Dovahkiin
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Inspiration: For Christmas last year a friend of mine made me a horned Skyrim helmet. I was so surprised! After spending hundreds of hours exploring the world of Skyrim, I really wanted to cosplay as a dragon born. This awesome helmet inspired me to make it happen! I made this whole costume in about two weeks.

Materials/Construction Details: Most of the pieces of this costume were custom patterned. I found some long, mixed brown fur to make up the base of the skirt, arm pieces, and boot toppers. I also used a lot of vinyl in this costume. To make it look more like worn leather, I used a mix of sandpaper, a sharp wire to make rips, an a sponge with lighter brown paint to weather all the vinyl pieces. The top was made out of stretch seude and finished with leather cording. The flaps on the skirt required over 80 hammered on snaps to give it the studded look, and each piece had leather cording hand stitched around the edges.

My armor pieces were made out of craft foam sandwiched between two layers of black worbla. I sculpted large pyarmid studs out of clay for the greaves and attached rivets to the bracers. I then used a soldering iron to put scratches into the foam before coating it with worbla. Once everything was shaped, I started the long process of painting the pieces. I used gunmetal spray paint for a base coat and then went back over everything with acrylic paint. I used a darker silver to add shadows along the grooves and weathered marks, and a lighter silver to add highlights. These armor pieces attached either with D-Rings and vinyl belts, or with small, powerful magnets.

Wig: I tried a couple of hair colors, but ended up deciding on blonde. I used the same wig I used for my Cersei swimsuit costume, which was purchased off ebay.

Prop: My avatar in Skyrim used a broadsword, so I wanted to use that as my weapon for this costume as well. However, I didn’t have enough time to make a sword, so I purchased a plastic toy Nazgul sword off Amazon. However, when it arrived it was not only crooked, but also not painted. After priming the plastic, I painted it in a similar manner as my armor pieces.