Chico - Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
| Chico quickly became my favourite character from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker which was also the first game that he appeared in. So I was really happy to find that he gets a lot of screen-time in Ground Zeroes, along with getting an actual character model and featuring in fully animated and coloured cutscenes whereas he only featured in monochrome and a few coloured illustrations before. He’s really passionate about UMAs ( Unidentified Mysterious Animals ), UFOs, dinosaurs and the like, so he’s the character from the series that I actually have the most in common with since I was really into collecting dinosaur figurines and watching programmes about them when I was a kid and I find hearing stories about UMAs pretty interesting, too. Chico’s full name is Ricardo Valenciano Libre. He really misses his late father and is left in the care of his older sister Amanda, but is very eager to be treated as an equal amongst the other soldiers despite his young age and to make a good contribution to the MSF. This also means however that he can sometimes be reckless in his eagerness to prove himself. In Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes he is captured whilst going off on his own and trying to locate Paz after certain events that happened during the end of Peace Walker. Snake’s mission is to rescue both of them and deliver them safely to a helicopter for extraction. Chico feels a lot of guilt over Paz falling into enemy hands and constantly blames himself for it. There are several cassette tapes that you can find and collect within the game that he has recorded which reveal more of the story and what he and Paz had to endure as POWs. I actually like his Peace Walker design the most but figured that I would attempt this one first since I can see colour-matching for his first outfit being a pain and this one being a bit easier, plus he gets a more central role in Ground Zeroes. |
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Total cost: £0.00
Bought Grey Shirt
Bought a couple of grey shirts ( thought it best to have a spare one ). Was good that they only cost £2.50 each.
Started Sewing on Yellow Buttons
Removed the original white buttons and started replacing them with the more suitable yellow ones that I bought.
Sized & Printed Prison Numbers
Scaled a reference of his prison numbers to my best guesses of the correct sizes for both the large numbers on the back and the small ones on the front. Will use to create cardboard templates with for dabbing them onto the clothes with fabric paint.
White Strip Sewn onto Arm
I spent the morning after the Silent Hill concert sewing the strip of white onto the arm for Chico. I would have done the other two white parts as well if I had been able to get online to look at my reference pictures, but I at least was able to get the arm done by referring to my sketchbook drawing with which I had already used refs. White strip and Chico's hair parting are of course mirrored in this pic. I also later that day bought some yellow buttons ( since these white ones really stand out too much ) and some press stud fasteners. The earphones I bought a few weeks ago from the shop Tiger and will have to add some white details to.
Dyed Base Clothing Yellow
It was annoyingly difficult to find plain white button-up and long sleeved pyjamas to use as base clothing. Whenever I found something close it would have subtle stripes or dots on which made them unsuitable. I've finally found some now. They were an off-white / very pale blueish-grey colour ( " surf " ) which looked suitable enough for dying. I had to order them from America and with the shipping cost as well they cost more than I would have liked. I was relieved to find that both the top and bottoms fit me okay as I was inbetween 2 of the sizes available and they were also made for men instead of women. I removed an unwanted breast pocket with a seam ripper and used Dylon washing machine dye to get the yellow colour that I need. I also put the spare pocket material in as well so that I can use it later to practise painting or printing the prison numbers before applying them to the actual outfit.
Sourced & Ordered Wig
I can now put this cosplay as "in progress" since I've now made my mind up on the wig. It's due to be delivered within the first 2 weeks of May, so at least the part with the longest shipping time will be out of the way. Since it's dark and rainy during the Ground Zeroes mission I referred to the scenes from inside the helicopter during the final cutscene and the coloured images from Peace Walker to choose the colour of the wig. I felt it was best to go with a warm mid-brown / slightly auburn shade. I may have to subtley trim the fringe when it gets here, so I really hope that I don't mess it up... ^^"
Would love to see you do this for Expo :D Best of luck :)
Thanks ^^ I hope so too, though if he's not done in time I'm still going to make this one my current project.
Awesome cosplay! I like the moody photo with the ear phones, you really look like a prisoner :)
Thanks =) The daylight was just on the verge of fading when we did that shot so it actually ended up giving a better look than expected. It's interesting how much the shade of yellow can change in different lighting ( I'm not used to wearing such a bright colour, haha! ). I really hope to be able to do some more photoshoots with him that can show more of the different details that I worked on.