Built by hand.
Cosplay is a hobby I love for its own sake. I like taking something from a game, show, or movie and figuring out how to make it real. Most of the helmets and armor are 3D printed, with some vacuformed pieces, and I do the filling, sanding, priming, painting, and weathering myself. The just-for-fun costumes start with more store-bought pieces, which I modify by doing things like fabric-dyeing white coveralls purple or sewing EL wire into a cape. Some are full costumes, some are helmets, and some just sounded fun. Click any one to see more.
I built this Helldivers helmet for a Galactic Armory contest using his print files. I started with the game's base scheme, then gave it a beat-up, Vietnam-era look as an homage to the Creek Divers. I did not place, but hand-painting all the slogans and weathering was a blast.
I made this for my oldest sister, who loves Boba Fett. It gave me a good excuse to tackle the helmet's layered chipped-paint effect, including spots worn all the way down to bare metal. The range finder broke off at the end, but I'm still really happy with the detail.
This helmet is part of a long-term Death Trooper build. The difficult part was getting several shades and finishes of black to stay distinct, then sanding the 3D-printed pieces to a gloss. The unfinished pieces are already built: a magnet-mounted range finder with an Arduino, glowing tusks, and finger buttons for sound.
I wanted to build this as soon as The Mandalorian came out. The on-screen chrome finish used an expensive product, so I researched a way to get a similar effect for a fraction of the cost. The finish was the part of this 3D-printed helmet I cared most about getting right.
This is my longest-running costume, started with the goal of joining the 501st. I bought the armor roughly vacuformed, then did the cutting and detail work myself. A few soft-part details still are not quite screen-accurate, but for all practical purposes it is complete.
This was my oldest costume, though I bought it rather than building it myself. HAVOC Troopers are Republic soldiers from Star Wars: The Old Republic, so the costume put me in the Rebel Legion rather than the 501st. I eventually sold it to help fund my Scout Trooper build.
I made this for my boss's Halloween costume party using a 3D-printed helmet and clothes I mostly already owned. Gluing the helmet's oddly shaped pieces together was the hard part. The tiny antenna looked impossible to print lying down, but that was the attempt that finally worked.
A low-effort Halloween costume for handing out candy. I already had the lightsaber from Savi's Workshop, so I bought some cheap Jedi robes online and called it done. They turned out better than I expected.
I wore this Wario costume to Ludo's Halloween concert several years running. Bright purple coveralls were surprisingly hard to find, so I bought white ones and dyed them myself. The rest was a yellow shirt, a hat, and a cardstock mustache that once had to move from my face to a mask at the last minute.
I made this for a Ludo Halloween concert. Most of the costume was store-bought, but I sewed EL wire around the entire cape so it would glow. The band told me afterward that they could see it from the stage.
One of my first real cosplays, chosen because my name is Robert and I love The Princess Bride. It was entirely store-bought, including a cheap mask that became miserable as soon as I started sweating. I still wore it to a couple of cons and got Princess Bride quotes shouted at me across the hall.