Gunzerker Cosplay (Part 2 - Everything else!)

PART II - THE COMPLETION

 Building the harness was the biggest task for the rest of the costume.  I started by tracing the middle back piece off of another screenshot, and cutting it out of craft foam.  It's pretty awesome that BL2 has such great ways to view your stuff in game, and that steam has such easy screenshot controls!  I'm also lucky to have a wife that let me borrow her dressform to build my costume :)  It's on the form in the above pic, those aren't boobs, they're pecs, lol.  It was crucial for fitting the straps.  The harness is entirely made of craft foam, glued in some large places, hand sewn with big stiches in smaller places that needed strength... many safetypins were also used, I won't lie!

I found a really cool new material that was perfect for making all the assorted bullets that are in the harness.  Did you know they've been making technological advancements in play-doh since the 80's?  Crayola Model Magic is similar to play-doh in consistency, but has the weight and density of styrofoam!  (It's really weird!) it also dries hard (well, foam-hard) if you leave it out for a day or two.  I bought the giant tub of white Model Magic, and started forming up ammo.  To get all of them to be the same basic size and shape, I took one good bullet of each type and weighed them on a scientific digital scale.  Then I divided up lumps of the same weight to make the other bullets.  I only ended up using 1 and a half of the 4 packs of clay in the tub, if that helps you estimate your own project.  It was easily the most expensive material I used in this costume.  I sewed small strips of craft foam into "8's" to hold the bullets, and then sewed them onto the straps, so that the force of holding the bullets wouldn't pucker up the main part of the straps.  The Model Magic held up to gold spray paint well, and then I finished out the entire harness and attachments with sharpie.

Now for some of the accessories!  Using the same foam I used for the shield generator, I built the belt buckle and transfusion grenade (my favorite).  My awesome wife had the belt buckle lasercut into the foam for me, and then I just had to paint and sharpie it up, and sew on some elastic for attachment.  The grenade was quickly cut from 2 layers of thick foam, with a zip tie through one layer for a belt loop.  Then I glued on a circle of craft foam, and painted some Maliwan graphics on.  Running out of time, I just left the outer pieces raw.  Close enough!

Once I was all geared up, I need some GUNS GUNS GUNS!

I had a grand idea to build a 3D replica of the talking shotgun from the game (complete with banter!) and to paint some awesome Nerf waterguns we have, but a few things stood in my way.  #1, time  #2

The con has a goofy rule than nothing that has ever fired a projectile is allowed as a prop... WATER counts as a projectile! WTF!  And, most of all #3 TIME!  So I put my thinking cap on...

I came up with the crazy idea to make 2D guns!  I could print out some screenshots, stick them to some foam, and cut them out!  Should be good for characters that look like they're cut from a comic book, right?  My wife took it one step further, and actually laser cut the guns to fit the image files!  For a time saving shortcut, it turned out to be the crowd's favorite part of our costumes!

We went a little further and made our robot companion as well!

FINALLY!  SOME PICS IN ACTION!

 

My wife (the mechromancer), our robot master, and I

OMG Mr. T!

We ran into some other Borderlands folks too!

It was a mega awesome time!  We were like rockstars at the con!  We didn't get 5 minutes to ourselves without a group forming to take pictures.  I feel like I really checked something off my bucket list! It felt good to contribute to the atmosphere of the convention, instead of being just an observer :)

Now that that's finished, I can finally get to something else other than eating, working and costuming!  Finishing my solar install should be next!

Gunzerker Cosplay (Part 1 - Muscle Suit)

At first I was just going to chronical the construction of the most complicated piece of my costume, the shield generator (blogged here ... and here), but I heard at least a little interest in seeing the rest of it, so I'll put it up!

I'm going to slack off on the pants a little and just wear plain jeans, so the only big piece is the torso.  Big is an understatement.  I have a slightly bigger ribcage than some, but I'm still about a foot short in diameter to match this guy:

I looked online, and the best thing I could find in my ~$20 price range was this muscle shirt that just had some abs and arm padding... not going to cut it

I ran out and got a $5 tshirt at FiveBelow (pre patterned, woot!) and started sewing it to the inside back and sides of the suit to add some serious back and lats meats.

And flipped back, right-side out, tada!

It gives just enough to be more 'zerker-believable, while still letting me squeeze into the middle :)

Next I used some fabric markers to add the brown cuffs to the gunzerker's undershirt, and started brainstorming on how to properly weather his overshirt.  I thought about burning, ripping, sanding... but finally I tried using some old scissors that I ruined doing other crafty stuff.  They worked great!  I used the part of the blade that took about 4 chomps to actually cut the fabric, and it gave a nice ripped look without being too chaotic or curling up like I feared.  Here's it all stacked together with some linework started:

I've still got a LOT of work to do in the week and a half till the con.  I'll keep posting up new stuff (and a pic of me in it) as I get time.  Wish me luck!