I'd rather be napping

Another week gone by and it's time again for Throwback Thursday!  This one's going pretty far back, and I'm sure it comes as no surprise that it's a Fire Emblem cosplay, since I figure I need to work one in every so often so when I run out of other costumes you won't just get a long string of them haha.

This is definitely one of my favorite FE cosplays because he's one of my favorite characters, and I'm pretty confident that I'm the only person to date who has ever cosplayed him. I'm referring, of course, to the one-eyed wyvern rider Haar.

Haar has always been one of my favorite characters in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, partially for his design, partially for his attitude, and mostly for the fact that he's a doom machine. He is pretty much one of the only two axe-wielder I use in those games, along with Kieran (since Boyd is such a delicate flower).

Putting Haar together was an interesting journey, since it was one of my earlier cosplays, and it was the first time (and really only time thus far) that I've tried making faux armor. Thankfully, the cloth parts were pretty easy, and the armor covered some spot that let me cheat on some bits.

The tunic I made covers just the underneath parts, and the panel that hangs in the front is a separate piece that buttons onto the front. The tunic itself has a huge head hole and is sleeveless (cause I was not very good with drafting at that point so that tended to happen a lot). Fortunately, the armor covers everything up there so I could just use a black collared shirt underneath the tunic and you'd never know it wasn't all one garment! Wow am I lazy XD

Well, that may have been partially because I spent all of my time and energy on the armor, cause it was a doozy. I used craft foam and poster board to make all of it. Thankfully most of the pieces only needed to curve in a single direction, so I would cut out the foam piece for the back, slather on some mod podge with a paintbrush, then stick it to the poster board. To get it to hold the curve I needed, I'd wrap the piece around a large cardboard tube and rubber-band it on while it was drying. Because of the thickness of the foam, when it dried it held the curve! There are lots of great tutorials online for this and similar methods for craft foam armor, so I won't go any more in-depth with the details, particularly because I never took any progress photos while I was making it. I think this was the tutorial I used, though I didn't follow it exactly and used some different stuff in parts, nevertheless it was a good starting point for me, given that I had no clue what I was doing.

The axe was another fun thing to make cause it's just so darn big. It's all cardboard & paper mache, though the pole at the center is pvc. Very simple build & paint, which is why you can see the contours in the paper mache pieces if you look closely. Thankfully it still photographs well so you'd never know.

The great thing about wearing Haar was that all I had to do for posing was look sleepy XD

The downside was that I wore it to Otakon in the middle of summer in Baltimore... cause I'm a dumbass. Seasonal planning for cosplay hadn't really occurred to me yet so I spent the day nearly dying of heat stroke. Live and learn. The other issue was that we never actually did much of a photoshoot so these are the only 2 pictures I have of him. I definitely want to wear him again in the future so I can do a real photoshoot and get some good quality photos of him, because he really is one of my favorite characters, and for all of the work I put into this costume, he deserves some quality photos. Hell, I'd pay for a professional photographer with this one.

That is not going to happen too soon though, as his armor got a lot of wear and tear at the con. Also, being a newb at the time, I didn't think to use black or white foam for the base because the packs of large sheets I found at the store were all multicolored, so the base foam is all bright green, red, yellow, & pink. Needless to say, it's super obvious in the spots where the paint has worn off

not so subtle...

So thankfully I've learned my lesson, which I will now pass on to you: use foam that's roughly the color you're painting it!! Or use black, because the dark won't show up as obviously as the wierd-ass colors I used.

So, slowly but surely I'm working on repainting his armor so I can wear it again, I'm thinking of maybe shooting for Youmacon on October or Ohayocon next January. No more summer cons for Haar, he'll (I'll) sweat to death.

Well that's all for now folks; later, lovelies!