Mass Effect’s Garrus Vakarian has a unique look, and even though Sarrah of Red Nebula Studios had never built armor before, it didn’t stop her from tackling the costume. She spent about seven months on the build, and it shows. Even BioWare said, “If you’ve ever wondered what Garrus might look like in real life, wonder no more. This cosplay is AMAZING!” It’s a good day when you get that kind of compliment from the makers of the video game you’re cosplaying a character from.
As she worked, Sarrah documented each portion of the build from the planning to the sculpting to making the armor. Since I talk a lot about armor, I’m highlighting the mask build for this cosplay. After she created the mask and painted it, she still had to build it out and add neck pieces. She had a spandex base and used “skin” made from cotton spandex to cover it and applied latex to the fabric:
After a lot of fussing around with different materials, I decided the best way to keep the neck nice and flexible, as well as breathable, was to make the skin out of cotton spandex as well. To get the effect of skin, I tried a few experiments. The most successful was the lower-right portion of the second picture. I sponged a couple of layers of latex directly onto the fabric, being careful to leave gaps in between where the spandex could retain its stretch properties. I then used acrylic paint to color the skin, again applied with a sponge.
On the other side, I wanted to make sure and put a lot of detail work into those scars he is so proud of! The technique is almost identical to the left side of his neck, except here I strategically added folds and wrinkles, securing them in place to the fabric underneath with little dots of hot glue. The paint job was also similar, latex and acrylic paint, but here I took care to accentuate the highlights and shadows to make his scars stand out.
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