Pantheon Shield

Have you ever wanted to make something from your favorite video game or show? Maybe you've wanted to make a sword, shield, or armor. When it comes to the world of shields, nothing can come even close to the shield of Pantheon. This Instructable will teach you how to make a shield that can protect your entire body.

Materials:

- Foam (varying thickness)

- masking tape

- adhesive glue

Tools:

- ruler (100cm)

- blade

- Heat gun (optional)

- mask

glove

Electronics (optional):

- LEDs

- Arduino

- pressure sensor

Scale the size of your whole shield. For this specific example, there are no given templates. Therefore, you will have to scale everything and make templates of your own.

Get a large piece of roll paper. Large enough to cover the entire width and length of your shield. Either that or you can create templates for half of the shield which would be more efficient. Then, copy it over.

When scaling and creating the templates it is helpful to scale to your body to get measurements for the shield. This is because the shield should be proportionate to the maker's body.

When creating the template, make sure to use rulers, cutters, and pencil. After tracing, then you can go over the finalize template with a marker or pen.

After finishing the template from Step 1, grab the thickest foam available to you, lay it on the ground, and lay the template of the shield on top. It is recommended to use split the template down the middle into two equal parts. With one of the halves, trace it on the foam using a marker. It is helpful to use something weighted to hold the template down on the foam. For this specific project, I used rulers and masking tape to hold my template in place. After outlining then you can start cutting out the piece out using a box cutter knife. It is important to cut out the different layers and pieces separately. After finishing the one half repeat the same process for the other side. After this process is done, you can choose to mold the foam in whatever angle you want using a heat gun. This is useful if your shield has a curve in it that you want to replicate.

After you have all of the foam pieces cut out, it's time to piece them together. Personally I taped all my pieces together before using adhesive glue just to see how it looks as a whole. This also helps the maker see if they have to make any edits or changes to the pieces. After checking that all the pieces are a good fit, step outside with all the pieces, gloves, mask, glue, and a popsicle stick.

It is important to note that the glue applied to the foam pieces will not be instantly sticky. You will have to wait for 10~15 mins till the glue gets tacky. Therefore, it is important to apply glue to multiple pieces in one go. The popsicle stick is used to test the tackiness of the applied glue. Make sure to be wearing gloves and masks during this process. After 10 to 15 mins glue all of the pieces together and wait for it to dry. It is important to press down on the pieces as you put them together.

Some important things to keep in mind are to also glue the seams of your pieces and apply glue to both pieces that you are putting together. It is also important to put paper or something underneath the pieces in order to stop the glue from dripping to the floor.

Step 4 is optional. If you have plenty of time to do it then step 4 is encouraged. However, if you have a deadline to meet, step 4 is not necessary.

The ideal scenario would be that all of the pieces have been glued together and dried. Then you'd paint the shield in a metallic color to make it look more like a shield.

You can also add an Arduino, LEDs, and a pressure sensor to the shield. This could allow the shield to glow or light up whenever the sensors pick up force or impact.

This was how to make your own cosplay shield.