League of Legends - Garen (Twist of Fate Cinematic) - ALA 2015

I needed to make a League of Legends costume that had a lot of detail. Unfortunately not a lot of the champions had skins that would really sate my need to make something with intense micro detailing. I realized that there were a lot of character designs from the various cinematics that haven't even been considered by most cosplayers. As such I decided to give Garen a shot.

Here's the reference art I used.



First I had to draft some patterns. The only pattern to survive was the chest and back armor pieces so here they are. Drafted from cardstock.



Testing out the shoulder pattern for proportioning.



I spent a day cutting and heat forming all of the basic shapes of the armor using PVC foam and a heat gun.



The calf armor were 2 flat pieces joined in the center to give a nice knife edge effect.



Once the basic shapes were cut I proceeded with trim work. Cut the shoulder trim from 6mm PVC with a bandsaw.



Glued to the shoulder and a partition was made to make the large collar raise on the inside.





Repeated for both shoulders.



Bracers had acrylic details added as well as the weird circle bit from 3mm PVC.



Lattice detailing patterned from card stock.



Cut lattice detailing very carefully and very patiently from 1mm PVC. My hand cramps just looking at these pictures.



Same procedure was followed for the hip, foot and hand armors.








Added acrylic and 3mm PVC details to the calf and glued the knee directly to the calf armor.



For the belt I added a 6mm rim with a 1mm PVC detail then socketed a wooden half ball onto the plate.



Added 1mm detail to the half ball.



Added trim with more PVC and scrapbooking stickers to the chest armor.



Shoulder rig is a wedge of PVC in the form of a cantilever. The shoulder has a strap of nylon glued to it and it snaps into the PVC wedge. Snaps are held in place with JB Weld and Apoxie Sculpt.



Bolt holes added to the back to hold chest armor together.



Sword was patterned from in game screen cap and extrapolated.







Cut from plywood. Drilled holes to lighten the overall load of the sword. Cut a PVC sheet to cover wood grains. Filled exposed wood grains with bondo.





Glued handle to the sword.



Checking the paper patterns to my cut wood.



Added hilt details by gluing more PVC.





Added the side "wing boxes" by making a PVC box then carving details into it.








Added box detail as well as a gem carved from PVC.



Started priming all pieces with Rustoleum Filler Primer.





Painted with Rustoleum Metallic Blue.



Masked off blue and painted gold with Rustoleum Metallic Gold.







Sent to Kiwi5Frog to do detail painting.



Made the faux scale mail with vinyl scales.



Collar made from PVC and scrapbooking stickers. Glued with super glue.



Skirt painted using freezer paper and fabric paint.



Bought a crappy halloween costume to use as the undersuit. Here's a picture of the listing since they sometimes change and it's risky to permalink.



Debuted at the con!

Was even featured on the front page of the League of Legends client for my appearance in their show All Chat!