Area 88 Shin Kazama costume progress [part 1]

Hello geeks!

Around winter 2016 I started to work on my future Shin Kazama cosplay from Area 88. I don't have a set deadline for this costume so it might or might not be a long-time project, depending on how much trouble I have sourcing some of the military equipment for it etc.  

Note: I had this post saved as a draft for over a year and I had completely forgotten to publish it when I originally wrote it, oops. Thus most of the progress on this post (and all writing, except for small edits to make it clear that this was done on last year, not this year) were done during summer 2017!!

Earlier I had an incredibly lucky strike and managed to find a suitable fighter pilot helmet that I could use for Shin's iconic helmet. I haven't continued with the helmet yet but instead I managed to find some perfect military surplus leather gloves! These are actually replicas of gloves used during WW2 by American paratrooper soldiers and in the original light brown color to boot – and thus pretty awesome for Shin.

This image shows of Shin's gloves pretty well.

And here's the gloves that I bought:

It's real leather with that vintage smell.

I bought these from Varusteleka. I highly recommend their shop
if you need any military gear!

After Christmas (note: Christmas 2016!) I stayed some extra nights at my mom's and decided to make use of the time there and draft the patterns for Shin's flight suit. I checked through mom's old patterns and managed to find some sort of 80s overall pattern and, on first look, it seemed to be decent to use as a base but then I noticed that I'd get some issues with some details and so I decided to draft another one that I found in a sewing magazine. Even this pattern needed some modifications to work (mainly the collars) but at least it didn't have some weird shoulder tucks... or be ridiculously generous in size. I mean, I appreciate loose fit and all but when it's roomy enough to double as a sleeping bag for two, then I'm not sure if it's so flattering to wear, lol. xD It was easier to just use the pattern from the magazine as a base and then alter it, even though it was originally a jumpsuit pattern.

So yeah, I cut out the pattern pieces and saved the modification process for when I bring out the fabrics.

This cosplay progress was on halt until 11th April 2017, when I went back to mom's to celebrate Easter. While staying some extra days there I decided that now is a good time to continue on my cosplay!
I had already picked out some proper overall fabric called Enstex, or something really similar to it. Mom told me that she had bought this fabric roll personally from Finlayson back in the days when she had her own fabric store. Yes, this totally means I didn't have to pay for it! So yeah, this fabric is not the exact same color as Shin's flight suit, a bit more yellow-ish in tone. It's just that color that drives you crazy when you try to decide on if it's more yellow or more orange, lol. I thought it was close enough to work for Shin (I mean, this type of fabric doesn't come in many colors normally; the color I have at hand is already rare enough to find), just the right fabric type to give the legit "workwear look" and so I went with it. Besides, it's water and dirt resistant – hella convenient for conventions, especially outdoor cons like Närcon, where I currently plan to debut this cosplay.
By the way, I went to check for the same type of fabric in a local store, just to check the general color choices and yeah, it was mostly black, red, white, a really unflattering neon yellow (think safety vests) or that kind of prisoner suit orange, the really vibrant ones. Both of the latter ones would look like shit on me so yeah, suddenly mom's yellow-orange fabric seemed ten thousand times better, even if the color is not 100% accurate. :D

Okay so, I started to cut out the pieces that I needed from the fabric. I think I used about 3 meters of fabric, more or less. I also needed to modify almost all of the patterns to make them wider because it turned out that especially the sleeves and legs were narrower than I first had thought. Then again, this jumpsuit pattern was originally supposed to be made in a stretchy fabric and obviously Enstex isn't elastic and won't give in at all. So yeah, I needed to widen the patterns to make sure that I could fit into the costume and sit in it without any unwanted surprises. I also had to modify the neckline and add a collar to it (there was none on the original pattern). The collar pattern that I started with was just an ordinary dress shirt collar.

Fabric cutting.

I cut out all the pieces, save for the collar, which I'll modify and cut out later on. I also went to dig in mom's zipper boxes and found two fitting zippers for the suit – now I'll just need to wait and see which one is better, the 45 cm one or the 60 cm one. Couldn't find one in the exact same color (not a surprise) but at least I found a yellow one that would look okay with it.

All pieces (except collars) cut out. Both zipper options visible.

A few days later I zigzaged around all the edges and then I started sewing the pieces together. I started with the pockets and yes, I added pockets because why not? It's useful if I need to store small stuff during a con. This was my first time ever sewing pockets, lol.
During the sewing process I got a few shit strokes because at least a couple times the sewing machine suddenly just shut down in the middle of everything! It never did it before and of course I panicked because yeah, I feared that I might have ruined mom's expensive sewing machine. D: Luckily it was just the power cable not being properly plugged in...

There's not so much interesting to say about the sewing process itself – everything went rather smoothly, except that the fabric is kinda hard to sew. I had to rip off and replace the pockets with bigger ones though, because the first ones didn't align properly with the pants (since they had been widened and not the pockets), oops. I had some problems fitting the sleeves nicely so me and mom made a deal – I peeled the potatoes for the Easter dinner and she sewed on the sleeves for me. Win-win!

Early try-on. I still had to add the zipper and hem
the sleeve/leg openings. Collar is also missing.

Soon enough it actually started to look like something wearable and mom joked around and said that I looked like an escapee. Stepdad said that I looked like a smurf instead... I have no idea where he got that from, lol. I wanted to say that I'm supposed to be a fighter pilot but oh well, let them have their fun. xD
At first I was worried that I accidentally made the suit too small but turned out that it was really big once I could actually try it on. Unflatteringly big in the torso area, to be precise – I looked like a tent. Jälleen kerran yliarvioin omat läskini. Then again, it's safer to make it too big at first than vice versa since this fabric has no stretch mercy and I can always just sew in the excess, which I'll most likely end up doing.

I continued by hemming the leg openings. It was kinda annoying because the fabric would always wrinkle in the end and yeah, the end result wasn't the prettiest. Good thing I'll wear boots over so no one will ever see them, lol.
Hemming the sleeve openings was even worse; I had to redo it twice and still it came out fugly. I ragequitted. The problem is that the sleeve mouth is too narrow to be threaded into the machine, once I take out the bigger part of it. My explanations are glorious, I hope you can understand what I mean. :'D But yeah, because I couldn't thread it to the machine it made the whole sewing complicated and just... fffffffffffuuuuuu.

Welcome to bunch kingdom. Yes, that's the sleeve opening.

Omg I hated this part! The fabric was always in the way and I had to make sure that I didn't accidentally sew the sleeve shut on the other side and... blergh. I can't explain. It sucked major balls!

You shall not pass. 8C #wrinklelandia

I left the sleeves unfinished for a couple days and then, on my last day at mom's I suddenly realized how to do this shit. I just had to bring out the seam ripper, open the sleeve's seam a bit (starting from the sleeve mouth, of course) and then stitch/hem the mouth and finish it up by sewing the sleeve seam closed again.

I've partly opened up the sleeve seam (top, notice the hanging thread) and stitched the mouth
hem in place. Time to sew the sleeve seam back in place again.

I've come to notice that this particular color is a bitch to photograph. It gets overexposed easily, even in indoor lights on a sunny day (and it also looks vastly different in different light conditions). I will probably have to be careful where I photoshoot this cosplay, haha. One thing's for sure though – I'll be easy to spot at whatever con I wear Shin too – or, as stepdad said, you can see me even in a dark cave. Well, at least my con friend's won't have a hard time finding me!

Notice that I've attached a slip to the front opening, on one side.

As you can see on the photo above I had cut out some slips, or whatever you call them, to support the front zipper or whatnot. I also cut the collar opening deeper (incl. the slips) to make room for the big collar, which would be sewn on later. Or well, not actually deeper, just a bit more V-shaped.
Of course I sewed on a slip on both the right and left side of the front opening, the photo just shows the process when I had only sewn one on. :D I turn them to the inside of the suit and ironed them so that they'd stay inside. Next I'll have to attach the zipper itself, which is gonna be interesting because I've never had to sew on a zipper before...
Oh and yeah, I know that the suit looks humongous on the above photo but it's actually just spread out on a small sewing table and part of the suit (mainly the legs and other front half) are actually hanging off the table, but because of the awkward photo angle (taken from above) it's hard to notice where the table ends and so my suit looks like it's a size fatass.

This costume was on a small pause until approximately a month later, on mid May 2017 or something. Meanwhile I was working on another cosplay project I continued with Shin's collars while the other project was drying. To make Shin's huge collars I started with an ordinary collar pattern from a dress shirt that I modified to make it bigger.

Modified collar parts cut out.

I zigzaged the pieces and sewed them together to get full pieces, creating a seam in the middle of the back on both parts. I added interfacing fabric on the inside of both the upper and the lower part of the collar.
But when I started test pinning the collars in place I noticed that they were a bit too long and, also, that the front opening of the suit was not identical; I had to go in and change the curve so that the front openings would be as similar as possible. I also realized that I couldn't put the zipper starting from the very top of the suit as then it wouldn't look right, seeing how Shin's suit has that V-shape going on. So yeah, the original plan to use the 60 cm zipper got changed into the 45 cm zipper.

Fixed front opening more similar, to make collar
attachment easier.

Top part of the collar with interfacing. Ready to be sewn on.

I must say that this whole costume process just makes me incredibly happy. I know it's kinda cheesy but I can't help it and yes, I'm smiling like a mofo just by putting on the helmet! You know, that kind of almost childish excitement and joy – that's what I feel when I think that finally I'll get to be one of my childhood figures. It's an incredible feeling. ♥ Every cosplayer should do at least one childhood cosplay one day. Words can't describe how stoked I am for this project! This kind of nostalgy cosplays are of the best kind, really. Because you know the inspiration will not flicker.

I'll end this progress post here as it's getting pretty long by now. ^^" A second part will come later where I finish this suit and start making the harness!

~ Shiro Samurai

MH4U Eldaora's Taus Hunting Horn cosplay prop [part 7]

Hello blog readers and MonHun fans!

Here comes the seventh and final part of my huge Monster Hunter cosplay build project – I'm making a Hunting Horn called Eldaora's Taus from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, one of my most played video games to this day. I've been a major fan of the franchise ever since I played Freedom Unite all those years ago and yeah, for the longest time I've dreamt about making a MonHun costume!

I am currently only making the weapon but I will, of course, make a complete armor set later and I think I have it planned which one it will be, hehe.
If you have no idea what I've made before this part you can check all previous progress posts here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Note: this project is split into several parts because otherwise it would turn into a kilometer post; I need to document my progress carefully (many photos etc) since it's a school project.

Let the final quest commence!

Adding black worbla to a horn.

So yeah, last time I ended the post with the coloring and weathering/shadowing of the Hunting Horn and what was left to do was to finish painting the head, horns and ears and to attach them. Before worrying about the whole "how the hell do I attach the protruding parts?" issue I decided to first do the worbla episode out of the way.
I had bought two rolls of black worbla for more than a year ago and now I got some use for it; I've barely worked with worbla before this (only done really small and/or easy details) so yeah, I'm a beginner when it comes to worbla. ^^" Frozen Angel helped me by providing an extra pair of hands when I applied the worbla onto the horns on 13th November. I noticed early on that the worbla, when heated, had a tendency to sink into the hollow spots of the chicken wire base under – this was not really a surprise in the sense that I knew that worbla is thin/flimsy by itself, but somehow I had counted on it to not sink in that much; it was as if the aluminium foil wrapping wasn't even there because the worbla just revealed the hexagon shapes of the wire net under, which created a bumpy-appearing texture on the horns. I must admit that I didn't like the bumpy and wrinkly look that it gave at first (I originally expected a smoother application) and was terribly disappointed with both the result and myself for not having had enough time and knowledge to make the base smoother.
I was looking at the horns with this disappointed face as I went on, thinking that I'm wasting expensive worbla as it's not turning out how I had hoped. But as I continued I remembered that the main body of the Hunting Horn is not smooth either and yeah, the imperfect horns would probably look alright on it – after they get painted and attached. After all, I went for a more realistic approach with a more battle-worn look and thankfully, because it's a Monster Hunter prop and not a perfectly sleek anime prop, it only makes sense that the thing looks like it has seen better days since it has been used to beat larger than life dragons into a pulp...

I finished covering both horns in worbla, which meant cutting out a lot of 5 cm wide strips and wrapping them so that they overlap each other. I worked myself from the tip down to the base of each horn. I also feel like mentioning that I got the impression that black worbla tears easier than the ordinary worbla (the brown one) when heat-shaped as I several times got it to rip when pressing seams to get them to disappear etc.

Next up was to cover the ears. Now I couldn't do the same approach and so I did a "pattern test" on a paper towel as that was what I had at hand in the garage. The pattern wasn't anything exact but just to give some kind of idea of what worbla shape I could work with.

Worbla pattern test for the ears.

The ears of course got wrinkly too (they had the same base under as the horns) but the wire net's hexagons didn't shine through as much as on the horns but, then again, the ears had a bit more foil to them and I didn't press in the worbla as carefully as on the horns (to avoid gaps in the overlapping "ridges"). At this point I didn't even care about the wrinkles and uneveness as much as I had started thinking that it just looked more natural or realistic somehow or at least that's what I tried to tell myself.

Worbla-covered ears.

Now with all the parts covered in worbla I came to the hard part, namely figuring out how exactly to attach them. At times I wondered why I did not do it much earlier but then I remembered that if the horns had been on already it would have been much harder to rotate the whole build for the painting process...

My stepdad came over to brainstorm and we ended up agreeing on that the safest, and probably only reasonable approach, was to cut out holes to sink the horns and ears into. It felt a bit barbarian to go in with a knife and cut up all that hard work but oh well, gotta do it to get the horns to stay on safely. Besides, now that the horns were wrapped in worbla they were also notably heavier and thus we had to make sure that the holes that got carved out were deep enough to lodge them securely in place.

Marked horn placement on the head.

It was important that the hole was carved at an angle (towards the face) and not just carved out straight downwards, if that makes sense. It's a bit hard to explain but the way the hole was carved would directly affect in what position the horns would stay up when sunk into the hole; I didn't want the horns to stand straight up but be curved backwards and thus the tilted angle was really important to achieve the proper placement.
While test-fitting the horns we noticed that we'd need to slim down the base of the horns (since the head itself is quite narrow) and so I reshaped the base by using a heat gun and pressing it together to be more of a wedge, with downward curved sides, instead of the original round-ish shape. I reshaped the base of the ears as well but only made them a bit smaller in diameter, while keeping the round shape.

Hole for the horns carved out and test-fitting.

Once I saw the horns test-fitted onto the whole thing I started to warm up to them, somewhat – their rugged, worn, irregular appearance started to look pretty cool in their own unique way.

I carved holes for the ears as well, although these I didn't have to angle as much as the horns and pretty much just carved straight downwards. I had to pay attention so that I didn't end up carving out the ear holes too close to the horns; there would need to be some mass between the horn and ear holes for support.

Hole for one ear carved out.

Test-fitting horns and ears together.

The placement of the horns and ears seemed fine (thank God, it would have been horrible to make a mistake at this point!) and so I continued by spray priming the separate parts. Because it's basically winter here by now it's not really good, nor recommended, to spray outside because of the cold – this of course is a bit of a problem since I can't control the weather and I needed to spray paint. :'D The solution was to keep the garage door open and spray in the big open area (where the cars usually are, but during the time of day when I sprayed both mom and stepdad were at work) and pray that I don't accidentally spray something around me...

Priming in progress.
Ignore the random chainsaw in the background. XD

I primed all the parts and left them to dry in the garage. The drying time took longer than usual since it's cold indoors but oh well, I'm happy that I can even spray paint right now since the temperature has been dropping to -10 °C the past days while I was painting (16th November). I have this unsuccesful experience from trying to spray paint a prop sword in the middle of winter several years ago and the paint kind of "froze" and made this cracky, frosty surface on the sword; it ended up looking pretty ugly and I had to sand it out and repaint it. Don't want to risk the same thing happening again...
Oh and yeah, as a disclaimer I want to state it, in case someone is wondering, that I did indeed skip sanding and smoothing the worbla before painting. This was intentional because at this point I don't have the time for it (this prop needs to be done before school ends before Christmas) and I'm going for a worn and imperfect look anyway. One good thing with black worbla though is that its surface is smoother than regular worbla and thus it's pretty okay as-is and requires less work to look decent.

Once the primed parts had dried (I left them overnight) I did two coatings of silver spray paint on them. I left them to dry overnight again and on the following morning I went with stepdad to attach them; we had brainstormed through all possible adhesive candidates from wood glue to 2-component glues but settled on using PU-foam. The reason for this was that "it sticks like a disease" (stepdad's way of putting it :D) and because the majority of the Hunting Horn itself is foam as well it only felt natural that it would stick to itself. Also, because the foam expands it would also help in, at least partly, reseal whatever gaps or excess we carved out that was left around the horns/ears after being inserted. 

What we did was to take a can of PU-foam, spray a gentle click into each hole (one at a time) and some onto a piece of cardboard. We then took one horn/ear at a time, dipped it carefully into the expanding foam on the cardboard and then stuck it into the carved hole. If it didn't stick properly we took a tool (in our case a screwdriver because it was close at hand) and used it to spread around and even out the foam inside the hole, so that it would cover most surfaces. It was important that there wasn't too much foam in the holes because otherwise, once it started expanding, it might push out the inserted parts – but, on the opposite end, if there wasn't enough it might not get a strong enough hold and come off.

Horns and ears freshly attached. Notice the foam leaking out.

We made sure to angle both ears slightly upwards when inserting them and check so that the horns had approximately the same placement and curve to them; of course it was hard with the horns because they weren't symmetrical to start with (we even noticed after lodging them in that one horn is a bit longer than the other! Ceadeus laughs somewhere) but as long as it was "close enough" it was good.
Upon inserting each piece some foam would naturally seep out, which was pretty much a good thing because at least it would be sure to stick. I didn't try to clean up any of the excess foam as it would create a mess and be much harder to get rid off when it's fresh – it's wiser to wait until it has completely dried and then just cut it off. To play it safe we moved the whole build close to a wall (so that at least the longer horn wouldn't get pushed out) but, thankfully, because the fitting of the horns was snug they stayed up on their own and didn't need to be taped down, nor did they need any supporting structures to be placed under them.

 The last progress was done around 19th November and it took until 8th December before I got an opportunity to continue on this project. When I returned to check how the horns and ears had stuck I noticed that my stepdad had already cleaned up some of the " foam spillage" while I was away. I took a knife and cut off the small remains that I saw.

Excess foam remains cleaned up with a knife.

Now, to smoothen and seal the attachment points and whatever remaining gaps there were, I used some acrylic sealant again. I felt so fucking dumb (yes, I had a bad day) because I didn't notice that the cap was on when I started and so, when I took it out, the acrylic just went everywhere like an angry snake because of the built-up pressure. It was a mess and I wanted to die or something – stepdad had shown me just before how to use it and of course, as soon as he left, my dumbass self fucks things up. :)) #accomplished 
The only thing I could think at that point was my new-found motto "ois kiva jos onnistuis enemmän niin vituttais vähemmän".

Acrylic sealant.

I applied acrylic sealant around all the "seams" and smoothened it down with fingers dipped in water. This was a bit tedious to do as I needed to be careful because if my fingers weren't moist enough then the acrylic would stick to my skin but, on the contrary, if my fingers were too watery then the acrylic would turn runny. Hard to keep that perfect balance that was the best to work with.
It was also really hard to get to the gap behind/under the back of the horns – it took some rotating and cursing and some really precise application to get there. I used a piece of this kind of thick bendable plastic rope(?) that I used as an extension of my hand to get to otherwise impossible-to-reach spots.

Acrylic sealant added.

I left it to dry overnight. Once it had dried some days later I noticed that the front had sunken in a bit and the transition point was thus showing from under the acrylic. I applied some more acrylic and left it to dry again.

Christmas stress happened and I didn't get to continue on this project past my school's due date for it. Luckily I was basically about 90% done and could use my progress up to this point in the oral presentation that I had to do for my teacher a few days before school ended. With the deadline out of the way I could now do the remaining work without having to worry about time constraints, which meant that on the very last days of December I took up the work again.

Acrylic seams painted over.

On the photo above I had hidden the acrylic seams by spraying them silver. As soon as they had dried properly I could finally start to paint the head! I did the red parts first, just like the previous time, and used my 4U game as a reference to check how the face markings approximately went. I also put some red on the ears and the upper half of the horns.

Head painted red.

Once the head was painted I turned it around and painted the backside of the horns and, while at it, I decided to fix one detail on the body of the Hunting Horn that had been bothering me since I made it. You see, earlier on the painting process I ran into an issue of the body patterns not lining up and decided on a whim to add a "cross section" on the top part of the body to try and make the distances appear smaller. It's really hard to explain what I mean but in the previous post I mentioned that it was impossible to get the details to be symmetrical because of its size – and because I could never see the whole thing at once while painting it (because I had to constantly rotate it). So yeah, while the crosses lined up okay on the front the backside messed up. And I'm not gonna lie – ever since I did that one additional cross it had been bothering me extremely much and now, when I was painting the head anyway, I decided to cover it up.

Cover-up. Great example of how much difference the darkening
with black acrylic did to the original color.

Once the red paint had dried I went over it with black acrylic to darken/weather it. I used the same technique as last time, which basically meant applying paint and then quickly wiping most of it off with a paper towel. When I had gone through all the areas with black paint I took the green acrylic (which I had borrowed from art class) and painted the base color of the eyes with it. I left it to dry after that.

It stayed untouched for the remainder of December and a majority of January (I wanted to complete it earlier but school happened). I finished painting the details of the eyes on 28th January. Sadly the green base paint had cracked a bit and it partly peeled off when I was drybrushing the black onto the edges of the eyes. Good thing I managed to hide it by painting over it and now the tiny cracks are hardly visible, success!

Eyes painted.

Now I just had to add a couple or so coatings of clear varnish to seal the whole thing and then it was done! The varnish protects the paint and it's thus always worthwhile to finish a project by sealing it with clear varnish, especially if you want the paint job to stay on longer. My varnish was glossy so it also gave the surface this nice shine to it.

Below are photos of the finished Eldaora's Taus. *basks in the glory*

Not gonna lie, I feel like I've surpassed myself with this project and I'm extremely proud that I even managed to make such a big and challenging cosplay prop (it's very different from anything I've done before!) but, at the same time, I know I could have done it even better if I would have had more time, money and patience. Improvements would have been stuff like making the horn/ear bases smoother, adding worbla to make layer differences and raised details on the shaft, mixing in some brown paint for even more color details and such – maybe one day I'll go back to this project and upgrade it or not. Whatever the case, I love this massive beast of a prop and I'm happy that I gathered the courage to even attempt to make it in the first place. Gotta believe in yourself!

But hey, my Hunting Horn (aka my first Monster Hunter cosplay part) build process is over with this post and I'm more than happy with how it turned out in the end; it took a crapload of work, sweat and tears to make but now it's done and ready to swing into action! I can't wait to make an armor set and wear it out to a con, it's gonna be gargwawesome!
Next part: come up with a way to add the sound effects.. although I think I'll have to provide the toots myself, for now. xD *enter Hunting Horn sounds here*

Thank you for reading and do leave a comment if you found this project of interest! Would like to see more Monster Hunter builds from me in the future? Hunt safe and don't let the Kut-Ku bite you!

~ Shiro Samurai

Leon Kennedy cosplay makeup test

Hello folks!

Since the later half of last year I've been silently collecting the gear needed for cosplaying Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil 4. I'm not sure if I've mentioned too much about cosplaying him on this blog but he's been in progress for a while.

Leon is not a character I would typically cosplay as I really can't stand to play any kind of horror games myself (I get too easily scared...) but watching my friend Sacchan play through the whole thing was a different deal and, quite honestly, a lot of fun! I ended up liking the storyline, the characters and the overall feel of the game – despite it being just the kind of game that I'd normally have very limited interest in as I'm not a fan of shooting nor horror games in general. ^^" I liked playing all the shooting target minigames though, lol. I must admit that I've been enjoying playing the later Resident Evil installments in the co-op mode with friends though, although I am aware that RE4 is considered one of the best ones and I can totally see why – but the newer ones I played with friends were easier on me as there wasn't that tension of a horror game and instead it was just a mash-buttons-to-kill-as-many-zombies-you-can-before-the-time-runs-out type of thing. xD

But yeah, Leon clicked with me and so I decided that "hey, why not do something different and go out of my comfort zone?". Said and done.

I think I started gathering materials for this cosplay around August something last year. About everything is purchased from various eBay sellers, except for the jacket which I got from CosplaySky (I will review it soon!) and the pants that I already had. At this point in life I didn't have the time nor energy to make the costume myself and, frankly, making all those gun holsters etc would have been really annoying and pointless seeing how cheap I could get them online. I'm lazy sometimes... and out of cash all the time.

I did a makeup test for Leon yesterday and I must say that it was a bit of a different experience. You see, I'm so used to doing the heavier "anime makeup" that when I did Leon I had to do the makeup more subtle and realistic, which proved to be a challenge! I'm so used to the black liquid eyeliners that when I had to do a more natural approach –since Leon is a video game character– it felt weird. I had to avoid covering up "too much" (Leon wouldn't have perfect 2D anime skin) and for the eyes I just went with dark brown pencil eyeliner.

I'm not wearing any contact lenses for Leon on the costest photos above, although I do have gray lenses especially bought for him. I want to save those for a later time as I kind of want to make a rocket launcher prop before I have any kind of proper photoshoot.

Also, I'm still not too sure if I really suit this character but oh well, who cares? :) I want to cosplay him and so I do. Fight me bro. I might still experiment further with the makeup (especially the eyes, as it feels like just pencil eyeliner doesn't stand out enough) and I have some ideas on trying to "grease it down" or what-to-call-it – like doing this kind of look that you've been out blowing zombies up for a while and there's dust and dirt all over...

Regarding the wig it was a bitch to find a suitable one, not gonna lie. The only character wig on eBay didn't look like I wanted mine to look and so I had to resort to searching for generic fashion wigs instead.. and pray for decent quality. Thankfully eBay is full of those but oh fucking boy, how hard it was to find one with a parting that is not a middle-part. >_> I eventually found a base wig that would work, although I had to compromise on color a bit as Leon's hair tends to generally be portrayed as this kind of dark brownish-blonde shade, although it is really inconsistent (I've seen cosplayers doing everything from blonde to brown and even black) and so I deemed that the wig's color wouldn't be that big of a deal. I went with blonde.

Leon's wig before cutting it...

... and after cutting.

Sacchan did the cutting while I had the wig on my head. I have a larger head than average and so it was safer that I wore the wig during the cutting process so that we'd get it to be the right length. It was really important that we didn't end up cutting it too short, as that would have looked really unflattering on me. I might eventually trim it a bit more but yeah, I can't say for sure until I've straightened it and wore the wig to a photoshoot or such, to see how it behaves.

I think that's about all I had to say for this round. The review for Leon's jacket will come up soon so stay tuned for that!

Shiro Samurai out.

MH4U Eldaora's Taus Hunting Horn cosplay prop [part 6]

Hello wyverns and hunters!

Here comes the sixth part of my massive Monster Hunter cosplay build project – I'm making a Hunting Horn called Eldaora's Taus from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, one of my most played video games to date. I've been a big fan of the franchise ever since I played Freedom Unite and making a costume from the series has been a dream of mine for many years and now it's happening!

I am currently only making the weapon but I will make a complete armor set later to go with it, of course. I'm not doing naked runs. *insert Khezu screams here*
You have no idea what I've made before I got to this point in the progress? No worries, all the previous parts of this project can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Note: this project is split into several parts because otherwise it would turn into a kilometer post; I need to document my progress carefully (many photos etc) since it's a school project.

Let the quest begin!

Hunting Horn spray primed.

During my last progress I ended the post with the gluing episode incomplete and that's because I ran out of glue. My mom had bought new glue during a trip afterwards – it was just an ordinary white wood glue but it did the job. I completed gluing the surface for protection and after that I finally got to the fun stuff – prepare for painting! 

Above you can see the start of my priming process. I used spray primer because it's quicker and easier when it comes to covering such a big object. Sadly it didn't take long before I ran out of my primer cans and had to go buy more. A lot more.

I was in a hurry to prime the whole thing during mid-October because the weather was unpredictable and the sky constantly looked like it might rain any minute, but according to the forecast it shouldn't. For once I didn't have shit luck and the weather stayed rain-free for the whole day that I was spraying. 

Note: I have to take some risks with the weather because I'm running out of time – as soon as it gets cold outside I can't spray paint anymore and that would be a huge problem since I need to finish this project before Christmas. And yes, I live high up in the north so cold weather is guaranteed and often early...

Just a couple cans...

On the photo above all the cans inside the plastic bags were newly bought (and the one with the lid off) and the ones without plastic I had from previous projects. I'm hoping these will be enough. There's also of course the empty primer cans that are not pictured. On the photo there's silver spray paint, gray primer and glossy clear varnish for finishing.

I turned the Hunting Horn around and primed the other side as well. After that I took it back inside the garage to dry overnight.

The next morning I went back to the garage to take a look. Meanwhile I stared at my progress I started considering using worbla to make the eyes more three-dimensional by making "eyeballs" that I'd sink into the carved eye holes. Soon enough I made that idea happen and took out the heat gun and some worbla scrap pieces that I had saved in a plastic bag. For those not in the know worbla is a heat-activated thermoplastic widely used by costumers to create a wide variety of items.

I molded the worbla scraps first into a ball and then into a "caterpillar shape", once done I reheated the worbla and pressed it into the eye holes to let it cool down. Repeat for the other eye.

Eyes accented with worbla.

When I was done with both eyeballs I noticed that the eyes were in a different angle (it became even more obvious after attaching the eyeballs!) and it looked really stupid. That's when I figured that I could save my Horn from looking retarded if I redefined the "brow ridges" to be more similar to one another. I took some more worbla scraps, molded them together and made even longer caterpillars with my fingers and then pressed them in place. It was really hard to get both sides to be symmetrical and honestly, they aren't. But it's a lot better than before and the accented ridges gave the face more definition anyway, which looks cooler.

I couldn't be bothered to start sanding the worbla smoother since the rest of the surface isn't smooth anyway (I'm gonna make it look battle-worn!) and thus I went out to spray paint the whole shebang silver. Again the weather was moist and not ideal but at least it didn't rain this time either and I got done in time.

Silver spray paint in progress. First coat.

I did two coatings of silver spray paint and then carried the Horn back inside, into safety from the weather. It was during this point that I realized that I had forgotten to add the little outwards-facing pointy mane spike at the top of the "hair bananas" but, frankly, the more I thought about it the more I felt like omitting that small detail was the best choice anyway. It would surely break easily and, seeing how it would face a different direction than the rest of the manes, it would make it really hard (if not impossible) to rotate the thing around and I'd rather not make it even harder to handle and for future storage than what it will be already...

Honestly, I'm sort of dreading how I'm gonna maneuver this thing after I've attached the long horns because you don't want to know how many times I've already accidentally smacked this shit into doors, walls etc when turning/moving it while walking. xD

Eye area sprayed. The seam didn't transition as neatly as I hoped...

Once I had sprayed the first coat of silver paint I noticed how the worbla's seams above the ridge were a bit too noticeable. I asked stepdad if we had anything I could use to soften the transition and the options were silicone or acrylic sealant. I went with acrylic sealant because at least it was the safer choice when it came to painting it and it could be sanded as well.

Acrylic sealant added.

I dipped a finger in water and used it to slick over the acrylic and shape it how I wanted it to be. It has a long drying time so I did this before going to sleep and so it could dry over the night.

The following day it had cured and I sprayed it silver. It's not perfect but with the acrylic it looks better than without it. The acrylic stays a bit elastic even when dry and so I just pressed it down with my fingers to flatten it down and press the seams as minimal as I could.

On the next day (17th October) I started the detail painting, which meant painting with brushes by hand. I had bought a rustic red paint earlier but decided to try do the shadowing effects first with black paint – which in hindsight was a bad idea. The thing is that we had no normal black paint at home, only spray paint. I knew that for weathering and dry-brushing effects I would need ordinary paint but still decided to try with spray paint. I used a plastic bowl and sprayed a lot of spray paint in it, until I had enough for it to create a thin liquid, which I then quickly wiped off with a cloth. Just as I feared the spray paint was too intense in pigment and dried way too fast for me to be able to get the desired effect. I gave up on the shadowing/weathering for now and began the rust color painting episode instead.

Started hand-painting the rust red details
Unsuccessful black spray paint experimenting visible.

While painting I realized it would be hard as piss to get it symmetrical and so I just decided to free-hand the details instead and hope for the best; I kept my MH4U game open as a reference, even though I had to change or leave out some details because of how different my Horn is shaped when compared to the in-game model.

I used different painting techniques to get different effects and varying color intensity, although I will need to add more depth and shadows to the red with black paint later. It's a bit too flat right now and, to be honest, I'm not happy with the color because it's a bit too bright (it's more vibrant in real life than on photos) and I expected a more dull and brownish red, like shown on the lid...

Painting in progress. Why do I inflict this pain upon myself?

I of course always had to paint one side first, wait for it to dry, rotate it carefully and then paint the next side. Rinse and repeat.

Painting the backside...

I must admit that I'm not happy with how the body's "crosses" lined up on the backside. I knew that things would mess up considering how I can never see the whole Horn from all angles at once and thus I have to improvise as I go on, rotating it while I progress and then, if I notice that something's off or doesn't line up at the end when I meet up again at the starting spot, it's already way too late to do anything to try to fix what went wrong. So yeah, this thing hasn't even seen symmetry. xD

Once I was done painting the red, except for the head, it was time to move on to the weathering effect. I went to buy some ordinary black acrylic paint (art paint) and used a small brush and a cloth to wipe off all the excess paint, leaving only a small to moderate darkening effect as I went on. This was time-consuming and annoying at times.

Weathered upper head to the (watcher's) left,
untouched original color to the right.

The point of the black paint was to darken the overall appearance (since the rust red was too bright) as well as provide a weathering effect and make the whole build have more depth.
I dipped black paint into occasional uneven spots (holes etc) and when I wiped it off the paint stayed in the crevices and gave a cool worn look.

Darkening, darkening, darkening...

Many hours later I was done adding and wiping off black paint. The end result looks better now than without the black. I know that I could have done a better job with more color gradients and shadows etc but I don't have the time for it right now and, besides, almost all of the paints I've been using have been of different types (alkyd, acrylic, spray etc) and I don't want to try mixing different paint types while fresh because I have no idea how they would react to one another.

Black paint session complete, save for the head.

Alternative photo of the same progress as above but seen from another angle here.

Now the only things left was to finish up the horns and ears, attach them to the head and then paint the head and eyes – sounds easy when you say it like that, but on further thought I realized that I might need to change my plans a bit when it comes to how exactly I will attach the horns as some issues showed up; I want to make sure that they'll actually stay on and not break off from smaller impacts and thus I thought that I'll end this post here and make a final, seventh part, for finishing up this thing as I suspect the horns and ears process might get a bit longer than I initially thought. So yeah, I originally totally intended for this sixth part to be the final one sorry but I think I'll just make a seventh post to avoid this one turning super long since yeah, photos quickly make a post long and there will be some explaining... xD

Thanks for following my progress on this MonHun prop and keep your eyes peeled for the final part!

~ Shiro Samurai