Just because a costume looks simple at first glance doesn’t mean it actually is. LEGO Indiana Jones may appear to be a cardboard construction, but the costume is actually made from insulation board and foam and required more than a few skills to make. Instructables user niboras designed the right size minifig head in Photoshop and had to cut EPS insulation board into circles to match the plan; he hollowed out the inside with an X-acto knife and sand everything. It’s quite a process. He’s how he built the blocky archaelogist’s head:
Using the PDF I went to the shop and started cutting. EPS insulation board is pretty easy to work with, it is lightweight, and pretty cheap. Based on my plan I knew I would need 6 x 11″ circles and one 6″ circle from the EPS. I would also need one 8″ circle of 2″ foam. For the body I just used a tape measure to get dimensions of my son’s shoulders and torso and sorta winged it no real plan on that one. The body was made from 1″ EPS, the head from 1.5″ EPS
In order to get consistent circles and speed up the process I made a simple jig out of 1/2″ mdf and a finishing nail. With the jig in place it was easy to set the distance from the blade and drop squares of EPS onto the nail and spin perfect circles. For the top and bottom caps I also ran the discs through again at a 45 degree to remove as much material before I had to start sanding. I’m sure you could also cut the circles using one of the many ‘ibles on hotwires as well, but I had a bandsaw so that seemed easiest.
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