Purpose Foam Coat from Hot Wire Foam Factory mixed with water to create a thick paste can be ran on the seam and sanded down.** You can also make the paste thinner if you need to fill a chasm in the foam you might have made, I did…but you will never know!
Moving right along, craft foam was cut out and glued onto the foam with StyroGoo from Hot Wire Foam Factory to further emphasize the fan affect. With the dome design, I used my Precision Engraver from HWFF to burn linear grooves and then filled them up with a 3D paint. A plus sign was burned into the foam with the Engraver and a gold clothing punch was implanted in the center!
More details have been added! My Precision Engraver was used to add texture into the middle prongs, craft foam has been added for the other 3D designs. Moreover, spartan symbols have been cut from Worbla and added around shield edge. I also found mesh tubing, stuffed it with pipe cleaners to give a braided design. I also battle damaged the shield by being a little rough with a folded sanding sheet…MORE GOLD CLOTHING PUNCHES!!!
Now to cover the entire shield with Bounce from HWFF, let it dry and then paint it with a nice even layer black spray paint. Newspaper and painters tape need to be put on the outer circle because that will stay black. Next, go wild with gold spray paint!
Once the gold paint was dry, the tape and newspaper revealed pure beauty. I had some sins, I went a little too wild! That was later touched up.
The next tedious thing to do is the paint the Worbla spartan symbols gold. It was hard to find an acrylic to match the shield so I strapped on my respirator, got a throw away brush and sprayed gold spray paint in a platter and painted with that!
The Aspis of Spartan Fury has a distinctive design, it has a painted “A??? or as Lambda painted on the front in blood. Masking tape was carefully lined out to get a vision of the path. Red acrylic paint was watered down and artistically sloppily the Lambda was made and the wet paint was manipulated downward to drip and add the affect of gore.
Not Pictured – The back of the shield was painted red and gold painted in a cob web design and old leather belt handles have been glued on. Click here to see Panda Lilly’s other cosplay prop – Kratos’ Leviathan Axe.