Jun 172 min read

Large Shoes Foam Props Fabrication for Yaamava' Resort & Casino

Yaamava' Resort & Casino in Highland, CA reached out to us to create two large oversized shoe props for a charitable shoe drive event hosted at the hotel. The purpose of the event is for guests to contribute new shoes to underprivileged families, receiving complimentary casino play in return.

We started out with a 3D CAD file of the shoes sanding the rendering CAD proof to the customer for confirmation. The project included large foam props: 2 shoes at 5ft tall x 3ft high - A green Nike Sneaker style and a high top Converse shoe to be placed on the casino floor with people walking by it.

The customer intended for the props to serve as a visual advertisment for about 4 weeks for the duration of the shoe drive.

We used was 3lbs EPS material (Styrofoam, also known as Expended Polystyrene), which is commonly used for props, sculptures, signs and letters.

The project was commenced by machining the shoes on our CNC router. Both were machined in two halves then glued together using a 5min epoxy, patched and sanded to minimize the seam as much as possible.

Machining large styrofoam shoe prop on a cnc router — CNC machining large foam prop on a router

Then, the work of sanding and more sanding began.

Following sanding, we placed DryDex Joint Compound Spackling material. It is a pink material meant to fill out gaps, sims and crack and further smooth out the surface. Then more sanding happened.

Dry Dex compound material placed on a shoe foam prop — Dry Dex Joint Compound on a foam prop

We used exacto knife and other carving tools to remove excess material and to carve fine details such as the heel, eyelets and laces.

More sanded detailed Nike prop shoe photos... to get to asmoother more accurate finish

As the customer's required a detailed surface finish (as people will see it from up close), 3 coats of of epoxy hard coating were applied, giving the shoes a smoother, glosier and aesthetically nicer finish.

Next step was to paint the shoes. We started out with white paint all over, then added the green and gold paint details. We used tape to cover the white parts to paint the green and gold. We use brush and spray painting as well as manual gentle brush for the small and hard to reach areas.

These images showcase the painted shoes prepared for the final stage -

Replacing the Nike and Converse logos on the shoes with the Yaamava hotel logo. To achieve this, we designed a template stencil and are now applying the logo onto the shoes.

The black shoe in the photos is a real size 13 one, showing the proportions and scale of these props.