Back in March, when I was on an episode of GameOn, my friend Veronica Belmont insisted that I make her a costume for Dragon*Con. So I did.

She is a Demon Hunter from Diablo III, sporting a pistol crossbow! We kept the project under wraps during construction, so photos are a bit sparse, but I’ll do what I can to explain the build.

The pistol crossbow was made form 4 layers of 3/4″ pine that were adhered with wood glue. The profile shape of the middle two layers was cut out with a scroll saw before the two additional layers at the nose of the bow were added. Nuts were glued in place at the nose to attach the cross piece later.

The entire thing was stained and holes were drilled to accept all of the hardware pieces later. I cut a groove in the butt of the handle to paint later and create the illusion that the end is capped in a metal piece.

The cross piece was made from 1/4″ foam PVC, heated and curved to my liking. The two spikes coming out of the front are both cool looking and serve to attach the cross piece to the stock. The cross piece can be removed for travel.

The rest of the “metal” hardware is styrene and PVC that has been painted with metallic paint. The hardware pieces were nailed and epoxied into place. The cross decorations were sculpted in Sculpy and copied by making a clay push mold and cast in polyurethane resin.

All of the armor pieces were made from EVA foam floor mats. Yes, the same ones from my Mass Effect armor that I got at the hardware store for super cheap. I had to heat and bend the foam into some rather unnatural shapes. Most of the seams were covered in thinner EVA craft foam, because they were hideous. The rest of the embellishments on the armor were done with the same craft foam, so you can’t even tell that the seams were there. Also pictured: corned beef sandwich. It was delicious.

I knew I would be putting a lot of paint on these armor pieces, so I sealed them up really well with 2-3 layers of Mod Podge. Then everything got several coats of paint via my airbrush. The darker areas were also airbrushed, then I hand brushed over the seams/embellishments with the lighter color to make them really stand out.

The boots are really just shin covers that were designed to go over a normal pair of shoes. They were created with the thinner EVA craft foam. They Velcro up the back while wearing. In this next photo you can still see some of the Mod Podge that hasn’t dried yet. I realize that the foam colors don’t match, but these got covered in paint, so no foul.

The corset part was also done in thin craft foam and painted to look like leather with straps and buckles. It has a 2″ wide nylon strap around the waist to attach it to the wearer and several other strategic Velcro bits. In fact, all of these pieces were attached to the under shirt via strategic Velcro bits. I played bass for Strategic Velcro Bits.

This is one of my favorite beers; Full Sail LTD. It’s awesome and I put a cocktail parasol in it. This was cracked open when I finished all of the armor bits as a tiny celebration. Basically, I found this photo on my phone and just wanted to share it with you.

The pants were done entirely in fabric paint markers. The base is a pair of dark gray women’s athletic pants. All of the details were drawn on by hand. It turns out all of those geeky art classes paid off. Suck it jocks.

Finally, here are all of the pieces of the costume, laid out on the floor. I sewed up a hood/cape from linen and sewed a bunch of Velcro onto a brown shirt to be used to attach all of the armor bits to the wearer’s torso. Also there are some gloves. I think I found them at a costume store, but I can’t be sure because that was like 2 days before Dragon*Con and I was delirious.