3d printed Valla cosplay (Heroes of the Storm)

[FirstKeeper]

Hi!
That's my first tread on this forum and I would like to share my work in progress on Valla Vampire Hunter skin from "Heroes of the Storm" Blizzard's video game.
With my every costume I set a goal to learn something new. This time I was very exited to try implement in my costume making pipeline 3d printing. I'm a professional 3d character artist and it seemed like a perfect fit to my existing skills.


Warning: this post contains a few cats pictures


Here is a picture of in-game character design:



This cosplay started as a small "for fun" project, I just wanted to make a hat, but ended up with 6+ months of full costume production.
After hat I moved on creating chest piece. For patterns i did a simple paper tape/food plastic wrap body cast.



For chest piece I used 2 thermo plastics Worbla for round bra shapes and more durable Eonderflex for the rest of torso details.
Styrofoam ball from Joanns did a great job on creating hard base for round shape:





Some following leather working on top. I used specific cement from Russia, I've been using this one since my student days in my art college and could not find any better better solution. Barge is pretty close though. Piece of leather for more flexibility was moistened with some water on glossy surface before gluing. This truck helps with getting rid of some wrinkles as well.




Same operation was done with wonderflex detail on center. All details were sewed together for better durability.



Other wonderflex details for torso:



Adding final details with some painted silver thick leather straps. For glossy wet look I used Eco-Flo Super Shene leather finish. This product created a perfect like in-game leather shader look:



Leather working on skirt required some help:



Nothing too exiting, everything hand sewed:



Had to fix this nasty fold on top part later:

 

[FirstKeeper]

After finishing chest piece I tried to use EVA foam and Worbla for creating a test run for shoulder pad, but I did not like result at all. It was hard for me to maintain symmetry and hard shapes and I decided to give 3d printing a try.
Here is a 3d printer I got from Amazon under $500 Da Vinci . It has a very rudimentary printing software options and requires special ABS cartridges, but for beginner like myself for its price I did not regret putting my money on this 3d printer. Later after learning all pros and cons I got another one from company in Europe anyway.





Left shoulder pad was a very first 3d printed armor part for me and there were some learning experience going on. I was trying to establish my pipeline for 3d printing in costuming and as you can see on later wips some techniques did not work, but some did and I ended up with learning some decent for me way to do 3d printed armor parts.
I started with quick concept before moving to 3d modelling:







After finishing model I had to cut it on 9 pieces because a limitation on printer's bed size. Mine 3d printer has 20x20x20 cm (7,8 x 7,8 x 7,8') working surface.
These details were quite simple to print, I did not have to generate supports for them. For this costume I used ABS plastic. ABS is relatively easy to sand and acetone aggressively melts it and can be used for smoothing and gluing details.





Main thing with 3d printing is figuring out how to smooth surface. FFF type of 3d printers extrude melted plastic layer by layer in thin tread. It creates s pretty rough surface which needs to be smoothed. I tried a few different ways and using wood glue was definitely a mistake. It cant stand sanding and starts to peel off. For gluing details I used Plastic Model Glue from Testor, it's not bad, but ABS juice as I found out later is way better solution. Mix of ABS plastic leftovers from your print with acetone creates a great bound between details, it literally melts details together.





I had to fix wood glue disaster with Bondo, later I found out that a few coats of ABS juice and sanding easily replaces Bondo:





Final shoulder pad with leather on top and acrylic painting:





Almost same process happened to right shoulder:





Some parts were not stick to printing bed and bent on corners. It was fixes with ABS juice:





Organic parts like skulls has a bit different way for smoothing. As you can see raw print has lines, for smoothing skulls I did acetone vapor bath. Later I opted in for ABS juice coating with same effect:





Wooden crossbows from toy store for base:





Aceton vapor bath results. With couple primer coats it ended up pretty decent. I also printed belt buckle for back of torso armor:





Final crossbow skulls. I drilled later holes for blue LEDs and assembled battery/switches packs on back of each skull:




Keep in mind that ABS plastic dust is not great for inhalation and even for long contact with skin, please use long sleeves and mask with glasses while sanding ABS especially with dremel. It's a really great material though and very light and easy to sand.

 

[FirstKeeper]

Raw glued prints of glove and hip part. I love how light ABS details are.





For leg parts I did wrong plastic layers direction and were too impatient with not cutting these on more pieces, overall this armor part turned out less durable for these reasons.



Pile of final not assembled armor parts:



I also did a lot of belts from scratch by cutting them from big hide and applying black and red dyes later:



Some stakes from basic wooden sticks, wood dye and sanding:



3d render for potion bottles:



I still waiting for my SLA Titan 1 3d printer so I could not just print bottles with opaque resin. So I had to go through molding and casting process for this detail. ABS plastic bottle was heavily sanded down and molded in silicone. Later I casted it with clear resin and did simple blue LED setup:

 

[FirstKeeper]

I got my wig from Epic Cosplay Wig, for eyes I got white out with mesh on pupil contacts. It looked pretty creepy and had great wow effect on Blizzcon 2014, but it was quite uncomfortable to see through. Pants, gloves and boots for under armor base I bought on Ebay and Amazon.

Pretty cool animated turntable from Blizzcon Blizzcam 360

Final pictures by slipgatecentral







That was a love/hate project, but I definitely learnt a lot of stuff and going to keep using 3d printing for creating costumes and props.
Feel free to ask me any questions regardless this costume!

 

[Whitz]

Beautiful work! Which program(s) did you use to create and prepare the models for printing?

 

[FirstKeeper]

Beautiful work! Which program(s) did you use to create and prepare the models for printing?

Thank you, I used 3dmax and Zbrush.

 

[Gary Pahls]

Looks amazing! Great work!!

I chuckle inside a bit everytime I see how much Blizzard and GW take ideas from each other

 

[FirstKeeper]

Thank you! Yeah I love both companies and art they produce and it was a perfect design for me to built in real life.