Naya Hushblade: Magic the Gathering

I love Magic the Gathering.  Not just for the game, but for the art.  Jason Chan has illustrated many, many MTG cards, and he remains one of my favorite artists.  I primarily run green decks, so when I saw his Naya Hushblade card, I knew I needed it.

I know.  Judge me.  I build my decks not only around functionality, but also the pretty artwork. 

This cosplay took me SO outside my comfort zone. Every time I say I won’t sew any more leather, somehow I manage to do it again.  This costume was 70% leather, 20% Worbla, and 10% silk. 

I started building the armor first, as I was most excited about that.  I started with a paper pattern, then transferred it to a layer of craft foam.  I did the edges and detail in another layer of foam, then heated the worbla over that and folded the edges over.

There was not a real clear view of the design of the armor, so I made mine up.  The paulderon features the green mana symbol, the two bracers have furled leaves, and the upper arm piece just has a few decorative lines.

Unfortunately I should have tried the foam versions on before doing Worbla over them.  The finished pieces are MUCH too large and made movement really difficult.

The silk skirt was easy, only taking an hour or two to throw together, but the leather took some time.  I drafted the leather top on my dressform in cotton and then transferred the pattern to the leather.  I had planned to line the leather with green cotton so it wouldn’t chafe against my skin, but the leather was getting too thick for my machine, so I threw that plan away pretty early.

The gold details are green leather piping that I made by hand and captured between the pieces.  Then I painted each of the details in gold leaf paint.  Terrible idea really, even after “drying” it smeared EVERYWHERE.  So I painted over the gold leaf with some gold acrylic paint.  This helped significantly, but did not totally solve the problem.

The sword was made with foam, Worbla, PVC pipe, and Gesso.  I really wish I could start over on this part because I really dislike the way it turned out, but it was functional, and looked nice enough from a distance.

Lastly I made a pair of elf ears.  Following the advice from this tutorial: http://celticruins.deviantart.com/art/Cheap-Ear-Prosthetic-Tutorial-407434040 I made my elf ears.  If I do say so myself, I think they turned out really well. 

I only stayed for a few hours because I was SO hot and uncomfortable in this outfit.  By the end I was feeling dizzy and nauseous and knew I needed to go home.  But I did manage to get some good pictures before I died of sweating, including one with Karl Urban!