Femshep is Best Shep
I recently played through the entire Mass Effect series when the Legendary edition came out, which I know, super late to the party but considering I was 7 when the first game came out you’ll have to forgive me for not knowing how great this game series is until recently. The way this costume came to be is kind of a funny story. Normally an armor build like this would take me months but this entire build from start to finish including the bodysuit took me about 5 days total. How did I manage to make an entire costume in 5 days? Steroids. Specifically steroids to treat my second case of poison ivy that summer. I thought about cosplaying Poison Ivy with poison ivy did sound funny but my hyperfocus on Mass Effect made me drop the idea, either way, remind me to stop tromping through the woods just for a photoshoot because even though I was a Girl scout, I somehow can’t tell one plant from another, no matter how many times the difference is pointed out to me. Because I was unable to calm down and relax I ended up just focusing my energy into making the costume and funny enough I ended up finishing the costume right as I was finishing the medication so the timing ended up perfect!
I started by making a pattern on my mannequin and followed a ton of different reference photos. I ordered the kind of EVA foam that has texture on one side so I could give Shepard’s armor texture like in the games. You can peep critical role playing on my laptop in the background, it’s one of my favorite things to watch while working on cosplay. I added battle damage with a soldering iron and voila! I was done with the foam base of the armor. While in the middle of creating the backpiece I decided to add EL wire to make the back glow as it does in the games, although I’m not entirely fond of EL wire as it makes a high pitched screaming noise that isn’t a bother at noisy conventions but if you’re working on it alone you can definitely hear it. It’s also not that bright, and can’t really be diffused well so I think if I were to do it again I’d use LED foam which I didn’t have at the time and use much brighter LED lights. It would also be cool if I could have made a switch to make them blue or red to represent the Paragon and Renegade options in the game, but I was trying to make sure everything was done in time for Awesomecon. Of course, I was ALSO finishing up Queen Amidala at this point so there was a LOT of cosplay happening in the summer of 21.
I started working on the bodysuit that would go underneath the armor next. At Joanne’s I picked up two stretchy fabrics. One was plain black and the other had the hexagonal pattern for texture. I followed Yaya Han’s bodysuit pattern and it worked perfectly! The only drawback of using this fabric is that it’s not the most breathable so this entire costume is really not meant for super hot summers. Of course I ended up wearing it to Awesomecon in the middle of August, so do as I say, not as I do.
After the bodysuit was finished, it was time to paint the armor. Everything got two coats of plasti-dip before I started adding details. I really liked how the suit looked when black, to me it ironically kind of had a Shadow Trooper feel which is basically a stormtrooper just in all black.
For the costume details I mainly used a silver drybrush method with varying shades of silver and of course I added the iconic red and white streak to my right side. Having the streak definitely makes figuring out which armor piece goes on which side much easier. I also added extra detail to the edges of any battle damage and made sure to shade where appropriate. With the paint job done, I added the final attachments (mainly Velcro and elastic) so I could finally wear the cosplay and live out my dreams as Shepard after a quick clear coat to seal in everything. Overall I’m really happy with how this costume came out! In the future I may style a wig to look more like the base design as my red hair tends to be a little on the orange side and as of right now is much too long, but as you may know, Shepard’s face is full customizable so wig or not, that’s canon™
@gillianfoxglove my reach has been terrible and the OF drama has me worried but it’s fine I’m fine 🙃#MicroRaveWithRoni #MyTeacherWins ♬ El Fauno says No DeMaNd WHO - ToxieKat
