Bringing an Amazon to Life

When I put my mind to something, very little can stop me. Common sense and logic were completely forgotten with this intense labor of love. I spent way too much money, way too much time, called in a lot of favors, and had a few near-breakdowns, all in the name of bringing an Amazon to life.

For months I studied Wonder Woman cosplay pictures online. Many of them were very, very good. However, I noticed that most were based on the 4-color comic book idea of Diana. While I love that image, I wanted to bring a Christopher Nolan-style Wonder Woman to life. I wanted a REAL amazon, with REAL armor. This would be outside the realm of most first-time cosplayers, but (lucky for me) I’m a nerd. After working at Renaissance Faires for over a decade (fuck, has it really been that long???) I’ve made some really talented friends.

The first thing I needed was a concept. I’ve always thought that the bathing suit look was fine in the comics, but I can’t really picture anyone wearing it to fight crime in the real world. I have always liked the skirt option for Wonder Woman, and there are many renditions of her in Gladiator-style Roman skirts. Since these actually functioned as clothing for real warriors in centuries past, that’s the option I went with. To do it right, I’d need real dyed leather and real molded steel. This was going to become a much larger project than I had ever planned for…

… but damn am I proud of the results…

Debuted at Comic-Con San Diego 2011

I will be posting specific breakdowns of the creation of the armor and sewing the leather pieces another night.