spacemunky
New Member
This is my Resolute-inspired Cobra Commander build for Emerald City Comicon, 2014. I wasn't going for an exact reproduction, but used that style and thought of it as the formal battle dress of a tin-pot dictator. I've done odds and ends before, but this was my first major con cosplay.
Design reference:
The anchor for the outfit is a 50s-60s era Swedish military overcoat (made by CBV, Karlskrona) that I picked up from a thrift store. I couldn't start anything else until I found it, and spent a few weeks combing second-hand shops and military surplus sites looking for the right thing. It has a stunning red lining added by my seamstress companion (who also did a ton of last-minute help with the dictatorial flourishes). It's two-sizes too big, but I had always planned on wearing it draped over the shoulders. Along with the braid, stripes and medals, I added a bit of chain clipped to D-rings behind the lapels to keep myself from shrugging it off accidentally.
Under that is the Cobra base layer:
- Dickies work suit in postal blue with ribbon stripes added to the legs
- Black Morphmask to cover the neck and jaw, with eye-holes cut out for better vision
- Plain black leather gloves with some vinyl gauntlet extensions
- Nylon tactical belt and thigh holster
- My generic, all-purpose RemCo sci-fi pistol
- 20-eyelet black leather boots with paracord laces
The helmet is built from an Easton batting helmet. It's padded, fits comfortably, and has a nice low profile (no giant bobblehead!). I was much happier modifying that than trying to fiberglass some awkward bucket on my own. I can see returning to them for any future custom helmet builds. The first step was to hack off the brim so I could start doing mock-ups.
The visor is a Vega NT 200 mirrored motorcycle full-face shield. It was the tallest one I could find and had a nicely shaped lower edge. It was a little pricey, but the cheaper options I saw on eBay all shipped from China and I didn't want to deal with the risk/headaches of ordering from overseas. Everyone kept asking me if I could see, but visibility was perfect. It only fogged a little, when I got stuck in warm crowds.
I used a paper template to figure out the shape needed to fit the visor inside the helmet. Making destructive cuts on an unrepairable component was nerve-wracking. I cut with a lot of room to spare and slowly pared it down, which took about a day of gradual Dremel work. The visor was wide at the bottom where the helmet narrowed, so I had to heat-warp it a bit to taper the width. There was a little heat damage to the mirror finish, unfortunately, but not too noticeable in the end.
I carved grooves in the hard foam segments of the padding and used those to anchor the visor. With that slotting and the outward pressure of the visor against the helmet, it stays solidly in place on its own. No glue at all. I can also take it out fairly easily, which was a huge relief when it came time to paint.
I used some carboard templates to find the right peak for the new front-piece on the helmet, then cut it out of a lexan face shield. The original plan was to use the rest of the face shield to lengthen the back and sides of the helmet into the traditional Cobra silhouette. As it turned out, the existing lines of the helmet flowed perfectly with the upturned coat collar, and the tall collar itself made a longer helmet redundant. I ended up modifying the helmet a lot less than I had planned. Once the front-piece was cut and heat-shaped a bit, I secured it with half the world's epoxy.
I learned how to use Bondo on this project to fill out the underside of the front-piece and smooth the contours around the crown. I shaped some of the lines a bit with Apoxie Sculpt putty, added greeblies for a tech look, and scuffed everything up for primer. I didn't sand the Bondo down quite enough and there are some nasty lines along the top seam, but nothing anyone could see when it's being worn. Now that the con is over and I have more time, I'll probably go back and clean that up.
Primed, painted, and assembled. I used a base layer of Valspar Indigo Streamer blue and blended it with Cobalt Cannon gray and got a good match for the clothing without having to dye anything. I added the silver stripe (it's traditionally white, but there weren't any other white accents in my color scheme), then did a satin clear coat.
I wanted to be able to hear, so I didn't seal up the ear holes. I cut up the speaker grill from a broken stereo and made inserts...they worked out so well that I made more for all of the helmet vents. It was a simple addition, but completed the transformation while keeping it minimal and not overly-adorned.
I wanted a breastplate under the coat to complement the helmet, but envisioned a tactical variation instead of a ceremonial style. I started with a catcher's padded chest guard as the base and made paper templates to follow the contours. After buying it, I figured out I could do the armor plates in thin segments and get the look of a snake-like underbelly. I cut the pieces out of flexible 2.5mm Optix acrylic sheet, smoothed the edges down, and heat-warped them to curve around the torso. I used some Apoxie Sculpt to add a few contour lines, but didn't have time to do as much shaping as I would have liked.
The armor plates were painted along with the helmet. After, I added a Cobra chest logo by hand with a stencil, acrylic paint, and lots of touch-up. I made a dummy torso with pillows to shape the chest guard, then glued the armor down with epoxy gel. It grabs on to the spandex/foam padding very well...I don't see them coming off any time soon. Unfortunately, in the transition from paper to plastic to placement, things didn't line up quite the same. There are some ugly gaps around the third plate that I'm not happy with and the shape of the sixth looks a little off. I would consider fixing them if I thought I could get them off without destroying the whole thing.
The vinyl gauntlet extensions were cut from a quick paper pattern, hemmed, and close with velcro. I could have bought some cheap-ish heavy motorcycle gloves, but that style is almost always used for cold weather and I was being careful about body heat. After wiping the vinyl down lightly with ArmorAll, they match the leather and the transition is fairly seamless
Along with the armor, I used Sculpey and charm bracelet findings to make the self-awarded medals of a maniacal military dictator. I sprayed them silver, did a black wash, and a silver drybrush on top. They're hung from ribbons built from thinner pieces of ribbon in alternating stripes.
The pictures we had taken of us didn't turn out well, so we're still looking for more pics from the con. After a round of clean-up and improvements, we may get a friend to help us with a proper photo shoot. Now it's time to think up the next project.
