Cosplay has been around for decades now. The first one was presented at one of the science fiction conventions in 1984 in Japan. Where do cosplayers get ideas for the costumes? They get inspired by pretty much anything. It can be their favorite character from the movie, or a book, or a video game, or anime – or as with this cosplayer from Switzerland – the statue of Anubis. And it does look majestic!
The idea came about when she saw the statue of Anubis designed by Hui Zou online and fell in love with it right away. She wanted to make her own version of the character, so she reached out to the artist and asked if she could make a low-poly cosplay from it, and he agreed.
In case you are wondering what low-poly means, it’s an old school 3D computer graphics with a smaller number of polygons. Apparently, low poly art is one of the hottest trends these days. Generally, cosplayers want their costumes to look more realistic, but Martina wanted it to look more digital and artificial instead.
She started out with designing the templates for her future costume using a 3D software called Blender. As for the materials for the project, she got them all from the local hardware store. She used mirror vinyl for the shiny parts and a window tint foil for the throat so she could see through it when putting it on.
The designer admits that it took her a year and approximately 1000 hours to build the costume. Since she’s quite a novice to the field, sometimes she had to spend a lot of time planning and figuring out how to make certain parts of the costume work right. For example, the costume is made of rigid PVC which makes it impossible to move around in. She also had to figure out how to get in and out of the costume on her own.
Another peculiar thing about the armor is that it gets dirty very easily, so you have to make sure your hands are clean before you handle it. Also, you can’t spend too much time in the sun in it, it gets too hot too fast because of all the vinyl and PVC.
Amazingly, but even though this is her third costume, Martina does not think she has mastered the art of costume making yet and believes there is still a ton to learn. She loves doing costume designing as a hobby. It combines the things she’s passionate about, like crafting, art, design, and 3D software.
Knowing that the character she cosplayed is not exactly well-known, she had no idea it would become such a hit among the cosplay community. Martina knew that polygon art has been fondly appreciated lately but she never expected such an overwhelming response.