On the presidential staff, a penwiper cleans the pens that the president uses. If you saw Obama signing that deal the other day, he used like 4 different pens. Do you think they clean themselves???
There's a really useful tutorial on making craft foam armor here: http://www.entropyhouse.com/penwiper/costumes/helmsdeep.html and an awesome layout of the design patterns here http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs28/i/2008/064/a/0Zelda_Armor_Designs_Printouts_by_Zeldaness.png I'm about to make a set myself using these two sites