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!