In 2018, I watched my family and friends all compete at our local con. Their cosplays were great and I loved seeing people making their own cosplay from cardboard and duct tape to advanced materials such as Worbla or foam. I met and started friendships with some great cosplayers and find that it is always inclusive and always prideful (in a good way) with cosplayers. I would look at these makers and see everything from a Dwemer armor set, from Skyrim, made entirely from cardboard and duct tape and think of how amazing it is. That cosplayer knows that it may not be the best compared to other armor builds, but they also know of how much passion and work went into it. That is how mine was and even how I felt.
At Archon, in October of 2018, I met Evil Ted Smith. Evil Ted, is the name of a foam smith and prop maker who had grown up in the STL area and then went West to make it big in the movie industry. He did so making models and miniatures for a small movie you may not have heard of called The Fifth Element. Since then he has worked on models and props and even did work on Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. He has a Twitch channel and shows off his work but more importantly, he teaches the viewer how to do things and make things with foam. I have been watching him for a bit and my wife was watching him for even longer. Ted, has friends still in STL, in the cosplayer community and one of those friends is Scott Pope.
Scott is a local here and 50% of the SKS Props company. Scott started his cosplays with a Spartan Batman, with which even he admits that it wasn't good or even as good as he had wanted it to be. But it was his first cosplay and you can get better, if you want to. Scott is an awesome fabricator and it is great having him local, because of his experience.
Scott was at Archon as well and I was there, with my jewelry booth. He insisted that I make something for the next con and while cosplays were not my thing at that time, I have always loved dressing up as characters from my favorite shows and video games.
Most people start off small, but for some people, some crazy people, like myself, I wanted to jump into the fray in a big splash. What follows below, are the steps that I took to create this.
1. Documentation
Documentation is a word that always sound like some business thing. I recall my father filling his briefcase with papers and he would tell me as a kid, that they were all documentation. Well, the same thing for then, is what it is now. Documentation, is great thing to have to help you look at what you want to accomplish and how to get there. Also, documentation is required for most cosplay competitions, to show off your process and work and ideas. So, even if you don't plan to compete and are just making it for fun, this is still a help in coordinating ideas and inspirational pictures and drawings.
My documentation started with ideas from my own head and then Google searched like images together.
(The above shows a Grey Knight character with artwork on his shin guards, so I thought about doing something with more artwork.)
A good idea is to start a folder on your computer or on Google Drive, so you can just copy images and bring them over. I know I had started several slide shows on Google Drive, with images and notes on my ideas.
2. Start
This may seem like the stupidest idea and no real point should be needed, but this is an important one. The previous phase isn't just a group of images that you stick together, but is also used to think about what patterns and materials you will need. There have been others who have made armor builds similar to this one, for the Warhammer 40K franchise, but they have not been the same armor that I was going to attempt. So, for the boots, thigh armor, belt, shoulders and helmet, I went with patterns made by Pilerud. Henrik Pilerud is a Swedish cosplayer who came up with these patterns and made his Space Marine armor, in 2013.
Without him none of mine would have been created. He laid the groundwork and most of all, he was available for questions on Facebook. (Pilerud's Facebook page ) For the shin pieces, abs piece and gloves and backpack, I made them myself. They were mostly trial and error, to get the to work and look nice, but they turned out nice.
So, you have your ideas and you have patterns, but where do you go from there? I have seen a lot of people ask this same question, all over the internet and in all sorts of cosplay groups. Where do I start? How do I start? When do I start? How long is this going to take?
Don't Panic!
You will be able to follow my guidelines here, so you will know where to start. I started by printing those patterns out on paper, cutting them out, then taping them together and assembling them. I then traced that paper pattern onto card stock and then made the patterned item again, using masking tape. This allowed me to see the size, shape and bulk of the item. I then used that card stock pattern to trace onto my foam and then cut the foam out and assembled it from there. This process of making the pattern would take me on average, 3-4 hours per piece. So, what follows is a breakdown of each piece that I had made, from start to finish.
3. Boots
What makes these characters so cool, is their size. In the game you are looking at a genetically altered super human creature, standing over 7 feet tall. So, physically speaking, a tall character needs large feet. I printed out the pattern for the boot, cut it out and assembled the paper pattern. I then placed it down on the floor and placed my foot inside of it, to see just how huge it would be. I note to consider is: the paper is thin, whereas foam is thick. The outside of the paper will be the outside of the foam, but since the foam is thicker, the inside of the boot, will have less room than when done with paper. Understand?
Using the rest of the pattern, I traced the pieces and started to build up the boot. Using my wife's idea of the yoga blocks and a high heel arrangement, the idea would have meant that I would add more than 12 inches to my height, providing me with the Space Marine height.
These shoes were so awesome and I walked around the house in them. But there was a problem: I have 0 experience walking in high heels. So, I was unused to having all of my weight down, on my toes. This meant that in a big boot like this, my weight and my foot, was wanting to slide forward. This also meant that I couldn't walk around for long periods of time and I wanted that to not be the case. Other cosplayers, like Pilerud, made elaborate ways of hiding their feet in the legs, but it appeared that my size 11& 1/2 foot, was larger than Pilerud's, so it was harder to hide mine. So, what I ended up doing, was I took the yoga heel out of the boot and made a flat platform for my shoe. So, that took 6 inches off of my height, but at least I was comfortable. There is a trope about cosplayers and uncomfortable outfits. I didn't want to be that one who could only wear his cosplay for an hour and then had to take it off for the rest of the day. I wanted it to be comfortable.
4. Shins/Thighs/Legs
Pilerud, and others who have done the Space Marine cosplay, have done so by making the shin and thigh leg armor, as one piece; kind of like a pair of chaps. They slide their legs into the armor, attach their feet to an inner shoe in the boot, and then put on their cod piece/belt area next. I wanted a different look and that meant that I had to redesign those pieces.
(Pilerud's picture is to the left and mine is to the right.)
As you can see, from his photo, he had made the legs wide and they are one piece going up. He had made this so his leg slides into a harness, behind the knee, allowing the armor's knee to bend with his knee, much like a knee pad. His thigh pieces are then attached to the leg, so it is much more like a pair of pants, with everything connected. While this is the common way of doing this, my character didn't have that same armor design. My character's leg armor resembled oversized shin armor that wasn't connected to the thigh.
As you can see from Pilerud's armor, to the left, his leg has a shin, and then a kneepad piece and then a thigh piece. The art to the right, was my main inspirational image and you can see that his shin armor has a large knee area that it covers as well. The thigh pieces are behind that. In terms of game mechanics, the right character armor, should be easier to move in. This leg armor design, meant that I could do something that Pilerud couldn't do: stairs. The easier armor and the fact that there was nothing impeding the movement and flexibility of my knees, meant that I could walk faster, jump and even go up stairs and ramps with ease.
5. Gloves/arms/hands
Before tackling the arms and hands, I was still in documentation phase and thinking about the major problem with cosplaying a 7 foot tall character: T-Rex Arms. In the game, the character is evened out, so because of his larger frame, he has longer arms. Because I am not made that way, and most other humans are as well, means that when this is cosplayed, the person will often have short arms, compared to a longer body. This also means that the cosplayer will 100% need help getting their armor on. I was thinking of the original issue, the T-Rex arms and with that, wondered if there was a way to go change that look. I contacted Steven, at SKS Props, and he mentioned that he had made an Orc, from Warcraft, and when he did the arms, he made them extensions and attached the weapons to them, with his real hands inside of the arms. The concept seemed simple enough: make a fake arm, with a structure inside of it, that my hands hold onto and then make a fake hand, that holds the items. To help with my stability, I decided to go with a two-handed weapon, which would have doubled as a walking stick and allow me to lean on it if I needed to.
The problem that I came up with, is while this may have worked for Steven, and while it would have looked good for the proportions, the practicality of it wasn't there. I made this hammer, to stand 8 feet tall, so I could use it as a walking staff and have it slide into the space between my dummy hand's fingers. But because it wasn't attached to the hands and the arms and my body, that meant that my whole body was resting on two wooden dowels which I had attached inside of the arm. I scrapped that idea. This is common. This idea, used up 2 floor tiles, costing me about $8 and 6 or 7 hot glue sticks along with time. But, there had to be an easier way.
I went past the T-rex arm idea, by just making my arms larger than normal.
I decided to go for more hand length, which would have made the arms look more in proportion and scale with the rest of the body. To do this, instead of making gloves, I bought some $25 hockey gloves on Amazon, built a foam tube around them, hot glued everything together and then started to build onto them. My artwork has a gun on one of the arms, so I started to piece that together using foam and two pieces of pvp pipe as the gun barrels. The magazine was made using card stock and foam. These gloves allowed me to have twisting army movement and still grip and hold onto things. This meant that I could still make this big hammer and use it, thus having more grip and control and using it as a walking stick to support my balance.
6. Waist/cod/abs
The waist area seems to be an easy pattern for most attempting these types of patterns. They make an area that either clips onto existing leg pieces or uses a real belt, inside, to hold onto the person's body. I used a different method, that was taken from my childhood experiences playing roller/street hockey. I created straps, much like overalls, or straps in hockey shorts, so I can put this piece on and then have it resting on my shoulders, instead of around my body. This also meant that the high pieces could be attached, by parachute clips and webbing, to the bottom of this piece. My character also has a tabard or a lion cloth that comes down in front and in back, so I used that to my advantage.
I started with a pattern and assembled the foam pieces. I did a rough shape around in paper, for my waist and abs section that I arranged on top for size comparison. I added in some lengths of cotton rope, to use as easy straps for assembling. I then made the abs section, and finished it to look just like he art picture. I changed out the rope for thicker cotton straps, which were from my old karate belt. I attached them inside on the front and back.
7. Chest
The chest piece was the hardest piece to do. I started with a chest pattern, from Pilerud, and printed it out and assembled it. But it didn't look....right. So, I made another one, using one of my wife's dress forms and an old tshirt. But that didn't look right either. So, I started again, and made my own piece that was like an oversized shirt. I then knew that even in my picture, above, I wanted the chest piece to be different, so that meant more work and patterning.
The upper left picture is how the paper pattern was to be assembled and printed out. I then posted it on the dress form with paper and duct tape, to make the shape.
There are other characters in the Grey Knight army, that have a different chest design, so I started to play around and make that.
I worked on making these support pieces that went to this rectangular box, on the chest. The white part, is supposed to be an item called a "neck seal", which is armor for the neck. I ended up scrapping it, because I couldn't see below my nose, with this on.
7. Shoulders
Shoulder pads are a big deal, in the Warhammer 40k world. A typical Space Marine, would have their army's symbol and other insignia on one shoulder pad and then their company or squad information on the other. These over sized shoulder pads provide extra protection from attacks to their side and help protect the head a bit as well. In the game's lore, the first generation of super soldiers had huge shoulder pads in their armor and as the game developed, the shoulder pads became smaller and more detailed.
My shoulder pad construction was the most complicated. I started with just coming up with the shape, myself and then found a pattern online. I printed it out, cut it out, assembled it and then started to make the foam version. I used the silicone sealant to fill the cracks in one shoulder pad and then used some foam clay, to fill the cracks in the other one. The foam clay worked better and didn't need to be sanded down as much and was lighter than the silicone.
After the base pieces were made, I went for the insignia on the outside. The blue one was for a specific company in the chapter and the star was for my coat of arms. This particular army chapter was allowed to have their more elite and veteran characters place their heraldry onto their armor.
The Star with the wings, is found on my (real life) family coat of arms, so I thought it would be fun to incorporate it into my cosplay. This is the moment where I went from a less serious cosplay, to a more fun one.
I then started to add these rectangle designs to the top of one of the shoulder pads. The concept, which I kept with, is similar to the enhanced shoulder pad used by knights when they would joust. That over sized armor piece, allowed for extra protection against that side for impact damage. That made me think that it would be cool, as if my character would ever be aware of such a powerful missile used against him, he could turn and brace that shoulder into the impact. The picture to the right, show how a smaller shoulder and upper arm piece attaches to the outer shoulder pad. This means that I can put my arm in, like an upper sleeve, and the shoulder will be where my shoulder is.
The below left image, is of a small shield, that the characters are allowed to have, attached to their left shoulder pad, in the front. It is just extra protection. The right image is of the same symbols, copied to the shoulder pad. The 2 headed eagle represents the Emperor of Mankind, who is the leader of the good guys and the flame is a symbol of the Purifiers; which is the squad name that my character was a part of before becoming a Paladin.
The shoulder pads were attached to my chest piece, by way of parachute clips and webbing. I did one side of the clips on the inside of the shoulder pad, with 1 on either side of the pad, a little ways down, with extra webbing. These connected to the inside of my chest piece. The extra inches of the webbing, meant that my arm could move a bit while having the armor still in place.
8. Backpack and weapon
What is commonly referred to as a backpack, is actually the powerhouse and the whole life support system of the armor.
These giant armor suits are made with miniature nuclear power generators inside. These power a whole life support system allowing the user to exist in the most extreme environments in space and on other planets. From Radiation to air filtration, these packs cover it all and in some cases, they even contain portable force field units for the wearer.
The backpack was the easiest to design as I had an idea, and measured it free hand and came up with my own pattern. I started with paper and laid it on the back of my armor, and then worked from that. I made it just wide enough, to fit with some foam scraps that I already had, and stuck with those dimensions. The back pack has side "balls" or globe shaped air filter pieces and I worked those in as well.
As shown above, to come up with the shape of these balls, I used a pattern from Evil Ted Smith, for a globe or a dome, which is still available on his web store here. I used a red piece of craft foam and then a grey piece of HD foam from SKS Props and then a plastic skull that I bought at Walmart in the Halloween decorations. I used hot glue for everything, just as I have done for all of the other armor pieces.
The weapon was going to be a large two-handed hammer, which would allow me to use it as a walking staff and lean on it, if I needed to. I used a cardboard tube, which my wife had lying around, as it had a photography backdrop on it. It was 8 feet long already and at least 3 inches thick. I tested the shape using pieces of foam tiles, but the finished shape was heavy. I tore that off and then cut out a shape from some stacks of pink insulation foam, that I had glued together with some Spray 77. I dug a hole out of the middle of the foam and attached it the top of the tube.
My photo which I found online, in my documentation phase, shows this powerful character with this giant hammer. I started to make it with the foam tile but that was too heavy. So, I found that my hand saw was the only thing that could cut through inches of this pink foam. Half way in the designing of this hammer, my wife reminded me that it needs to be taken apart, for easy travel, so I came up with a way of using a male and female PVC pipe piece and attaching each side to a half of the card board tube. This meant that I could screw the two halves together or take them apart.
The hammer was sinned in some craft foam and then I made some border pieces with some strips of 4mm HD foam. I spray painted it black, to give it a base coat.
All looked like it was working in my favor, but then I hot a snag: it fell apart. It literally fell apart. The hammer head was looking nice and it was lightweight, but because I made a structural weak spot, in the handle, when I had sawed it into two pieces, that meant that even when the two pvc pipe pieces were screwed together all of the way, it was still loose and flimsy. It certainly wasn't something that I could lean on for any amount of support and when I tried to see if it could support anything, it started to crack the tube around the pipe connectors. This meant that I needed to come up with a different weapon idea. The artwork of my character inspiration had a sword, so I decided to start working on a sword pattern. I made this pattern, entirely from looking at the picture and used a piece of a carbon fiber fishing rod, in the inside. This fishing rod piece was small, long and very strong. It was also very lightweight, which meant that if I was smart, this foam sword would be very light.
For this item, I used exclusively only HD foam from SKS Props. I had used 6mm thick foam for each side of the sword and then used foam clay, from SKS Props, for the blade's edge. This finished off with a blade that weighed less than a pound! How easy it is to carry around this 4 foot long prop!
9. Paint/ helmet/ decorations
The character is from an army called "The Grey Knights", so it should be grey, right? Different people paint their Grey Knight figurines different shades and varieties as I have seen everything from a bright chrome silver to a purple matte. Everything is possible and in my case, I wanted to stay with the matte grey color. I used manly versions of base coating spray paint, over the construction process, all to block out the random foam colors and to bring a more uniform base color.
I wanted a good paint and ended up getting some new brushes and a selection of paints from Liquitex. It is my first time painting, so I picked paints from their Basics line. I went out to hand paint, several coats, over each and every armor piece. The Grey paint was $4.99 for a 4 oz container, at Hobby Lobby, so I didn't know how many I needed, but knew that I needed a few. I ended up going back and buying several more bottles of grey and even purchased one of their larger bottles. I watched many videos on Youtube, about how to paint large cosplay items and learned about light strokes and tried to do so, but my painting was being pushed by my lack pf patience and anxiety. I was in the home stretch and was so excited to see it finished so I wasn't taking my time to allow paint to dry fully or to even sand in between coats.
I wanted to use as many decorations as I could, because they could help hide my errors and poor paint work. So, as explained above, for my shoulder pads, I went with one of them and covered it in some foam letters, with which my wife had cut out of a laser cutter at the local Maker Space; Made. The letters were coated in a sealer called Creature Cast and then I kept them in their grey color and glued each one onto the shoulder pad in random order. I kept some of the letters to form some words. It is like a word search game, as there are phrases like "I love Ariana" and also names such as "Cthulu". I also used the paints to carefully come up with the family crest colors for the other shoulder pad. My coat of arms, for my family, has brown, yellow, blue and green, but most importantly: has a blue star with yellow wings. So, that is what I had done.
I used the 2 headed eagle symbol, as it was 3d printed for me and the flame symbol was out of a thicker craft foam, which I had painted. The black things all over the pads, are skulls. I watched this trick, from one of Evil Ted's Youtube videos, where he takes foam clay and sticks a portion into a mold. He then takes that mold and places it into a freezer for 20 minutes, so it hardens a bit and then he takes it out and lets it air dry the rest of the way. I had purchased a skull ice cube tray, from Walmart, and used that to make foam skulls. I painted the skulls black, with a black Creature Cast sealant.
As you can see with the Star pad, I cut thin pieces of 2mm foam into strips and glued them running down. This pieces covered the seams and the bad painting.
As for the shins and legs, each side needed a different piece of decoration. One one leg, I went with this decoration that resembled a giant capital letter "I", which represents a group called the Inquisition, which are the leaders of the Grey Knights, per se. The other leg has a symbol which is a sword piercing an open book, which is the symbol of the Grey Knight order. I placed these curved areas at the top of the leg, and placed letters in each area. These letters spelled out Latin words. Most of the signage in the game uses Latin as the leader of the good guys is known as the Emperor and his kingdom is known as the Imperium. So, all groups were given a Latin name and a common name. The Grey Knights are known as the Ordo Malleus, while other Space Marines are known as Adeptus Astartes. So, in cosplay and in art, people add Latin words and phrases to look cool and I didn't want to do any different. The right leg says "Fidem" which I think is Latin for "Faith" and the left leg says "Mortem" which is Latin for "Death". The curved area was painted with gold paint and the letters were painted with a silver paint.
The cod area, with my belt and waist was painted in the grey color and I decorated the belt with a belt buckle and a strap, that holds a skull. I also have a tabbard or a loin cloth, in the front and back and with a skull on the belt and several seals hanging from the sides, it all works out.
The seals or the things that look like strips of cloth, are from the game. These are awards and are given in the form of incredible bravery. They are wax seals that hold onto parchment that holds prayers, chants or phrases. Common referred to as "Purity Seals", they are view by some as signs of an elite and courageous warrior. Enemies also know to not get within sight of someone with these seals as they are much to be feared. A common joke, is that the more pure you are, the more seals you have. So, to play with that joke, I made myself 10 seals to be placed upon my armor and weapon. The wax seal base was created and purchased from SKS Props Purity Seals. These were already cast and painted so I needed to do was make the parchment part. Nine of the seals were made with phrases taken from the game. The last one was made with the names of friends who provided support along the way.
I cut strips of cotton cloth and then used a fine tipped marker to write in every word and phrase. It took forever, but after I placed them in some key locations, they added to the effect.
The chest piece needed the decorations and after I painted areas, I decided to add these small golden parchments to the chest area. They were created by cutting some squares of 2mm foam and painting them gold. I then went back with a silver paint tipped brush and making squiggles along them.
I also cut down and cut back that initial "neck seal" and replaced it with a smaller one. The purity seal on the chest has the names of everyone who has helped me, in some way, on it.
The backpack has my name, in Latin, along the back, along with a purity seal, with the longest cloth piece.
The red colored "I" letter standing for the Inquisition is in the middle and the larger one at the top is within a half halo with spikes. That top piece is called an "Iron Halo" and in the game, is given to those who prove themselves to be exceptional. In the actual piece on their armor, is a small force field generator as well, further protecting the hero. The long seal's cloth, has the lyrics to a song, written on it. The song is called "The Pretender", from The Foo Fighters and when I heard that song, the lyrics reminded me very much of a fighter, with unbeatable willpower, standing up to the evil gods of chaos and telling them that he cannot be bought and he will not be part of their play. The Grey Knights are known as the only army chapter, in the entire game, to not have any of their numbers quit and join the other side. They are so pure and good, much like the paladins of D&D, that when there is all war and chaos and the battle seems as though there is no way to win, having someone stand up to Evil: incarnate, and telling him that death has no power over his body and soul, is something to stir even the most tired individual. Listen to the song and while you do so, imagine that the singer is speaking to a powerful daemon, bringing forth his undead minions to destroy a planet and there is a lone individual in their path.
The gloves turned out nicely as the one is simply a glove, but I cut some 2mm foam and used it to trim around the seams and cover the bad lines. The other glove has a gun, which is painted red and I used gold accents and even some silver rub n buff, around the barrels to show gunfire scorching.
One of the things that gave me a lot of trouble, had to do with my head. In the game, my character would have had a helmet on or at least a hood, but I didn't have access to either one. I did get a pattern for a helmet and after cutting it out of paper, and assembling it, I didn't like how huge it was. So, I did it again and again and again. I tried it out of card stock, thin foam, thick foam and then paper again and each time, it just didn't look or feel right. By the time I was happy with a version, I made it out of foam and painted it. However, the issue wasn't that it didn't work, but that I would get too hot in the foam helmet. It had no cooling system and no air circulation, so I opted to not use it for the convention. Since that con, I have used a black hoodie, under the armor, so I could bring up and use the hood as my head covering and I think it looks better.
Overall, it was a process to make this suit and there was a time where I didn't want to finish it. I started while being bored, wen my kids were on Christmas break and then started in the last few days of December. I worked for 10 months on this armor build and did little tweaks along the way, such as making a strap that goes behind the knee area on the leg armor, so when I step forward and then move me leg back, when walking, the knee area of the armor moves along with my real knee. I used over $200 in foam. I started by going to Harbor Freight for every sale on floor mats and even buying them at Home Depot and Costco. The issue with floor mats, is that they are treated with a chemical softener, so they can be strong, but still soft. Since then, I use HD foam, from SKSProps and even their 10mm foam, which is almost as thick as floor mats, is so much lighter and stronger. I think I also used about $100 in hot glue sticks. I didn't know to use contact cement, so I was using hot glue sticks for everything. This meant that on hot days, or when I leave my armor in the car with the windows up, that the heat would build up and cause the hot glue to soften. The paints and paint brushes set me back about $60 and the other items cost me a little over $20. So, this build, which went from an unknown estimate on cost, went to over $400.
So, in October of 2019, I showed off my armor build, at Archon. It would not have been done without the great help of my friend, Iso Rivers. She helped me with everything from dressing, to lifting a cup of water to my mouth to allow me to drink. I loved being this character and loved posing with people who wanted me in their pictures. I had so much fun as a recognizable cosplay. But this wasn't the end of the Grey Knight Paladin or of cosplay for me. This build had started so many new ideas but with each one, comes practice and experience.
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