I suppose I decided to cosplay 'Bad End' Wirt instead of just Wirt because I see cosplay as a way to test my skills so I can keep getting better. I want to be challenged and so, unless I absolutely love the character, I don't see the point in making a costume that doesn't push me to get better. I do love Wirt as a character, but I also love putting my own twist on my cosplays, to stand out from the crowd a bit.
There wasn't too much planning to do with this costume. Wirt's default outfit is pretty simple with a white button up shirt tucked into grey pants. Black suspenders, a blue cloak with red lining, black shoes, short brown hair, and a pointy red hat. Most of that was pretty simple but I wanted to incorporate elements of 'The Beast' into his design, namely the branches coming out of his head. This is Wirt if 'The Beast' won.
My original intention was to have the branches coming out of either side of Wirt's head as well as vines wrapping around his chest and throat. I did start molding some wire to fit around my shoulders but I eventually dumped that idea because I didn't want it to look too busy or for the vines to take away from the cloak. Speaking of...
The cloak was made using the pattern "McCall's M7225 Adult Cape & Tunic Costumes Adult" from Spotlight, which is also where I bought my fabrics. I wanted something reasonably dark and heavy so it fit the moody tones of the show and so the coat would hang nicely. I went with a cheap red poplin for the inside lining because the quality of that fabric wouldn't be seen too easily and because I wanted the colour to still be reasonably prominent despite being hidden on the inside of the cloak. Also poplin is cheap as heck.
The pattern was reasonably easy to sew but I panicked when I got to the collar and biffed it. The seam was hanging out all over the place. So I bought a red cotton ribbon and stuck it over the mess with fabric glue. None the wiser.
The pants, shoes, shirt, suspenders; All Big W. I'm not fancy. Budget cosplay means more money for burritos.
The hat took a bit of planning. I was afraid that if I just sewed a cone, it wouldn't have enough structural integrity to stand up straight. I also decided that because I was going for a 'Bad End Wirt' rather than Wirt's standard design, I didn't want to use a bright red for the hat because I felt it would detract from the melancholy vibe of the cosplay. So, I bought a deep red velvety fabric and cut up a cheap witches hat to use as a pattern. After sewing my fabric into a floppy cone shape, I stuffed it with a bit of teddy bear stuffing. To seal the stuffing in I wanted to give the hat a base but I didn't want to try sewing one or put in too much effort. I swear I had seen felt hat bases somewhere but I searched for ages and found nothing, so I ended up buying a cheap tough felt pirate hat and cut off the brim. I slipped the base into the cone and folded the excess fabric around the brim and stuck it down on the inside of the base using fabric glue.
I decided for the wig that I wanted to do something a little bit different to my usual cosplays. My rule is that no matter the character, even if they have the exact same hair as me, always where a wig, and (usually) invest in a good one. But this time. Well, I was going to be wearing a big hat, and have a tall collar, and branches coming out of either side of my head. The only bits of hair that were really going to be showing were the fringe and the middle of the back, which I've found, because they're usually the fullest parts of the wigs, they're the most difficult to stuff up. Plus I didn't need a lace front because I didn't have my hair line showing. So I decided to buy a cheap ass wig from Spotlight. Now don't get me wrong, Spotlight is a blessing and I love it to bits, but another rule of mine is that I always by my wigs online, cause real life ones are intended to be sold to the general, non-cosplaying, public who frankly have lower standards as to wig quality. So I always try to get my wigs from a quality retailer who specialises in making wigs and cosplay items. But even so, I decided I wanted to try to fix a cheap wig.
So I bought one from Spotlight. It was $19 (AuD), '70`s Dude Wig Brown'. Honestly, it wasn't too bad. The back was a bit short but my collar is tall so you can't really see that. The part is where lower quality wigs tend to fall flat for me as they tend to be pretty unrealistic. This one wasn't great, but I would be wearing a hat, so I was chill with that. The only issue I'd have to deal with was the shine. I did not have access to a fabric softener so I coated the wig with baby powder and brushed it through till I was satisfied with how matte it was.
I've never styled a wig before so this was a fun new experience, and I felt a lot safer doing my first wig cutting on a cheap wig that I could easily replace if I stuffed up rather than a hundred dollar lace front. One of my concerns was that if I cut the wig while it was on a foam head, it wouldn't sit well when I put it on my head, like the fringe would look shorter on me than on the mannequin, so I decided to put it on myself to cut it. I made sure to put my hair back well in a wig cap so I wouldn't accidentally cut any of my own hair. The back of the wig was already pretty short so I didn't want to cut it any further and besides, you wouldn't be able to see it very well because of how high the collar is, so I left the back as is. Considering this wig was not a lace front and the hair line wasn't very good, I wanted to disguise the area around my ears and to kind of mimic sideburns to look more masculine.
Wirt pretty much has three pieces of hair making up his fringe, the two next to his ears and a triangle shaped piece on his forehead. When I first put the wig on and separated out the pieces, the middle one really hung in my eyes, and so I trimmed this back quite a bit and ended up curling it up slightly to stay out of my eyes and make it look like a more natural hair style while still meeting the three pronged fringe requirement. I thinned out the front quite a bit because it seemed unnaturally bulky to me, and Wirt seems to have pretty thin hair. The wig ended up looking a lot thicker than Wirt's hair should be, but I decided I could take a bit of artistic license with that. I made sure the wig sat well with the hat on and set it with some hair spray.
Amendment - 12/01/2021
~ Since creating this post I have worn this cosplay many, many times and it has become both my primary and comfort cosplay. I ended up upgrading the wig. Though I was proud of myself for 'fixing' a cheap wig, it didn't compare to a proper, good quality one. I now use the Light Brown 'Benny Classic' from Arda, It's curly, which isn't canon, but I think it looks cute, so... ~
The most involved items of the outfit were the branches, hand, and lantern. I've seen other cosplayers make the branches black to look more like 'The Beast' in shadow, but I wanted it to look more like Wirt was being over taken by Edelwood. I've done costumes with horns before and I've had trouble securing the horns to the head band and have also felt afraid of the horns coming off in the stress of a convention. So for this one I used a single piece of sturdy wire as the base of one branch, had it run over the top of the headband, and over into the other branch. This meant I had a single piece of wire
running from one end of the head piece to the other. I built up some more 'twigs' by sticking smaller pieces of wire onto the main branches with masking tape and once I was happy with the base, I wrapped it in aluminum foil, concentrating on the base of the branch, and sealing it with masking tape. The next step I did, I ended up changing because I wasn't happy with the finish, but I'll mention it anyway. I wrapped the branches from top to bottom in a brown wool. I really tried to concentrate on the parts where the branches split. After the wool was complete I added layers of paint till the wool almost blended together and looked like just a singular ridged item. At first I was happy with this, it wasn't till later that I decided to have another crack at it.
The next item I worked on was the lantern. I decided to make the lantern from scratch because I felt like a hand made prop would look more consistent with the rest of the costume rather than if I just went out and bought a prop lantern. I bought some thin and bendable wood strips. They were only maybe one or two millimeters thick. I stuck some together and cut them to make three circular pieces, for the top and bottom of the main body of the lantern, as well it's stand. The next step was a struggle. I used the remaining pieces of wood to form the body of the lantern bending them slightly to create a barrel like shape and hot gluing them in place. What I ended up doing was make a straight cylinder with a few pieces of the wood and then adding bended pieces to the outside so it looked barrel-like but still had the structural integrity of the straight pieces inside. I cut a circle out of one side of the body and added some semicircular pieces of wood to make a little window into where the fake candle would sit. I also used some cardboard cones I bought from a dollar store for the little stand on the bottom and the vent/chimney thing on the top (as well as a mason jar lid). The handle I made by bending some wire into a nice shape, wrapping it was masking tape and then wool. I painted the entire piece with varying shades of brown and copper.
Because I wanted it to look like Wirt was slowly being consumed by Edelwood vines, I wanted to add some crawling out of the lantern. For this I followed a similar process to the branches, bending wire into shapes I was happy with, covering them in aluminium and then masking tape. I didn't wrap these in wool however and skipped straight to painting them. I also added a few fake leaves. I wasn't particularly happy with the vines in the end and I did eventually change them again, but for the time being I figured they would do and looked okay from a distance.
The last item was the hand. This was the idea I came up with to replace vines wrapping around his throat and chest. I felt the hand would help to balance out the costume a bit more. I started with a dollar store glove and stuck some Halloween witch fingers to the end. I used the same technique as the branches to give the hand vines that were slowly winding up my arm. Wire, foil, masking tape. I glued the vines onto the glove. I also used craft foam and cut out ridges that followed and enhanced my hands bone structure, to make it look more bulky and ridged. Once all these pieces were in place I went over the entire hand with a hot glue gun, running it up and down to try to mimic the grain of wood. Once the glue had cooled I painted the hand with a layer of gesso to fill in some of the gaps between the foam and glue and to make it look a bit smoother. I tried to create a few 'holes' using the gesso, like hollows in tree trunks, similar to the holes on the arms of the beast, but a bit smaller and more subtle. I used a hair dryer and time to dry the gesso and then got to painting. I used a mix of white and red oxide to give a beige-y colour, and added hints of red or orange when I felt it necessary. Once the base coat was done I went over a few details with a slightly darker shade to give it depth. I then also used straight red oxide to colour in some of the holes I had made to make them more prominent. The main issue with the hand is that you just can't bend your fingers in it. It renders your hand non-functional. One day I plan to make a copy of the hand out of something like latex so it is bendable, but at this point I am satisfied with having a cool looking, useless monster claw.
Once I saw how the hot glue/gesso combo looked on the hand I decided to go back over the branches and the vines on the lantern to give them the same effect. I didn't have to start them again, thank goodness, and just went over each item with the same finish. I think they all look a lot more like Edelwood this way, and it makes the cosplay seem more consistent.
The finishing touch of the outfit is the makeup. The only additions I made to my basic masculine makeup is some extra blush on his nose and cheeks as well as the 'oil' running from his eyes. This I did using a simple black liquid eyeliner, keeping the strokes thin. I tried to think of how the oil would run under gravity. I did try making them look like droplets but I wasn't happy with how it looked and tried out the 'dark veins' style instead, which I much preferred. In terms of contouring I tried to make him look thin and gaunt, highlighting his cheekbones and darkening the insides corners of his eyes. Often when doing makeup, especially of the masculine variety, I like to use a reference photo. Because Wirt is animated and doen't have a detailed face, I found a photo of a guy that had a facial structure that I thought would work for this look and based my makeup off of that. You can find that photo and the other reference photos I used on my Pinterest, under my Cosplay reference Board, Wirt subsection.
And that's Bad End Wirt! At the time of posting this build I hadn't taken any proper cosplay photos of Wirt, but rest assured they will pop up in my Cosplay section sooner or later.
Jasper xx
Amendment - 12/01/2021
~ And here he is, complete;
Comentários