FusRoMeow
New Member
I've always been a huge fan of the video game series, Borderlands. When I saw the announcement of the new upcoming Borderlands game, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel I saw Athena as a playable character. I immediately fell in love with her armor and weapons. So what did I do? I decided to bring it to life!
Before talk about my build I would like talk a bit about my experience as a costume builder.
As a kid, I was always interested in props and cosplaying. Having the idea of creating something of your own and bringing it to life really mesmerized me. Watching movies with amazing visuals and seeing characters wearing incredible outfits and armor (back when not much was digitalized, everything was made by hand) really inspired me to want to make props and armor of my own. Eventually I decided to pursue my dream and hobby of becoming a cosplayer and creating props. So now I'm here!
I started about a year ago and the first costume I've ever made was a Psycho from Borderlands. I've only worked with one material to make armor out of and that is EVA foam. I plan to always use EVA foam due to it being cheap and easy to work with.
Here's the full build (sorry if its long, I'm just excited to share my work)
I started out making her sword and shield first since that was the part I was most excited about. Foam is my favorite material to work with so I decided to make them primarily from EVA foam
After this photo was taken I weathered the sword.
When I finished the sword I moved onto the shield, which was quite a pain to make but fun at the same time. The shield is made out of foam as well.
Getting the dimensions and sizing correct on the shield was extremely difficult. If you can tell. the shield is covered in ink lines, hehe. I made the shield look 3D by heating up the EVA foam and forming it over a bowl, it seemed to work wonders.
This is what the shield looked like after I painted and weathered it. I love painting so adding in the detail with paints was very enjoyable.
So after I did the fun part of creating the suit, I then decided next to work on the hardest part I was dreading! The shin armor. It was the hardest part for me due to its shape and sizing. It took many tries to create and lots of foam wasted. In the end I finally made them without mistake!
Here's what they looked like after I made them. I crafted them out of 3mm and 5mm foam. Each piece is seperate, I just glued them together and filled in any cracks with "Spackling". I added in the cracks, dents, and weathering with my little wood burner tool. After I finished with that I covered them in "Plasti-Dip" to harden the foam a bit and provide me with a smooth surface to paint.
Well, here is what they ended up looking like after I painted them and added in the "Cell-Shading". Silly me, I forgot to shade part of the right shin armor before I snapped the photo. Of course though I did finish the shading afterwards.
The other hard part about crafting this suit was the left shoulder pauldron. It was such a pain trying to figure out how to round it on my shoulder. After a series of attempts I finally managed to create the right template to make it work. The photo on the right is what it looked like after I painted the basic colors and before I added in the shading and detail.
So here's what it ended up looking like right after I added in the detail and shading. Also pictured is my left knee armor and the vambrace for my left arm. All made out of foam as well of course. Painting those ended up being a lot of fun.
Here is what my thigh armor ended up looking like. It took me two tries to make because I ended up making it for my left leg accidentally when it was supposed to be for my right leg. Can you tell what material this was made out of? All foam again of course, hehe.
For Athena's shoes I ended up using a pair of my boots. I made the boot armor out of foam, painted it, added in shading, and attached it to my boots.
So Athena has a belt with different sized bullets and her mini oxygen "tank" on it. Not quite sure what its called. I was going to use real bullets on her belt but since I plan on wearing this to a convention I refrained from that. Instead I quickly made bullets out of good ol' Model Magic.
Here is what my overall suit ended up looking like and my giant pile or armor. The chest plate isn't pictured unfortunately. I wasn't too fond of what it looked like.
I have yet to have a photo shoot with this costume but I will soon. I did end up making most of the clothing myself and painted it as well as "Cell-Shaded" it to give it a cartoony animated look. I decided not to post step-by-step photos of the clothing since that wouldn't be too exciting to look at.
If you have any questions or anything of that nature feel free to ask!
Also, here is my proof photo. It was really hard getting my costume back on and I haven't worn it in a while so I apologize for the messy wig. I also didn't feel like spending two hours putting on makeup, heh.
Before talk about my build I would like talk a bit about my experience as a costume builder.
As a kid, I was always interested in props and cosplaying. Having the idea of creating something of your own and bringing it to life really mesmerized me. Watching movies with amazing visuals and seeing characters wearing incredible outfits and armor (back when not much was digitalized, everything was made by hand) really inspired me to want to make props and armor of my own. Eventually I decided to pursue my dream and hobby of becoming a cosplayer and creating props. So now I'm here!
I started about a year ago and the first costume I've ever made was a Psycho from Borderlands. I've only worked with one material to make armor out of and that is EVA foam. I plan to always use EVA foam due to it being cheap and easy to work with. Here's the full build (sorry if its long, I'm just excited to share my work)
I started out making her sword and shield first since that was the part I was most excited about. Foam is my favorite material to work with so I decided to make them primarily from EVA foam
After this photo was taken I weathered the sword.
When I finished the sword I moved onto the shield, which was quite a pain to make but fun at the same time. The shield is made out of foam as well.
Getting the dimensions and sizing correct on the shield was extremely difficult. If you can tell. the shield is covered in ink lines, hehe. I made the shield look 3D by heating up the EVA foam and forming it over a bowl, it seemed to work wonders.
This is what the shield looked like after I painted and weathered it. I love painting so adding in the detail with paints was very enjoyable.
So after I did the fun part of creating the suit, I then decided next to work on the hardest part I was dreading! The shin armor. It was the hardest part for me due to its shape and sizing. It took many tries to create and lots of foam wasted. In the end I finally made them without mistake!
Here's what they looked like after I made them. I crafted them out of 3mm and 5mm foam. Each piece is seperate, I just glued them together and filled in any cracks with "Spackling". I added in the cracks, dents, and weathering with my little wood burner tool. After I finished with that I covered them in "Plasti-Dip" to harden the foam a bit and provide me with a smooth surface to paint.
Well, here is what they ended up looking like after I painted them and added in the "Cell-Shading". Silly me, I forgot to shade part of the right shin armor before I snapped the photo. Of course though I did finish the shading afterwards.
The other hard part about crafting this suit was the left shoulder pauldron. It was such a pain trying to figure out how to round it on my shoulder. After a series of attempts I finally managed to create the right template to make it work. The photo on the right is what it looked like after I painted the basic colors and before I added in the shading and detail.
So here's what it ended up looking like right after I added in the detail and shading. Also pictured is my left knee armor and the vambrace for my left arm. All made out of foam as well of course. Painting those ended up being a lot of fun.
Here is what my thigh armor ended up looking like. It took me two tries to make because I ended up making it for my left leg accidentally when it was supposed to be for my right leg. Can you tell what material this was made out of? All foam again of course, hehe.
For Athena's shoes I ended up using a pair of my boots. I made the boot armor out of foam, painted it, added in shading, and attached it to my boots.
So Athena has a belt with different sized bullets and her mini oxygen "tank" on it. Not quite sure what its called. I was going to use real bullets on her belt but since I plan on wearing this to a convention I refrained from that. Instead I quickly made bullets out of good ol' Model Magic.
Here is what my overall suit ended up looking like and my giant pile or armor. The chest plate isn't pictured unfortunately. I wasn't too fond of what it looked like.
I have yet to have a photo shoot with this costume but I will soon. I did end up making most of the clothing myself and painted it as well as "Cell-Shaded" it to give it a cartoony animated look. I decided not to post step-by-step photos of the clothing since that wouldn't be too exciting to look at.
If you have any questions or anything of that nature feel free to ask!
Also, here is my proof photo. It was really hard getting my costume back on and I haven't worn it in a while so I apologize for the messy wig. I also didn't feel like spending two hours putting on makeup, heh.
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