I suck at cosplay

Alright, I've had some people ask me about 3d printing for cosplay.  I am not what I would consider an expert on the topic, but I do know a decent amount about 3d printers and printing in the home or on a small scale.  So, I'm going to do my best to cover it.  This will not be an all encompassing thing, but I'll tell you what I can and the post will also serve as a decent segue into my 3d printed props for Wilhelmina.

     Okay, so I haven't been great about going through the stuff I learned or even posting pictures of the Eiger costume.  But now I am working on my next project for Nebraskon - genderswapped Wilhelm I'm calling Wilhelmina!  I have only started the process a bit, so I figure this is a good time for me to actually document what I am currently doing.  So, with that in mind, let's start with my game plan!

The leg and boot armor was fairly simple to do, yet I messed it up and was forced to remake them a few times.  The resultant product was not ideal and I definitely wish I had been able to redo it one more time.  These are one more element of the costume I will be redoing for any future use.  So, here's what I used and how I messed up.

In this post, I go over the materials I used for my first cosplays (mostly Eiger).  I loved each of these for different reasons and I hated them with a fiery passion when it came to others.  The biggest things to remember when using any material is to research what application it should be used for, learn its limitations, and take some time to practice with it before you start seriously working with it.  These three things will result in less frustration and better looking results.  So, anyway, the materials I used . . .

Obviously, you are going to do a lot of cutting for any cosplay you might be working on.  I used a variety of tools and found each wear good for different applications.  Some were surprisingly good with materials I didn't expect.  On the whole I am glad to have every one of the tools I discuss down there in my arsenal and will use them for any project.  Put simply, ways and tools for cutting materials are diverse and not every tool will work well for every material.  This is what I learned.

So, there were quite a few things I learned after my first real (my previous one was more of a tiny thing and not a full on project) cosplay build and event.  While the whole experience was wonderful and eye opening, there are many things I would like to do better for future cons and cosplay.

This is the first post to go over my cosplay of Eiger from Shadowrun: Dragonfall.  This is really more for my reference to give me something to go back for future projects as well as a way to see my progress from project to project.  If this helps anyone else or anyone finds amusing, that's great too!  This is going to be really lengthy.  Sorry.