A Quick History of Some of My Favorite Builds

Welcome to my blog.  I have been bad with chronicling my work over the last few years.  A big part of this was being very busy with life (including moving, renovations, and completing a Master degree).  I am still rather busy, but I am going to try to do better to share my work.  To kick things off, I wanted to show a few of my past projects.

In the past I have cosplayed with friends for things like Halloween, and random parties.  Most of these were just found clothes projects with the odd prop thrown in.  I have always enjoyed armoured characters, and my first armour cosplay was a Space Marine Scout from the Warhammer 40k universe.  This costume was also for my first nerd convention.  Some friends and I had never been to any conventions before, and ended up going to DragonCon in Atlanta.  I would also get to meet members of a 40k costuming group I am part of (www.obscuruscrusade.com), so I was inspired to actually have a costume to meet them in.

So I did a speed build of the scout marine.  It turned out pretty well for how fast I built it, and how new I was to the techniques and materials.  It was a lot of fun to wear, even while boiling in it while marching in the DragonCon parade (Atlanta in August gets pretty warm).  Having caught the Con bug, I began attending the Calgary Comic Expo, where I got to wear it around again.  Here are some pictures from both events.

D*Con 2011

Calgary Expo 2012

After that, I began working on a real space marine.  The scouts are cool, but I wanted a full set of armour.  So I expanded on my foam fabrication skills, and went bigger.  I built the suit to fit me, so it is smaller than true scale, but it was (mostly) comfortable to wear, and I had good mobility.  I painted it in Raven Guard colours, and showed it off at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in 2013.  It was a blast to tour around in that suit.  I also entered it in the costume competition, where I won a Judge's Choice Award.  That was icing on the cake of an excellent convention.  I wore the suit around at a few conventions in Saskatoon, and Edmonton afterwards, but it has been through several moves, and is pretty beat up these days.  It still works as a display piece, but I can't really wear it anymore without fear of wrecking it.  Here are some of my favorite pictures of it.

The bolter (see Big Space Gun) I built for that armour was my first go at molding and casting an item.  The original gun was solid wood, and was beastly heavy.  So I made a silicone mold of it, and cast a hollow copy in resin.  The mold I made was too thin, so it came apart in the process.  But, it worked to get me one pull at least.  In 2015, I continued learning the mold/cast process when I made some replica pistols from Mass Effect.  I have a friend who is a big fan of Mass Effect (as am I), and he wanted to do a Shepard cosplay, so I offered to build him pistols.  We decided on the Paladin/Carnifex.  I built the master out of foam, then made a two part silicone mold.  I cast two pistols for him, and a number of other ones for people afterwards.  The mold was way better this time, and it is still functional.  Here are a few of the pistols I have made with it.

That is a quick version of my cosplay highlights.  I have a very long list of things I would like to build, both costumes and props.  But I have been busy with completing my studies, and renovating my house and yard.  I will do my best to keep this blog updated with my projects as I go along.  I think my next few posts will show off some of my renovations as they are nearing the end.

Thanks for reading!