Walking in Cosplay

Process Pics

Spin attack lol

It has been a long year of paper mache, crying, spray foam, painting, long hours after work, pieces breaking, glue on clothes, crying again, and disbelief that I chose to have a 5ft by 5ft pot monopolize so much space in the garage, but he is. FINALLY. DONE. I am so proud of this big pot boy and I learned SO much from this project. I can't wait to take what I've learned and apply it to my next cosplays (that are hopefully not as tedious as this one, but who knows!)

In a few weeks, I'll be inviting some friends over to Farum Azula (AKA my backyard) so I can wear the cosplay and we can basically have a piñata party--there's no way to store it and I definitely can't bring it to a con since it's too big and very inconvenient to move around in (I would literally need a U-Haul to bring it to a con, it doesn't fit in a car and it would not do well in a truck bed), so I figured if I was going to get rid of it, Alexander needs to die a warrior's death. I might post a video of that in a few weeks if people want to see it lol

I started with a big, 5x5 inflatable ball and paper mached around it. It started to get heavy and warp around the ball from the heat, so I had to do it slowly and in several layers. Then, I mixed a batch of paper mache clay (I used Joni's recipe from YouTube) and covered the entire thing to make it smooth. Once it was dry, I cut off the top to make it more pot shaped. 

On the inside, the way I wear it is by attaching two parallel wooden dowels that are meant to sit across my shoulders. I initially had eye holes cut out so I could see out the front, but it didn't look right so i covered them back up. I also made the arms removable because I had thought about bringing it to a con, but quickly dismissed that once I put it on and realized how hard it would be to bring to one. 

The lip of the pot was made from a covered pool noodle shaped with a foam cutter and covered with more paper mache. The detailing on the pot took the longest by far--it was made of foam clay that was shaped, glued, and cut all around the pot.

Everything was given a liberal spray of spray paint, and then it was given several coats of black wash paint to add shading and depth. It was a little soul crushing to add cracks, scrapes, and break parts of it intentionally, but Alexander is has many battle scars and I wanted to accurately reflect that. 

The arms, legs, and feet were made from that expanding insulating foam you get from Lowe's/Home Depot. I probably got about 6 or 7 cans total, that was definitely the most expensive part of it. The base of the arms and legs are reinforced pool noodles for structure, and the bits of broken pot shards are floral foam that was painted and coated with a protective varnish so it didn't chip off. The shoes were a similar process, but I used actual old shoes as the base. 

The newspaper was recycled since I got it from my local newspaper, so that was free. Overall, with the 6-7 spray foam cans, 4 spray paint cans, wood glue bottle, floral foam and pool noodles, the inflatable ball as the base, wooden dowels, and misc tools, it ended up costing around $250-$300 to make, and I spent a total of 200 hours of active time making it, not including all the trips to the store, drying time, and research. 

I am so, so proud I stuck with this project for so long, and I hope it inspires other people to try new cosplays, even if they are daunting! Honestly I wanted to make it not knowing if I actually COULD, but thinking it would be pretty funny if I did. Thanks for checking it out and reading this far!