Ok, so recently Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty was released, I'm a massive Zerg/Kerrigan fan so I wanted to give myself a huge cosplay project and play homage to the game/species/character.



The only problem is I have no idea how to even think about tackling the costume. Working from a base, such as a leotard or zentai? And then maybe using a material like latex for the texture and so forth. I'll work on it over a long amount of time but I don't want to spend really over £150 on it, do you think it's possible?

And what tips/hinters can you give? I won't be working on it alone, obviously, I'll have help from the other guys who helped me complete my Witch Elf cosplay.

I reckon it could be done with foam and latex, but to get all of that finished for less than £150 is going to be difficult.

Hmm yeah, I knew funding was always going to be an issue. If only I wasn't in the process of driving/ had a better job xD

it's possible, just not at that level of money ;p

that costume looks like it's been made in silicone, and since prosthetic grade silicone costs about £25 a litre, and i'd say (ignoring any mistakes) you'd need about 20L to make a full suit...

then you'd need the clay to sculpt it all, the PU rubber and plaster bandage to make moulds.... all the oil paint and thinner to paint it... pigments for the base silicone... a perfect body body cast...

i'd say you're looking at a minimum of a grand base costs. and that's being cheap. to get it looking anything like that... 4-5k. easy.

You'd be very hard pushed to do that for less than £150, sure if you want it to look really bad, then £150 is no problem
(edited this bit because Xae came along and told us whats what! XD)

Foam and latex could work, like covering the foam with liquid latex. and some of the pointed bits could be done the same way too I'm guessing. I'm not sure about the zentai suit and putting latex and such onto it to create something of that level without having the hands of studio proffesionals who work with that stuff every day.

It'd need to be very heavy duty latex and a zip up the back that hidden more than likley. From when I did a little work with latex, I noticed that it's not as stretchy as lycra and the more of it you layer the less stretchy it becomes, so if you're looking to put it ontop of a zentai suit, you'll want one that fits you WITHOUT stretching to fit you, yet still has stretch.

Remember, latex also shrinks as it drys which will raise another issue for you.

I'd have said that head peice alone would cost £150 in materials. Then again, I'm only saying what little I actually know. There are far far more qualified people on here who can advise you.

You can do the hair peace probably for less than £150. I dunno if anyone has ever used synthetic hair extensions before but they basically wrap a small collection of strands together, wrap it in plastic and then melt down the ends with an iron.

You would probably be decorating your hair while the bits are on your head which...I dunno how that would work really o__O would be way difficult but could probably be done for under £150

I know some ppl who wear their hair with those plastic wrapped extensions normally and they say it's VERY heavy and the longer you have them on your hair it will gradually weaken your roots so something like that would really hurt especially if you're not used to it.

As for the rest of the suit, I don't know much about that but it looks really hard particularly because of the bits coming out of the arm and the claws and stuff.

Is that picture real or a 3D model?? Video games are so realistic now I can't differentiate >__< A while ago I turned on the TV and was like "Oh saving private ryan is on" turned out to be an advert for the new call of duty game XD

It's a photograph, but it's actually a life-size statue, not a woman in a costume.

Aaah thanks ^^;

The graphics of...real life I guess are really good xD ARGH! What am I saying? I don't understand reality anymore XD I need to grab some anime quickly xD

Then you'd still have to very probablly paint latex over the top to take some paint to detail it to that level. It'd bemuch lighter just using foam and latex for that tbh. Plus the amount of synthetic hair extentions youd need for that could get real expensive VERY fast.

For good quality extentions for a full head you're looking at at least £20 and for that you'd need at the very least 10 because when they say full head, they don't mean a FULL head of hair. They basicly mean a full length across your head like from ear to ear.
Either that or my suppliers list them stupidly.

I dunno if we're thinking of the same kind of extensions here o_O

Have you been to Pepi's hair salon in camden?? Those are the extensions I'm talking about. Most of the time you will find that ppl braid their hair then wrap it using rexlace which is about £3 per 100 yards and you'd need about 500-600 yards for a full head of plastic extensions.

http://quinnster.fqdn.net/plastic/sadik23bloo3.jpg

A bit like that, the hair itself isn't the best example but I wanted to get a picture where you can see the normal hair and the plastic join.

OHHHHH THOSE!

see when you said synthetic hair extentions I thought you meant......synthetic hair extentions...like for wigs made from kanekleon and the like.

Looking at those you could probablly use them as a base, or heat them into the right shapes, it'd take an age though. Are they paintable? or would you likley need to coat them in something before painting them?

I'm interested in those now, they look usefull.

They're really cool! and they're just one type of synthetic hair extension ^^ I've seen people walk about with real bits of cable in their hair and all sorts. I dunno about heating them into the right shapes because they would probably melt (You melt down the ends to keep them from falling off). There are probably better types of extension to use, you can see a bunch here with loads of pics for each style:

http://quinnster.fqdn.net/

They wouldn't really work, each wrap 'shifts' around alot and aren't really paintable. They don't really heat bend either, they don't hold shape well.
The hair in the OP looks more like it would be better trying to connect small pieces of plastic tubing of somekind and then building it over a wig.

I've had various times where I've had a full head of wrapped plastic extentions like that, and they are incredibly heavy and will rip your hair out after a days wear.
I dread to image how heavy a wig would go done like that with stuff built over it.

i'll be making my skeksis' head in the coming months. i'm intending on doing a full step by step of the moulding and casting process...

This, I look forward to seeing.

Ah money ;-; I wish I had an unlimited budget! I have seen her done before, but it wasn't a particularly great costume, like the skin didn't have any texture.

I look forward to that step-by-step, that costume is gunna be so freaky xD

Oooo! This I would be very interested to see. Although I have done some casting before it was only my arms and legs and it was for only basic costume stuff for theatre so it was done on a very low budget. As you can imagine the result wasn't very good.