Godzillarex

When I decided to start working on a Wolverine/Logan costume, I never thought that this was actually a thing that several other people do. I had never heard of the term “cosplaying” or had known that there is an entire community behind it. I did grow up in Mexico City though, and that amount of dedication and passion to nerdy things is kind of non-existent there. Or if it does exist, people are very secretive about it.

WOLVERINE

I would have loved to make the uniform that he wears at the end of the films, but I simply did not have the resources, nor skill, to pull off such a feat. So I decided to model the costume after his Logan costume in the movie.

I pulled a few reference pictures from the movie, like the one above, and also went off my Wolverine action figure. I shopped around for the parts I didn’t have, and my brother luckily had bought me some novelty dog tags years before. 

I then decided to work on the hardest parts of the costume. The hair and the claws.

For my first stab at the costume, I decided to use some cardboard for my claws and gelled my hair upward for the hair. Here is a pic of me at my high schools costume contest. Sorry about the weird blue thing, I screencapped it directly from the site:

I was happy with it for awhile, but I decided that the hair wasn’t quite there just yet, and my claws could use some work as well.

For my second go, I mapped out just how long the claws should be in relation to my hand. I then cut some cardboard claws with a groove at the end so they could comfortably sit in my hand, but appear as if they were coming out of my knuckles. Lastly, I added some aluminum foil to make them look shiny.

Now came the hair. Boy, did I not anticipate so many problems with the hair. After looking at several stills from the movie (specifically the second film, as the hair was perfected in that installment in my opinion) and going through several blow dryer, shampoo, conditioner, gel, hairspray, and hairbrush techniques (with help from my mother),  I got it down pat. As a side note I will add that you need long hair to do the Wolverine hairstyle, as you are essentially feathering your hair upward along with adding a curl on top.

I then grew out my sideburns for two weeks, and used a new leather jacket.

Here is the updated Wolverine:

After High School, I ended up using it twice in college, and decided to make the costume a little more scandalous by reducing Logan to a mere tank top during senior year. I couldn’t replicate the hair as well as I did all those years ago because I had cut it. Below is a picture of me with my friend Scott and his Zombie costume.

BIG BOSS

I kind of inadvertently decided to start doing a costume for Big Boss. It was sophomore year in high school and the 12 minute E3 2003 trailer for Metal Gear Solid 3 had just come out and every gamer was flipping out about how awesome the trailer looked.These were the days before YouTube, so gaming sites like IGN used to charge users to be able to see their videos - they were only accessible to those with premium accounts. Crazy, but true. So I had to see a bootlegged copy of it which took about 2 whole days to download off of Kazaa. But once I did, it was all I could think about for weeks.

A project in English class came up about predicting how different stuff would be 50 years from now, so I decided to make a video game documentary and predict how games would be in 50 years. I basically said video games would be like “The Matrix.” Naturally, the game that we would be playing then would be Metal Gear Solid, where you, the player, actually go into a virtual simulation of it.

Since the project was due in just a week, I had to assemble as many things that I already had available, as there wasn’t any time to buy new stuff. I am kind of proud what I managed to pull together, given the time, as the costume came out looking a little like a Guerilla-Snake. Below is a “production still” with my Cuban friend from elementary school, Jorge Andres.

Once I turned in the project, I had some time to really take a look at the several parts to Snake’s uniform. They began to release new screenshots of the game, so that helped me get a better look at his facepaint and hair. 

I left the costume like that for a while, but it would return with a vengeance in due time.

SOLID SNAKE

Halloween rolled around and, inspired by my partial Big Boss costume, I decided to create my Solid Snake costume, which has seen several iterations. I went to several military surplus stores to buy all sorts of equipment, and got the pants and shirt from different department stores. The costume was going to be a Snake inspired by both MGS1 and 2.

At the time I made the first version of this costume, I had a real mullet. Yep. Again, I had no idea this was actually a mullet, I just thought it was a cool hairdo Snake used. Ignorance is bliss right? Below is the costume photoshopped into a scene from The Twin Snakes.

As the years went on I made some modifications to the suit by getting different tops, gloves, and gear.

About 5 years later I donned the costume once again for appearing in “This Week In Video Games.”

And for quite some time that was the final version of the costume. But since I was going to Comic Con last year, I decided to up the ante and don the tights. So I used running clothes I had from Track and Field and it fit quite well with the rest of the gear. I also had my friend Chrissy, a very talented cosplayer, make an awesome mullet attachment for my bandanna. Below is a pic of me at Comic Con with my friends Wes and Hayley cosplaying as Dante and Ramona:

During the convention I also met Crystal, who was cosplaying as Laughing Beauty

DINNER WITH THE SNAKES - SNAKE AND BOSS REVISITED

Let’s backtrack a little bit. 

Around 2006, I decided to revise my Big Boss costume and my Snake costume in order to shoot my Metal Gear inspired parody, Dinner with the Snakes. 

Liquids costume was missing, but I figured a big old trench coat and some yellow hair dye would do the trick. Below is the short:

Two years later, 2008, I decided to up the ante and revise the costumes for Metal Gear Solid 4 for the sequel to Dinner with the Snakes. Since Old Snake is basically still Solid Snake, but with new facial features, all my time went into creating just that. I made a Solid Eye, bought and cut a wig, bought and colored a mustache, and even got this material that dries up your face to create wrinkles. Lastly, through some make-up, I created a burn on the side of my face.

Liquid Ocelot wasn’t too difficult, as he essentially is wearing different layers of clothing. I definitely went to several sunglasses shop to find just the right pair though. I made his small ID tag and used a new wig and mustache for him as well.

You can see both costumes right here in Dinner with the Snakes 2:

I used Big Boss as my costume for Halloween during my junior year in college.

I also ended up using my Big Boss costume in anticipation of Comic Con for This Week In Video Games. As you can tell, I added a plethora of new features to it including a new military vest, radio, gloves, various pouches, and a knife:

Here’s a pic from that same show with my friend Shawn, cosplaying as Leon Kennedy:

And here’s a pic of Jes V, Shawn, Chrissy, and myself about to exterminate some poor vermin on the floor. 

JOHN RAMBO

This past year I wanted to dress up as someone different for Halloween.

I chose Rambo because he is one of my favorite characters (Snake clearly owes a lot to him), and I absolutely love the films as well. Action at its purest. My Yorkshire terrier back home is even named after him.

As I began to search for reference pictures and re-watched the films for the umpteenth time, I noticed that several people had an idea of what Rambo looked like, but never actually bothered to check if that idea was correct. Take a look at this “costume” that appears when you google “Rambo costume”:

Absolutely everything about this costume is inaccurate. I don’t blame them though. Rambo is remembered for his crazy hair, the bandanna, muscles, and his large gun. This costume is like a holistic impression based on a fuzzy memory.

People tend to forget his blade, his skill with the bow and arrow, and the fact that he does have a special ops uniform of sorts; he doesn’t just wear regular old camouflage pants. Take a look:

I assembled all the components I needed by visiting military surplus stores, sporting goods stores, an archery store, and finally picked a decent wig, which Chrissy once again cut. Even though the costume was based on how he appears in Rambo 3, I did change his bandanna color to red since I feel if I had left it black (as it appears in the third film), people would’ve been confused. Red is also more closely associated to Rambo than black. I also picked using the blade from the second film as that is the one which became iconic to the series. It’s even on the cover for the Blu-ray collection.

Now came the hard part. Making a fake blade that resembled the real deal. I already owned the real blade, but I knew I couldn’t take that 10 inch blade around on the street, much less to parties, so I needed to make the prop knife. Hayley, a very skilled cosplayer, suggested several different things for me to make this knife. I eventually ended up using plastic, black rope, acrylic paint, a dremel, and even the top of a breath mint bottle for the cap the knife has.

Here is a pic comparing it to the real blade:

Now that I had all the components assembled, I donned the costume for the first time in its entirety on Halloween.

Below is my favorite pic:

And with that I bring my cosplaying entry to a close. Creating a costume is definitely a fun experience and it is something that I intend on doing well into the future. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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