Demon Hunter Cosplay (part 1)

I'm super happy with how the Demon Hunter cosplay costume worked out! I have not done any cosplay before, but I've been sewing and doing lots of crafts so I had good base skills. I think it also helped a lot that I'm experienced in project work so I could keep the scope reasonable, I have some stage experience, being a goth has prepared me for high heels and tight corsets, and that my friends are absolutely awesome and help me out when needed :)

I won the Tampere Kuplii cosplay competition with this costume! I got a whopping 60% of all votes, that's amazing! I was proud of the costume but to be honest I did not think it was that good at the time ;D But my opinion was mostly based on low quality phone pictures taken in the yellow light of our living room, so the costume might not have looked its best then. I was really amazed when I looked at the pictures taken in decent lighting, it works really well now that I can actually look at it!

It is a cumbersome outfit and there's still some weird edge in the large pauldron that digs to my shoulder in certain angles, but maybe some padding would solve the problem. The smaller pauldron's lower part is a teeny bit too narrow and doesn't want to sit right on my upper arm but it's nice enough.

Things used for the outfit:

3 XL sheets of Worbla thermoplastic
A4 sheet of Wonderflex
About 20 A3 sheets of craft foam
Black gesso
Silver acrylic paint
Brown acrylic paint
White acrylic paint
Heat gun
Soldering iron
Peacock feathers
Wooden lath
50 x 150 cm piece of brown faux leather
Small piece of grey leather
Black cotton ribbon
Black elastic ribbon
Black Velcro
Hot glue
Two toy guns
Fimo clay
A fistful of D-rings
An old scarf
Piece of a black bedsheet
Black turtle neck shirt
Black leggings
Black leather gloves
Thigh high faux leather boots
Black, short wig
White contact lenses
Brown leather corset
A coat hanger

I'll go through the costume pieces one by one and explain how each one was made. I decided to divide things into a few posts because I have just too many picture of the armor parts!

This was the concept art piece I used as reference for the costume. It's not an actual armor set in the game, but rather a piece of art to set the tone of the character. The Demon Hunter character class is the most popular in Diablo 3. They come in male or female, but the female one was always my choice when playing the game and easier for me to cosplay.

Demon Hunter concept art by Blizzard.

Before starting to work on the costume, I chose which parts were the most important for me. I wanted the costume to have a silhouette like the concept art, focus on the impossible narrow waist, long legs and huge shoulder armor, and I wanted to have shoes with the soles painted red. The first time I ever tried Diablo 3 I immediately felt like it was a game for me when I saw that the kick-ass Demon Hunter lady had awesome high heels with red Louboutin-like soles. I've played all the Diablos and loved each one, but the Demon Hunter is my most favourite character so far!

The base of the costume is a simple pair of black pants and a turtle neck shirt. I bought the corset ready made, and it's made of soft leather so it's very comfortable to wear even when it gives quite a dramatic waistline. The wig is based on what the character's hair looks like in the game and the contact lenses are like in the concept piece.

Shin armor

In the concept art picture the DH looks to be wearing some sort of boots with metal pieces on top. The folded tops of the boots are the most visible part for the silhouette. I got a pair of brown faux leather thigh high stilettos to work as a base and attached pieces of faux leather to the shin armor pieces to replicate the folded top look. I took the fabric piece on top of the armor to be red and used an old scarf for that.

I painted small areas of the shoes to make it look like the armor continued on them. This was much easier than making Worbla cover pieces, the paint lets you keep the mobility and does not crack or fall off easily. The best way to get the silver paint to stick was to first prime the parts that I wanted silver with black gesso.

Worbla has enough flexibility that I can just stretch the shin pieces so that they go over my shins. I planned to tied them with leather strips in the back but they didn't need any extra security in the end. The faux leather flaps are glued down with hot glue so they stay nicely in place.

Thigh armor

For the thighs the concept art show a very long metal/leather piece. I wanted to stay mobile, so I made the pieces much shorter but kept the same general shape. The pieces attach with faux leather straps that have a piece of elastic band and velcro at the ends. There are D-rings attached to the underside of the armor pieces for the velcro pieces to tie around. The thigh pieces want to slip down if I sit, so I might need to come up with some system that attaches them to the belt.

Corset, boots, shin armor and thigh armor in place.

Belt

The belt opens in the back. I decided to do it in a simpler way than what the concept art shows, but to still have some straps on it to keep the detail level high. I really like how the straps came out and how well they match the corset. The pieces of "leather" on the belt are actually Worbla, but the texture and colour are really close to the corset. The belt is not attached to the corset but stays in place quite well.

The belts ties with leather straps in the back. There are four D-rings.

Chest armor

The chest piece was one of the most challenging pieces in the outfit. I collected a lot of pictures of other people cosplaying Demon Hunters with the same style of plate and it seemed to be really hard to get it right. Mine has a base of two cups simulating breasts (much larger than mine, I wanted to keep the silhouette balanced so a lot more oomph was needed on the top ;D) and two layers of armor on top of the cups. I had to cut the edges of the armor shorter after I got the whole thing together, but the decorative edges hide the cut edge. The beast plate has a pair of D-rings on each side and two on the top points. Each has a faux leather strap sewn on with velcro at the end for adjusting the plate.

The shoulder straps are loose and can be attached on the side straps or the the corset strings if I need the breast plate to sit higher.

In the next Demon Hunter post I'll show you the shoulder armor pieces more closely!