Mitternacht Cosplay: Maiev Shadowsong

Reference - Maiev Shadowson

Bio
Character: Maiev Shadowsong
Origin: World of Warcraft
Year constructed: 2014
Debuted at: DreamHack Summer 2014

Why?
Why not??? Maiev is one of my favorite characters from the entire Warcraft-series, and with her new sleek armor from the Outland loading screen, I really had no choice. I love that she's not as over-sexualized as many of the other female WoW-characters, she has these badass freaking shoulder pads and this imposing helmet, not to mention her -weapon-. Love her from the bottom of her boots to the top of her fuzzy little white ponytail <3

How
Maiev proved a challenge because I only had less than two weeks to actually finish the costume. All of a sudden I decided I should try competing in the Dreamhack Cosplay Championship with this costume, and because of work and other grown-up-biz, I had to finish her in twelve days.

I started with drawing up all of her armor pieces on cardboard, to get all the proper measurements and get a sense of how the pieces would look together. This is something I always do for all my armor costumes, to save material and in the end, time. After that was done, I started with building her chest piece, seeing as that would be one of the three hard parts of this costume (the helmet and shoulders being the other two.) Please note that I worked only with the artwork as reference, and it differs a LOT from her in-game model. I tried combining them at first, but quickly realized they were much too different, so I had to improvise on the parts that are poorly shown in the artwork.

Chest piece in the making.
Please do not note the mess in the background.

The base is made out of worbla, which I shaped over my mannequin. The edges are simply made in craft foam - I had very little time and even less worbla to work with, so we were back to the BASICS while making this costume. I covered the entire thing in several layers of wood glue -it's great for smoothing out craft foam, if you mix it wit ha little water to prevent the brush fomr making brush strokes. After that was done, I jumped directly onto the helmet. I made it out of paper first, just as with the other armor parts, and it took me a little more than a day to get the beak in a good looking size, as well as make the "ears" on the helmet even and well balanced. The helmet was also coated in wood glue.

Testing the shoulders for size.
In this photo they look very uneven
due to a crappy angle though :P

The shoulders were hard. They are very signature for this character, so I had to get the shape right, but still curve the sholder "blades" enough so that I would be able to turn my head without the helmet ears bumping into the shoulder blades. Also they blades had to look symmetrical, so the shoulders really had to be -identical-. They are made out of expanding foam, which I then covered in paper clay, sanded, sanded some more, sanded even more, and finally painted and coated. They are stuffed with upholstery foam to help my weak, small real shoulders to support them. They look a lot smaller in photos along with the rest of the costume, but when I wear only the shoulders they are HUGE. The shoulder blades are made in worbla, with craft foam to texture out the details. They were covered in several layers of wood glue as well.

Glaive-blades before being fastened
onto the hula-hoop

After the three main parts, I kind of threw together the remaining pieces - claws for her gloves, armguards, leg guards, shin guards, belt and a few other things. The cape is HUGE and is attached directly onto the shoulder pads, giving me a huge and scary frame. Sadly, her iconic knives which are attached to the cape were what suffered the most from my lack of time, and they were simply cut out in worbla with foam to texturize them.

The glaive is made with a hula-hoop (!) as core, and worbla blades added around it. I covered it in fine filler to make it sturdy enough to throw around, sanded it and covered it in wood glue.

After all the pieces were done, I spent a day painting them, and this is where I wish I'd had have more time, because a good paint job can save a rushed design, but sadly I had to rush the paint job as well. Some day I would love to repaint it, and remake all the details I fell I rushed too much. This costume really looks better from a distance, if you look close you can tell I hurried it. But it doesn't really matter, because I'm proud as heck I managed to do it in such a short time anyways.

Finished glaive

Thoughts

Despite rushing this costume so badly, I came in 2nd place in Dreamhack's cosplay contest. I did NOT expect that, since the single reason I even entered the contest was because both Yaya Han and Kamui were judging the contest, and them being two of my largest inspirations when it comes to cosplay, I really wanted to meet them. Ending up in second place in a contest judged by them was just a bonus, the real prize was knowing they actually looked at my costume (senpais noticed me!).

Even though there is a LOT that can be done better with this costume, I love where it took me and I love that I proved to myself that I can work really fast under pressure. Never want to rush a costume this badly ever again though :P

Photos
Click for larger versions!
Photos taken by Shila Forsman Photography and Dreamhack's Flickr.