The Dragonborn

This costume has been featured on Kotaku and has made the front page of Reddit several times.

I also starred in a Skyrim short in this costume!

The first gallery shows images taken on the shoot for Volpin Props with his gorgeous Ancient Nord Helmet.

I was given the opportunity to model Volpin’s gorgeous Ancient Nord helmet with my armor! The pictures turned out great. All photos by Max Song.

See the rest of the pictures on Volpin’s blog!

See his build process of the helmet here!

I am very excited to have finally made an Elder Scrolls related costume. I am a huge fan and have wanted to cosplay something Elder Scrolls for YEARS and saw an opportunity with the recent Skyrim madness.

I didn’t do any of the higher level armor sets because not only was time a factor for me, but I also really wanted to make some awesome, rugged, more realistic looking armor. Fantasy armor is cool and all, and I do love it, but I was really feeling the grungy theme with Skyrim – so after collecting every armor set I could in-game and playing dress up I finally settled on the Banded Iron Armor, Iron helmet and shield, and the Ancient Nord War Axe.

This costume was a journey. Not only is this the biggest project I’ve ever taken on but it was also the fastest I’ve ever completed a costume.

All of the armor is Wonderflex, a thermoplastic. To get the correct curvature, the pieces were heat formed over pots, pans, jars, etc. The breast plate was heated and formed over my dress form. The helmet was formed over my boyfriend’s head for the top dome shape, and the face pieces were heat formed on to my face for a perfect fit. The back detailing and horns were added after. I used Apoxie Sculpt to smooth over the seams, add the “rivets” and the other raised areas. The horn base is wire mesh and duct tape encased in Wonderflex, with Apoxie Sculpt on top for the ridges.

The seams and other imperfections on the armor were also corrected with Apoxie Sculpt then sanded. The pyramid spikes are 1 inch spikes I ordered and attached to the armor with Apoxie Sculpt. I then sanded it to look seamless.

The armor was gessoed, sanded, primed and then painted with Rustoleum’s “hammered metal” spray paint in dark grey. It created an awesome texture. I then painted on top of that with acrylic paints to create a weathered and rusted look. Painting the armor was definitely the most fun part! Once everything was painted, it was sprayed with several layers of satin finish clear coat for protection.

For the shoot with Volpin’s Ancient Nord helmet, I added rust effects on my armor that were previously very subtle. I tried to match the color of the rust on Volpin’s helmet. I also dirtied up the fur and pants/shirt a bit to give it more of a rugged feel. The main complaint I got from my first set of photos was “too clean” – and I agree! I feel it looks much better now with the added weathering.

The armor is held on by real leather straps with leather snaps in them. The opposite side of the snaps are embedded in Apoxie Sculpt on the back of the armor pieces for easy removal. The belts, butt pack, and loincloth are also real leather. They are from cheap hides I got off ebay, marked down for their imperfections – but imperfections is what I wanted.

The “buckle” on the chest belt and waist belt were sculpted out of Chavant NSP, molded in silicone, and cast in resin. They are loosely based on the in-game model of this armor, but the texture was fairly low res so I took that as an opportunity to make my own designs. They’re both inspired by Celtic engravings, and on the chest belt buckle I included an Ouroboros, an ancient symbol representing infinity, eternity, and the cycle of life and death. I thought that was appropriate.

The fur is everything I had left over from when I made my Kirin armor. Yay recycling! The fact that I already had the fur and the Wonderflex laying around was the deciding factor in making this costume happen. I started out of the convenience of already having a lot of the materials, but then it expanded in to something much more involved than intended.

Special thanks to my boyfriend Max for not only taking photos, but for helping me with this every step of the way. He helped fit things to me countless times, and also exerted his manly force upon the leather rivets and most of the snaps. Thanks Max!