Daryl Dixon for Walker-Stalker Philly

Hello!

It's been a while since I've made a costume, and with my first ever Walker-Stalker Con this weekend, I decided to make a Walking Dead cosplay. I'm pretty much done with it, so I thought I would share!

Here's the best shot I have right now - I'm sure I'll get better ones this weekend.



The jacket is from Wilson's Leather. I aged it with saddle soap, steel brushes, and some dirt.



The wings were pretty tricky. I struggled with finding a good reference image from the show, so I ended up frankenstiening pretty much anything I could find online - shots directly from the show, a few fan-made images, prop details, and even a Walking Dead phone case. To my horror, I realized that there are actually several different versions of the wings, and not just their level of aging, so I then tweaked everything to what I thought it was the best "average" of the wings.

I then projected the wings onto off-white denim with a permanent marker. I thought about being more accurate to the show and stitching them, but the way the marker bleed into the fabric actually gave it a "stitched" feel, so I went with in. I then let the fabric soak in a high-concentrated bath of water and dark tea to get the yellowish-brown color. Further coloring and shading was done with oil pastels (brown, white, and black). I went through a few phases of this till get the coloring where I was happy with it. To rough up the edges, I simply used a wire brush. The wings were then attached to the jacket with leather cement.

For the knife, I simply used scrap leather and sintra, left over from my kingsguard costume. The knife is based on the Bosse Gemini knife. The blade is painted with silver liquid metal, with some black and rust colored acrylic paint for tinting and rust detail (I tried to mask some of my less-than straight carving with a dab of rust so it has an "excuse" for being less than perfect). The grips could be made better, and they aren't the right color, but I'll need to order more sintra to remake them.



My favorite part! Aging! I took some simple Wrangler and no-name work shirts I found at a local thrift shop. I primarily used scissors to cut holes and then wire brushes to get the fray going. I also used a leather skiving tool, and dragged it randomly across the fabric for smaller, random holes and damage. I also washed the clothes a few times to help with the aging process, and trimmed the fraying in places where I thought it was too much. To darken the colors (they were originally bright green and gray), I soaked them in watered down acrylics (mostly black, with some browns). I then took a final pass with black oil pastels to give them the "grimey" feel.




I'm not quite finished with the pants - they're ripped up, but I still need to dirty them up. Same with the boots. For anyone whose looking to make this costume as well, I found these Wolverine boots that are a pretty close match for the pair Daryl wears, and they're about $100 cheaper.

Good job, the Busse TGLB looks incredible :cool

Your aging work is awesome. I think all the pieces came out great. Nice work man.

Seconded. That weathering is fantastic!! Some people have a knack for it. It's an area I'm aiming to improve on. Well done! :thumbsup

Nice work on the costume, the wings came out superb! :cool :thumbsup I'm helping my daughter with a vest right now, she started out looking at buying a set of "close enough" patches but the SA bug has bit her so we're trying to make a set.

Post some of your pictures man- let's see it in action!

drneville said:

Good job, the Busse TGLB looks incredible :cool

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Thanks! I want to do the grips again (I've since found better references). Though I also really want the real knife...I might just get that and make a mold of it like I did the Jaime Lannister sword for my Kingsguard outfit.

Mobjack said:

Your aging work is awesome. I think all the pieces came out great. Nice work man.

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Bigdaddy said:

Nice work on the costume, the wings came out superb! :cool :thumbsup I'm helping my daughter with a vest right now, she started out looking at buying a set of "close enough" patches but the SA bug has bit her so we're trying to make a set.

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I really appreciate that! Aging is one of my favorite (and most hated) stages - I really get into it with a mix of looking for "stories" to tell as well as just shutting my mind off and seeing what happens. It's very therapeutic, haha. But I also hate it because it's always slightly terrifying when you start the again process; don't want to make a mistake or go too far with it!

Vult Tavik said:

Post some of your pictures man- let's see it in action!

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I'll be posting a couple more WIP pics in a few minutes, but sadly, I don't have anything else outside of a few mirror selfies that don't show more than what's in my first post. Walker-Stalker Con was kind of a bust for me and I didn't get any pictures there. However! While waiting to get Jon Bernthal's autograph, one of the people working with him asked if he could take a picture and text it to Norman. I didn't get to wait around to see if Reedus responded, but knowing he saw it was cool enough! I'll definitely be wearing it for Halloween; if I get some pics there I'll post em here.

Here's a couple shots of the pants after they've been aged. I don't know if they're the right brand, but they looked close enough to some images I've seen (and not being 100% denim, they were quite comfy!) They were basically aged the same way as the shirts, but I also used watered down acrylic paint for mud splatters. The colors in the first image don't show up too well - the bottom of the legs are actually dirtier than they appear.

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For the crossbow, I couldn't afford to get the real Horton crossbow he uses (though being a gun and archery user, it WILL be mine at some point!), so I decided to just go with the AMC toy for now. It's waaay to small, but its better than nothing I guess. Since it's very obvious it's a toy, complete with Walking Dead logos and stickers, I did a quick paint job on it.

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The paint job was a simple matte black spray paint. I then took some silver liquid leaf paint and applied scratching effects to edges and anywhere I thought might get dinged up. A clear satin finish was then used to protect everything (thought it appears I didn't do a good enough job on the arrow tip - photo was taken after the con). Final stage was to rub some good old fashion VA dirt on it. This was pretty much done in a single night, so it isn't perfect and is missing the camo designs, but I'll tackle that another time.

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FuzzyDrawings said:

I really appreciate that! Aging is one of my favorite (and most hated) stages - I really get into it with a mix of looking for "stories" to tell as well as just shutting my mind off and seeing what happens. It's very therapeutic, haha. But I also hate it because it's always slightly terrifying when you start the again process; don't want to make a mistake or go too far with it!

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You're killing it man...in the best possible way.

Great job on the weathering technique. I have a lot to learn on the "less is more" mentality. If you ever want to remake the knife i made this template for mine. Just print on 11x17. View attachment Daryl Dixon Knife - WORKING.pdf

Thanks! I'll probably give it another go once I finish my current build.

Here's another pic of me in costume (sadly, this is the only other one). I was practicing the Daryl Dixon patented squint. I recently donated all my hair; think I'll have to grow it out again!