Diablo III Demon Hunter Cosplay Guide
Check out this amazing Demon Hunter cosplay build by our sponsored cosplayer Vyndi. Stay connected with more builds and up to date progress by visiting Vyndi on Instagram. Items used in this build include:
As I (apparently) love starting new projects, I have made off and on progress on my Diablo 3 demon hunter helmet. It's ready to be painted, but I'm reigning myself in so I can eventually paint all pieces together. I used the Kamui cosplay helmet pattern for the base and drew details with the masking tape method. I also used (and modified) her new horn patterns.
Finally working on this again. Plasti-dip'd the breastplate today with great success. Reference on third photo. Breastplate pattern from Kamui cosplay then altered.
Slow going working on my demon hunter pauldron today. Once the other horn is completed and attached, I'll finally begin sculpting the demon skull thing. I think I'm going to go at it with some foam clay, we'll see. I'm simultaneously most excited and scared to work on it! - Patterns from Kinpatsucosplay then altered.
While I admit I'm not a master sculptor, I'm proud of how my derpy shoulder skull turned out! It looks like hes wearing a little hat. He was "sculpted" with foam clay onto the existing shoulder piece, then I cut out the mouth section. I may put some sort of backdrop in there.... but it all depends on how clean the rigging turns out! Patterns from Kinpatsucosplay then altered.
Let's talk about this dang helmet. My next piece is a remake of my original helmet. The first one ended up being just too tight (especially with a wig on) and also a bit flimsy. I ended up harvesting the horns off of the old and slamming them onto the new, which saved an insane amount of time. I heard of putting worbla on the inside of foam to give structure (I think from Kinpatsucosplay or Kamuicosplay), so I tried it on version 2.0. It worked like a charm and really helped give the front edges the shape and bend-ability I was looking for.
Some torso completion! I've found that the rigging on the chest piece needs to redone (boob level seems a bit low, haha ). Otherwise, i am happy with how it lays against the corset. I am (obviously) only holding the shoulder up, but I am happy with its scale. I need to either get its rigging done or the inside of the helmet done so I can try both on together without having to hold everything - Patterns from Kinpatsucosplay and Kamuicosplay.
Some additional pictures of the new helmet while the old one looms jealously in the shadows...Some build notes: I removed the horns from the old helmet and slammed them onto the new one to save some time. Without them giving additional integrity to the old helmet, you can see how horrid the form holds up. I lined the inside of the new helmet with Thibra (Worbla would surely work too) to give it additional strength.
Nearing the finish line of the leg armor (sans the knee things at least). I kept staring at the knee things thinking they're scaled just a bit too small, so I ended up caving and redoing them (I'm banking on easily adding them later) I struggled to conceptualize the patterns of the shin armor. I wanted the profiles to remain as close to my leg as possible, and all my drafts were bulky af. I ended up taking huge shape inspiration from @lightning_cosplay and her past DH build. I also added worbla to the underside to help keep the curved shape around my leg (tip courtesy Kinpatsucosplay) The thigh armor ended up being a bit "easier," and I was able to just draft it on myself. They also have worbla on the inside to help retain some shape against my leg. Straps aren't finished yet, so excuse them waving around haphazardly.
A little size comparison on the knee things. I kept getting hung up on the scale of my first attempt in comparison to the reference, and I think I just need to get over the crazy proportions. My attempts to get the tip of the knee thing to reach up to the thigh armor looked insane in real life, so I'm going to go with saying this (scaling them down a tad) was both a practical and artistic liberty.
Unsurprisingly my adjustable dress form doesn't match my measurements at all. Maybe in the future (if I grow the gonads to start a sewing centered project) I'll pad it out and make a custom fit cover thing. In the meantime, it's a glorified hanger and late night jumpscare - Original chest piece base from Kamuicosplay.
Began work on the other shoulder finally. Still needs a bit of trim and the what feels like the millionth cross thing. I really wanted the line details to be indented, and I ended up layering two pieces of foam on top of each other with the top piece having the details cut out. This could have used some Cricut magic. To start, I traced the shape from the reference, printed it out, and created a pattern from it. The reference is kinda a muddled mess near the neck, but I think the shape is close enough. I am happy with it Thank you primers for hiding my messy glue.
Baby knee things meet their parents. I originally scaled the pattern too small, but only really realized it once the shin armor was finished. The proportions just looked... off. Scaling the leg armor to real life human leg proportions has been my biggest struggle.
Time to clean up my messy glue and prime this sucker. I'm really happy with the shape/silhouette after a pattern fail (or, you know, multiple). I was worried I would overly bulk it, and one of the things I like about the reference is the asymmetrical "weight/size" of the shoulders. But it turned out really well. For the pattern I just ended up tracing the piece and it's details on illustrator and then printing it out. This is always my tried and true.
Finished the smaller shoulder yesterday, but I wanted to get photos of it with the other to show the size. My current plan is to attach the other 'lower' shoulder pieces to the top/shirt in order to keep "some" arm mobility. Horn patterns from Kamuicosplay
Been dying to do a spread sans bracer+glove (my only two remaining pieces to build). Sometime I'll figure out a weapon.... but I'm still debating whether to do something directly from the game or just make hand crossbows to fit the costume style.
A lot of the pieces have faux straps partially adhered. I'm hoping to keep these pieces up with strong magnets sewn into the leggings, so the straps are just aesthetic.
- Helmet base, chest base, and horn patterns from Kamuicosplay then altered.
Some successful leg tests! I am loving the silhouette. These are currently held up by a prayer; once the pants are finished I am planning to use magnets to hold it up.This little test helped me figure out where to put the freaking knee things as well. Everything has been plastidipped but not painted. Meanwhile the leggings are..... going somewhere. It's been a lot of trial and error to both get a visual design I'm happy with and that actually functionally works.
Feeling a bit emboldened by the response to the last post/try-on. Thank you everyone for the encouraging comments and feedback! They motivated me to finish the pants today. The pants went through a lot of trial and error. Originally I wanted them to be actual cut outs, but the 'structure' of the cut outs wasn't harmonizing well with the stretch of the beautiful faux suede I got from @moodfabrics. Many, many.... many trials later, I am finally happy with the size and shape of the 'openings.' ☺️ I managed to tie the bottom of the corset (badly) on my own, but otherwise it's just held up by hopes and dreams (my hand). The knee things still aren't permanently attached, and I'm thinking of adding a little bit of armor to the shoes. Other than that (and paint obviously), the bottom half is almost over! Faux suede for leggings (2 different tones used) from Moodfabrics and the Yayahan fabric line!
Played around with some of the Lumiere Metallics I have ready for painting. This is just straight acrylic dry brushing, no airbrushing (yet). I'm pretty impressed; the color Pewter is exactly what I was hoping.
Made the right arm bracer (even though it's on my left arm here...) a while ago and forgot to post it. Still unsure about the shape, but maybe I'm just staring too long at the picture.
Felt like the shoes were a bit bare, so I made these little feet protectors! The reference is a blurred mess, so I just free-handed a pattern. I think this design also goes better with the heeled style of shoes I wanted.
Finally shifting gears to focus 100% on this monster. Built the weapons across the past three days out of foam and Black Worbla. I wanted them to be a bit sturdier than just foam since they'll probably get tossed about a lot. Loosely based off of the Diablo 3 Demon Hunter cinematic hand crossbows. Only the base coat of paint is featured in this photo. Everything now has it's first layer of paint.
Base coats are all laid down; I feel like I've been putting off taking this step but holy crap did two coats of base color change my mind . I am using Jacquardproducts Lumiere metallic paints. Everything has a layer of Pewter, and the shoulder horns got a layer of Sunset Gold cause I couldn't hold back my excitement any longer and had to see how the color would look.
Painted phase 2 today, the darker brass parts! I'm exercising a ton of patience right now to not continue on and paint the lighter brass trims, but I want to make super crazy, make sure that the paint is dry before masking over it. The helmet has also gotten a coat of the weird brass color in the reference image. I haven't decided yet if I want to follow the references colors for the helm. So I just figured I'd lay down a coat and see how I feel about it surrounded by the other parts.
More and more painting! Adding the lighter brass color today to compliment/highlight the darker, "old brass." I was worried that there wouldn't be enough contrast between the different metallic colors, but apparently that was unfounded... Can't believe both the coverage and dimension of these acrylics
Everything starting to match! I still get that giddy feeling when everything starts visibly coming together. Brass is finished and tape removed. Just need to go through and clean up a few mistakes that got through the tape, then onward to airbrushing!! I am hoping to just airbrush the crevices a bit to feather out some of the darker corners (there is already a nice amount of dimension from sponging the paint on). Then I'm hoping to give the pieces an oil 'wash' a la Kamuicosplay to bring out the details, and finally a hit of rub and buff to highlight the peaks.
Yes we in the endgame now! More try on's in the spirit of keeping momentum going! Finished up adding snaps to the scarf to help keep it from flying all around and doing it's own thing. These contacts are my new favorites. I can't wait to use them for a night elf!!
Did some wig dying and cutting last night. I got this short wig from Arda Wigs on clearance, I think they were discontinuing the original color (Rose Gold). You can see some of it in the removed bang wefts in the 2nd pic. While I loved the rose gold, I wanted it to be a bit darker to fit the Diablo aesthetic. I also felt like the pink didn't lend itself to the armor paint job. So I got some brown and black ink (I've had nothing but success using the Kinpatsucosplay method) and went to town. I used more black than brown and ended up with..... whatever this color is, AND I LOVE IT. I tried it on with both the scarves and helmet and the color "tone" fits so well. So very happy with this happy accident.
Gettin' shady. So close to seeing the end of this paint job. I'm excited to see what (if any) additional details the oil wash will bring out.
More work today. Added an oil wash to the horns and a little sprinkle of rub and buff on the tips/edges for a little bit of a pop.
Added some shadows to the helmet since I forgot to do it with the rest of the armor 😅... This picture has the body and only one horn completed. It's crazy to see what a difference just shadows make. I also think I'm going to keep the helmet color different than the armor (true to the reference). But I think when I add the highlights onto this I'll add a little something over the details to change their color a bit/make them pop.
Yass weapon update finally! These just need a little wham bam highlight and then they'll be finished. I ended up using a few really amazingly useful techniques with these. The raised details are black worbla stuffed into a silicone filagree mold and individually attached. The wood and hilt texture were added by using stamps on heated worbla. Wood texture stamp is revolutionary.
Moar horn goodies! I love the way the highlights at the peaks of the details look. I'm also pleased with the oil was in the details that I heat tooled onto the foam.
However, I wish I had done the layers in a thicker foam so I could have made the grooves deeper, since I lost a lot of their depth in my heavy handed plasti-dipping Always learning for the next build.
Finished some pieces today! I finished adding highlights and some more shadows today This process has really made me fall in love with oil paints, and I will absolutely be working with them more in my next project. Hoping to continue working on rigging this weekend, but it depends on how long the paint takes to dry. Honestly their 'blendability' makes this 'con' seem like nothing
Aaaannnddd finished adding some shadows and highlights here as well. The wood grain should lighten up as the oil paint dries. I know this because it had dried down quite nicely and then my dumb ass decided to just straight up grab it by accident.
More testing as I work on straps and rigging. I wasn't happy with the back of the breastplate, so I tore it apart and changed it to a zipper. This made the piece for better and looks much much better. I'm working on making a piece to cover the zipper now (almost finished painting it) .Also, sometimes ya face just ain't it.
Primed and catching some nice light outside. All the painting is finally done, and now I am spray sealing everything. I flirted with the idea of using brush-on sealer, but I'm not sure if the extra time would have made a difference. I'm happy with the bit of shine the sealer added!
Also decided to make some finger poke's to make holding things as difficult as possible (kidding). They're straight Eva foam (sealed+painted) so they are easy to boop around with.
You can see some of the additional detail in the undershirt in this picture. I ended up weathering and gluing individual strips of fabric to the shirt to create the tattered, layered look. I airbrushed some more detail over when they were all laid, and then roughed it up a little with my hands to make it lay less flat and perfect. Since this try on I've fixed a few rigging issues and added some additional support where needed. I'm working on the gauntlet and bracer next, so... HOPEFULLY FULL TRY ON SOON??
Everything is standing on it's own now!! Another round of test fitting today, and we are still almost there. I've ended up having additional ideas for polishing up bots of the armor and have taken the time to follow those through. One of those included cleaning up the inside of the larger pauldron to hide the ugly spacers needed to make it sit so high. I covered this ugly area with a piece of foam and filled the cracks with foam clay. Sanded, heat sealed, and primed with plastidip. Also love my asymmetrical tails~ love them flopping around. I didn't have to do anything to get them to stay in place, the armor and rigging does all that for me
Some detail shots! Still none of the insides yet, I'm still making some last minute strap adjustments. The breastplate is also going to get taken in some near the armpits to allow for additional comfort and range of motion. It's nice to have gotten things for Phoenix Fan Fusion done a bit early so that I can fiddle with the little things leading up.
