Demon Hunter Cosplay (part 2)

Part 1 can be found here! This post will look into the pauldrons, cloak, hood and crossbows in more detail.

Below is the original concept art by Blizzard that was my basis for the costume.

Small pauldron

The smaller pauldron is made of three layers. The two small parts at the bottom are attached more permanently together but hang off the larger part by leather straps to give the pauldrons some allowance for movement. The pauldron need some modification still, it likes to sit too low, but the hood and cloak hide the problem area well.

The pauldron attaches to the shoulder strap of the breast plate with a simple cotton ribbon. There's an elastic ribbon going under my arm to keep the pauldron in place.

Large pauldron

This one was the most important armor piece for the silhouette. It had to come high enough to look good with the hood and extend outwards to give it some weight and to let the spike-like ends really show.

There are five separate pieces in the pauldron. The top three and bottom two are attached but have a hinge between for movement. I'm really happy with how high the pauldron comes, I think it matches the concept art really well. I had to use some imagination when drawing the pattern for the top piece, but it came out really nice. It actually had four separate pieces that were put together to get the shape right.

There's a hidden small pauldron under the huge one that is what actually sits on my shoulder. It was really hard to get it positioned right so the underside is a mess, but no one gets to see it ;D For stability the pauldron is tied to the top D-ring on the breast plate and attached to the shoulder strap in the back, and there's an elastic ribbon going under my arm.

Fore arm armor

The fore arm pieces are not symmetric in the concept art. The one on the arm with the huge pauldron is very big and the other one considerably smaller. The small fore arm piece was the first piece of the armor I made. I chose it because fumbling with it would show the least, in my mind it was the least notable part in the whole armor. It came out okay still! The large fore arm piece was the last piece I made and the only one I had to re-do. I made it the wrong way at first, imagine how pissed off I was when at one in the night I noticed I had put the Worbla pieces together the wrong way!

The pattern was made by wrapping my arm with some bubblewrap to get the shape right, then adding cling film and coating it all in painters tape. I turned out to be an excellent way of getting just the right shape. The large piece comes up a little bit too high so I can't bend my arm all the way while wearing it, but it's good enough.

Cloak and scarf

It's hard to tell from the concept art if the Demon Hunter has a scarf or what the slip of fabric flying behind her is. I decided that it would be a cloak, like in the game, and wanted to add a scarf to help hide the edges of the hood.

The scarf is just a piece of an old bedsheet I had laying around. Simple plain black cotton that just wraps around my neck.

The cloak is pleated and sewn on a strap that goes under my arm and on top of my other shoulder. It's not optimal, I might need to come up with some other solution of attaching it. The cloak should rest on only one shoulder, like many of the cloaks in the game. Then bottom edge of the cloak was first cut with scissors to be ragged and then carefully frayed by hand to give it an authentic frayed look. I dabbed on some brown acrylic paint to make it look dusty and worn. The cloak hides the straps of the breast plate and pauldrons well.

Hood

The hood is my least favourite part of the outfit and the judges at the competition agreed. It's stiff and does not connect to the rest of the outfit well. I'm thinking of possible re-doing it with black or brown fabric or faux suede. Something less stiff.

To get the right shape for the hood and not have it fall on my face, I sewed a channel on the front edge and inserted a wire taken from a coat hanger. The wire lets me shape the hood freely and keep the opening in the shape I want. The edge is painted with black gesso to give it some character. For the competition my other half fixed the hood to fold the right way in the back with black electric tape. The hood makes it hard for me to hear and constantly pulls the hair on my face, which is annoying. It's also so stiff that I can't really turn my head. I think upgrading the hood will make the whole outfit much less tiring to wear.

The Crossbows

These are probably my favourite part of the outfit, they were so much fun to make! The crossbows were the last prop I made. I feel it was a good decision, because by then I had learned a lot about Worbla and could make the crossbows have really nice details.

The base for the bows are two toy musket guns I purchased off eBay. They cost something around four pounds each, so they were super cheap and very light. Originally they had a black base with cheap looking "metal" parts that were plastic painted golden. I painted the guns with black gesso and dry brushed some silver paint on the decorated parts, which made them look really nice.

The bow parts are made fully of Worbla strengthened with foam. I stuck some Worbla inside the barrel as far as it would go, then attached that to the bow and added a wide strip of Worbla on the outside of the barrel to make the connection more stable. There's also a narrow Worbla strip further along the barrel to make sure the barrel would not come off the stock. I took the guns apart to take out the mechanism they had inside and saw that the barrel was attached to the stock with only two tiny screws so some extra strength was required to make sure nothing fell apart! The end of the stocks also have cool leather ribbons tied around them, because one of the guns had a split screw slot in the stock and wouldn't stay in one piece. So the leathers straps nicely accent the guns and help them not to break apart.

The rivet details are made of Fimo clay, because Worbla is not very good with thick forms with sharp edges. The edges are decorated with Worbla strips. The string is regular cotton string and simply hotglued in place.

The arrows are simple pieces of wood with Worbla arrowheads and peacock feathers hotglued on the ends. I would have gone for some more suitable feathers but had peacock feather leftovers lying around and they looked nice enough.

Other parts

That covers all of the armor pieces and bows. In addition I have black leather gloves, a short black A-line wig, white contact lenses and a brown corset made of real leather. The corset is from Mystic City Corsets and I bought it off eBay. While it is not exactly like what the Demon Hunter wears in the concept art, it's close and the rivet details work really well with general style of the outfit. It is also a very comfortable corset to wear thanks to the real leather that molds to my body.

The contact lenses are white screen lenses from Pinky Paradise. They look super cool but make your vision cloudy, it looks like everything is covered in mist. It's not too hard to see, but reading is hard and small details escape you. They make me feel really tired after a few hours, I think it's because of not being able to focus my eyes well. There was an unexpected benefit, because the lenses go really cloudy if light shines straight to them, I could not see almost anything of the audience at the competition! So no nervousness when you can't make out if there 10 or a 100 people watching you on stage ;D

The wig needed no cutting, I found a perfect A-line with no bangs on eBay. It has tons on hairspray on it to try and keep the hair out of my face, but the stiff hood still makes the hair go every which way.

I put some thought into the make-up too, because I like playing around with make-up! In the game the Demon Hunter has a very natural look, so I went with a neutral smoky eye to just give the eyes some definition. I wore a lipstick that was quite close to my natural lip colour, so it just makes the lips pop a little better and makes sure that you can see them in bright stage lighting. I have a separate post on the make-up here.

So those are the components that make up this Demon Hunter outfit!